Digital Noise

If twitter were a person, it would be a confused, gender-obsessed, bipolar teenager who is either screeching about the latest outrage du jour or slobbering over the newest K-POP song. I saw The Social Dilemma, a documentary about the evils of social media. You don't need a show to confirm what sane people already know; that social media is the devil. I know that's rich coming from a blog.

There is truth though, that social media is ruining us. Spend some time on the internet and it seems like the world is burning. It's easy to feel angry or afraid. There's plenty of bad news to go around. Just take your pick, you'll find plenty of online articles predicting your apocalypse of choice. But that's no way to live, no? 

If I may be so bold as to offer advice, I say that when the world seems so vast and scary, just shrink it and it will seem less so. When you hear something bad, really stop to think about whether or not it affects you. Why get worked up about wildfires in California when you live in some island in the Philippines? Some guy said a bad thing on the internet? You don't know him and was he even talking about you? Is there some cause you champion or at least, pretend to? Check yourself and think about whether some righteously indignant tweet is really gonna change the world. Even if there is something happening that seems important, are you even in a position to change it? Why give up your soul energy, piss yourself off and put yourself in a bad mood for all that?

We're being played. Man was not meant to live like this. Man was not meant to give a shit about so many things. Throughout most of human history, human beings have only cared about the little podunk village they were born in and no further than that. Scientifically speaking, a man can only give so much of a shit, three rat's asses worth at most. Our ability to give a damn is not infinite, otherwise it would be a mental illness. There is value in not caring, even if it makes you seem mean to other people talking about the latest bowel movements on the trending page. Life is full of irrelevant things aggressively trying to grab your attention with all their digital noise.

It's OK to not care. 

Shrink the world and you'll discover the things you really should care about and the things you can actually do. Why whine about some injustice happening a million miles away when you just had a fight with your loved one and should fix that instead? You know what I mean? All these outrages are just distractions keeping you from seeing the things that really matter.

I know this will sound cruel but I don't care that Chadwick Boseman died. I'm sure he was a fine person and it's a bad thing that he died. Trust me, I know watching someone die of cancer is one of the worst things in the world, but I didn't know him personally. I didn't watch Black Panther and I'm unfamiliar with his body of work. Sure, I might watch one of his movies if I felt like it since everyone says he was a good actor but I don't expect me to tweet "Rest in peace, king..." or go on dishonestly about how he touched my life by putting on a cat-themed costume in a dumb billion dollar comic book movie.

Fucking whatever.

Extreme Rules Deluxe Community Quarantine-pounder with Cheese

Last Tuesday, Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) standards were reinstated in Cebu City given the non-stop increase of Wuhan virus cases. The government was nice enough to announce this during midnight just on the day it was to take effect for maximum disruption. Sometimes it seems the government is having way too much fun with the extraordinary powers it now has over our lives.

Non-Filipino readers may wonder what "ECQ" is. During the outbreak of the virus, the government came up with several grades of quarantine standards. The strictest is Extensive/Extreme Community Quarantine or EECQ. ECQ is a step below that but don't confuse it with Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ), which is not as strict as ECQ but is still stricter than Modified General Community Quarantine (MGCQ). General Community Quarantine (GCQ) is considered the least strict of all. Of course, this all shouldn't be confused with a "lockdown" which is a different thing altogether. You got all that?

What's the real difference between all these forms of quarantine? Hell if I know the specifics. Go look up an infographic on google or something. Best start learning how to use the internet. All these different quarantines makes Bush-era America's color coded "terror level" look genius. Why couldn't we have added some colors to the mix? That would have been nice.

Why is the outbreak so bad here? Everyone has their own theory - people being "stubborn" is the favorite. It's only human to play the blame game. But I do wonder why Cebu is getting the harsh treatment while Manila, a city much more dense in population, gets bumped down to GCQ. 

Whatever the reason, it's just more shit to deal with.

Saturation

They say the mind of a child is like a sponge in that it soaks everything up. It's all nice until you're older and the sponge is just a heavy, over-saturated mess. 

When I was younger, it always frustrated me that my elders didn't seem to keen on discussing "complicated" ideas. Now I understand why. When you're just a kid or a teen, there's really not a lot on your plate so you can consume all the new ideas you want. You've got the time and the energy. As you get older however, both these resources diminish along with your patience.

It's not that old people are incapable of learning, it's that they become choosy of what to learn. Time and energy are at a premium so at a certain point, it becomes a time/energy calculation on whether or not to entertain a new idea. What's the in thing nowadays? How about the concept of say, transgenderism for example. To learn all about this new thing, along with its rules and lingo, is taxing on a geezer who only just learned how Twitter works. "Is it really worth my time to ruminate on this?", one might say. Then you have to compare the value of new experimental knowledge versus old tried and true knowledge. Why would you want to learn all about these new, confusing genders when you and your generation got along fine with just two, and maybe the occasional gay here and there? 

