EXISTENTIAL CRAP

Bagong taon na naman at hindi ko maiwasang isipin na kung may end of the world- regardless kung kailan man ito- ay tiyak, isang taon na naman ang naibawas sa countdown.

Ayon daw sa Mayan calendar ang mundo ay magwawakas sa year 2012 dahil may astronomical event na mangyayari sa taon na ito na kung saan dadaan ang mundo sa Photon belt -exactly on December 21, 2012…
Very significant date: God willing, ang aking panganay will turn 14 on this day.
Indeed, mga impormasyong ganito, whether true or crap, ay mas mainam nang hindi na malaman.

Anxiety is what I’m worried about!

Mabuti na lamang at na-reassure ako ng aking blog name ‘Existential Crap’ , na  nagpapahiwatig ng pag-asa, that everything is alright.

(I wonder if trendsetting traditonally starts at the beginning of the year…
if so, then, this is going to be a long crappy-blogging year for me.)

Arctic ice melting fast!

Nobody seems to care anymore

If I remember it right, when I was a kid, the news of the Skylab crashing from the heavens was more ‘doomsday’ than the global warming of today

Maybe the whole world have become doomesday-fatigued

Blockbuster but crappy movies such as Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow, War of the Worlds, of course,Titanic; with realistic special effects, they make the book of Revelation look like it came out of Funny Komiks.

"I told you so"

I told my wife when I let her read a column of Michael Tan and emphasized on the part about a study that a poor American family improving economically to middle class will take about 200 years!

And they’re even Americans! ( I hate to be redundant)

I was right when I told her not long ago how inconcievable - basically, from my own experience - it is to acquire wealth, much less to become a billionaire in a lifetime.

So fast was how these self-made billionaires amassed their wealth that they still have at least 3/4 of their lives to enjoy their riches.

While all I see around me are bootom-feeders and crumbs that begin to look like gold dusts, wealth’s elusiveness only confirm the idea that it is just a mirage, especially when rich men are distant and fictitious like Jose Pidal and Jose Velarde.

That is how I was led to believe that there is no such person as Bill Gates, only balikbayans.

I came to my senses as I closed my mouth (to prevent more drooling) and finally decided that that was it for me and Forbes.com

And so it has come to this:

Resignation and hopelessness for opting to stay

And leaving as the only hope

A colleague and friend left for the Caribbean the other day

Just two weeks before that another friend went to Dubai

Me sour graping?

My daughter onced blurted out that her economically-challenged cousin’s family in the province lives in a ‘Pambansang Bahay’

That was hilarious

Was she aware that she was equating poverty with a national pride?

Am I pushing my daughter into losing fast her sense of nationalism at a tender young age by LMAO to her innocent observation?

…Putik

It is when I don’t expect much that I get favorable results.

Maybe it is just like turning on the ‘easy-to-please’ switch and the whole system downgrades

Pareng Dave gave me an ordinary retic that loves to bite

Normally, I would not have taken it

But I thought that it would be a pleasant change to have an ill-tempered snake for a pet since I’ve been used to docile ones.

It’s a welcome challenge, besides it’s free and I haven’t had a retic for quite sometime

Somewhere along that line I lowered my expectations

Needless to say, it paid

I love every bit –and I mean literally, and all the missed and attempted bites- of the little rascal

Now, that is a display of being a true Pinoy and I’m proud of it

My take on a given situation easily explains what the rest of the world considers a mystery, which is, that amid deep crisis Pinoys still rank relatively high on the list of happiest people in the world.

Expecting very little and receiving slightly better is…priceless

Mababaw ang kaligayahan

That explains why developed nations, like the

US

, have a very busy judiciary

People expect much from each other, thus, easily provoked into taking legal action at the slightest shortcoming.

Pinoys wouldn’t think twice showing their wide grins in front of news cameras because if not for the erupting volcano their ‘15 minutes’ of fame wouldn’t have been possible

…MALUPIT !

Google Earth is arguably the best the internet has contributed in my world of daily trivialities.

It is way ahead of the pack consisting of break.com, subservient chicken and others like it…

The best Halo-halo is served in an old ice cream parlor in

San Fernando

City

…

My sister in-law, Manang Deb, cooks the best Dinakdakan and Pinakbet.

If not for these dishes she prepared I could not have possibly learned that they don’t make alka-seltzers anymore.

In a secular point of view,

Hollywood

’s best answer, so far, to the very important query on man’s purpose is the story of the Matrix trilogy.

According to the movie humans are ‘milked’ of valuable energy in some kind of an enormous human farm facility

To ensure continued maximum output from every human, encased in a test tube-like vessel, a simulation of the ‘real’ world is programmed in them.

