Brainless Monkeys – This is how I see most of the people I encounter everyday. Again, I am saying, just MOST, not ALL. Their majority easily makes up my community. My hometown community. My office area community. The communities I frequent and pass-by. Heck! Even my Fiancee's. May God Help us all.
I was an 80's baby. Life was different then. It's much worse now. I grew up seeing all kinds of garbage on the streets, hearing and seeing crimes through different media- from petty to grave to political. I've seen how good we are at procrastinating, and how pathetic some of our best efforts are. This is the stereotypical Filipino life. Living like animals and mediocrity. Sad to say, I thought this was okay. It felt so normal. Maybe because almost everybody else is doing it. That even after everything I've learned from home and school on how to live as part of the community, I didn't care that society is self-destructing as long as I save myself.
And it was like this for 27 years.
Then an opportunity came to me. I was sent to another country to work for two years. I was lucky, I guess. The first time I set foot off the plane and laid eyes on my new homeland, it was like a bang to my head. “We are so f*cked up” Sure I've seen better places on tv, paper and cyberspace before. But I didn't realize a country so ideal in almost every single way, really exists. And this is the first and only foreign country I've been to(yet, hopefully). There's a pretty big chance that there are other places way better than this. That made me feel even worse about my true homeland. As f*cked up as it is, it is still my home. It is my loved ones' home. The people and places I care about are there. This is the reason why I started to take notice of the countless brainless monkeys that actually put our country into deeper sh*t year after year. I threw-up in my mouth. I've sworn to myself that when I get back, each and everyday, I would watch out for them. Even if it stresses me out and even if it ignites me. So as to be able to live nothing like them. In the hope that maybe other people would take notice and follow suit. After all, you cannot teach animals new tricks by telling them, but by showing them. It is even easier by rewarding them for every correct move, or by fear or pain for every bad one, but I hope we won't come to that point.
And so there it is. I've been observing everyone ever since I came back to manila. It was hopeless to count so I just recorded every idiotic move they make in my brain. I am not perfect. I maybe a monkey too for all I know but I'm sure is not a brainless one.
Its about time to stop making excuses and start changing from within. Before looking for dirt outside, we should clean-house first. If we want the world to stop looking down on us, we should stop the whine and prove that we are not inferior. If Pacman can achieve god-like status in boxing, then we have no excuse to live like a healthy society should. He is a Filipino and he has done the unthinkable in and outside the ring. How can you compare the effort needed to just live a responsible life to that?
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It feels good to find someone else like me. It makes me feel hope is not yet lost. We thought we were alone then. Now we are two. Our original plan worked. Soon we will outnumber them too.
-Caloy