(No wonder suicide is a taboo – it means less energy resource – and procreation is highly encouraged)

Among other things, it also answers the question of who benefits from man’s existence.

If a dung beetle benefits from a buffalo’s waste matter and a falcon survives at the expense of the beetle and so on, up to the top of the food chain (if there is such a pinnacle and if there is I do not think man is occupying it because any idea that puts man at the apex is just putting the planet earth back to the center of the solar system again).

There is a phrase: balance of nature.

Without doubt, the massive scale of abuse on the environment by human beings in exchange for a handful of fresh human s**t eaten by a stray dog or maggots devouring corpses is far from being considered a fair trade.

Having access to everything while giving very little in return seems to be a privilege enjoyed by those on the top.

Does it really end with man?

Or is something higher than man making it appear like it is to keep humankind going and multiplying, thus, guaranteeing – like wind or water is to man – a renewable source of energy?

I shouldn’t have downloaded the Royce Gracie vs Matt Hughes UFC fight.

I also could have wished that the celebrated heart-stopping and championship-winning jump shot by Michael Jordan against the Utah Jazz was the last play he made in the NBA.

Both Jordan and Gracie should not have made a comeback to their respected sport, if only to preserve their legendary status.

As I watched Royce Gracie being pummeled by the youthful and talented Matt Hughes my established notion (from watching kung-fu movies since childhood) of martial artists getting better with age and, sometimes, drunkenness, was shattered.

Obviously, Kung-fu movies are showing fight scenes that are against the laws of physics, specifically, gravity.

People tolerate it for the enjoyment value it gives.

But what escaped my good judgment is the concept of elderly, yet quick and strong, kung-fu masters being unbeatable in combat that I even embraced the idea as fact.

What the Gracie-Hughes video proved is that only wisdom advances with age

…that is, if one chooses to.

I don’t understand anymore the purpose of pre-school.

I believe that pre-school was conceived for the purpose of babysitting. That’s why the term daycare- to care for working parents’ children during daytime.

Now, instead of helping out the parents it has become a burden financially and is eating up valuable resources and time.

Now, as has become a necessity, parents must have a yaya or a paid helper to bring the children to school.

I don’t also understand anymore the purpose of a college degree.

What’s the use of a degree or a professional license if the degree holder makes a living totally different from his or her acquired skill?

Sometimes even landing a job that requires no skill at all.

There are so many who work abroad who didn’t use their own name nonetheless their employers are satisfied with their work.

Some falsify documents just to be hired and their employers wouldn’t know the difference and are even pleased with their skill and performance.

If the recent leakage in the nursing board exam was not exposed I bet employers wouldn’t know the difference.

It only helps explain some people’s mentality that they are really good at what they do but, nevertheless, cheat just to make sure.

It, like life, is too complex to explain.

Not like my blogs in which I can explain everything that happens in life in unbelievably simple manner – including this one.

Back to the topic, I believe that Pinoys have evolved to, and created a niche in the world market as, producers of quality laborers or a better term, manpower.

The new program of PGMA “Supermaids” supports my view with a push.

Thinking along that line, why doesn’t the government take it a notch higher - way higher economically.

Overhaul the education system by concentrating on the special skills of a region, just like the

One

Town

, One Product (OTOP) program?

This one, though, One Region, One Skill (OROS)

For example, if the Kapampangans produced Bata and Django, then, billiards should be the skill

Central Luzon

must concentrate on. Visayas and

Mindanao

specializes in producing world-class Pinoy boxers… so on and so forth.

No harm in trying.

(Sepermaid idea nga nakalusot)

It was found that only a small percentage of suicide bombers of the Hezbollah are Islamic fundamentalists

Some were even Christians.

It’s not about religion

It’s about protecting one’s own land from foreign occupation.

If that is the case, then, Filipinos could never produce such martyrs

Not at this point in time when the number of Pinoys who wants to leave their native land is at its highest.

Oddly, this is how, and the only way, Pinoys fight for their lot

But not exactly in patriotic sense

But in basic sense

Pinoys are fighting for the right to live decently

They can take my land anytime.

I’d rather work wiping off turd from the ass of an old fart in a foreign land

so long as I live well.

Anyway, Pinoys seem to be more patriotic outside their homeland

If I say I believe that the Philippines is inhabited by beautiful women, produces the best mangoes, has the best dive spots and is proud of Manny Pacquiao, does it mean that I have a strong sense of nationalism?

But even an average Japanese or Australian would agree with me

Does that make them nationalistic Pinoys too?

Obviously, my love for this country is as deep as that of a regular drunk tourist in a Boracay nightspot.