Sometimes new knowledge comes with too many negatives. It's not worth learning about international politics, for example, when all it does is make you frustrated upon learning how helpless your country really is. Current events? Too depressing! Just give me the bullet points on who ate bullets this week. Besides, don't we have allegedly competent people in government whose job it is to keep track of these things? 

As another example of things being more trouble than they're worth, social media. If all social media did was feed your envy and anxiety over the lives other people are living, why get into it? As you get older, you ain't got time for that shit. It's not like in high school where you have all day to gossip and make others miserable.

I think I'm slowly but surely reaching the saturation point. Technology is making everything move in such a breakneck pace. Every week brings a new shiny thing we're compelled to ogle at or some new outrage to get worked up on. Everyone is pushing something, whether it be a product, a cause, or their own brand. Nuts to that.

I'll take my own goddamn time.

A Hole in the Wall

One of the bad things about my new home is that my room is directly beside the street. The noise outside is annoying. Sometimes it's unbearable, especially when the restaurants below decide to bring on the entertainment.

I hate it. It's the same damn songs sung by the same damn people. I can recognize the singers already. If I hear Buwan one more time...

What makes the problem worse is that all the noise comes in through the fixture where the air-conditioning unit is placed. My room practically has a gaping hole in the wall where all the noise comes in. The AC unit does nothing to block the noise. Sometimes, I can ever hear people having conversations on the small path on the floor below or even down the street. Every car passing and every motor revving is a drill in my brain. Maybe that's why I'm so cranky.

There has to be a solution.

Trying

There are never enough hours in a day.

The Ingrown

A pain on my right big toe had been nagging at me for months. Like many bad things in life, pretending it doesn't exist won't make it go away. Eventually the side of my toe had deformed to such an extent that I developed a blister since my flesh was rubbing against my shoe. There was a shooting pain from the tip of my toe to the base.

I decided to see a doctor. Based on the pictures I sent him beforehand, he told me that it looked like a severe case of an ingrown toenail and that surgery would be best. I wished it was a wart instead or something minor. I suggested he examine in it person first before recommending action. He scheduled an examination inside the minor operating room of the hospital. I guess he was that sure of the diagnosis.

On the day of the appointment, he barely had to look at it for five seconds before concluding that it was an ingrown toenail. I had two choices: surgery or antibiotics. I asked the doctor what good antibiotics would do since it won't exactly solve the problem. He shrugged. I love non-options. The illusion of choice can be very comforting. Surgery it was.

I had to put a gown over my clothes and a shower-cap. Since the nurses manning the operating room had nothing better to do, they began to crowd around. I told the doctor to keep the helping hands to a minimum. I'm no lab rat.

I lay down on the hospital bed and had them put the tray in such a manner as to block my view of my foot. I don't think I can stand seeing my flesh opened even if there was anesthetic. Speaking of which, the application of anesthesia was the only painful part. They brought out a cartoonishly large syringe with a long needle to match. He stuck it in a place I won't mention. It stung like hell. After a while, I couldn't feel a thing, at least, until he began to work. I felt him poking and prodding so I said, "Doc, it's not enough!" So he decided to stick the needle in and inject a little more anesthetic. For God's sake.

It went by quickly, I was unusually chatty. I tend to get chatty when I'm under the knife. I remember being operated on years before. I was a blabbermouth in the operating room. I bet they were relieved when the knock-out gas kicked in.

You have to cut all the way to the nail bed in surgery for an ingrown toenail. After he tugged on some things, he showed me the bit that was digging into my flesh. It looked like a shard of glass. 

So he wrapped it up, I paid the fees and bought the medicines and that was it. The toe needed to be wrapped up when I take a bath so the doctor recommended that I buy condoms to wrap my toe in. I felt the need to inform the pharmacist that I needed the condom for my feet. I'm not sure what she made of that.

I'm just going to let my toenails grow out from now on.

The Power of Negative Thinking

Recently, our house and lot was sold and I and my mother had to move to a new place of our own. Naturally, the process has been difficult. It's so tedious to take stock of all the useless crap one has accumulated over the years and figuring out where to put them. 

Of course, there's the emotional difficulties to consider. When one lives at a place for all his life, he develops emotional attachments to said place, fond memories and all that. I took several pictures of our old house for posterity and my mother refused to see them because it was too "heartbreaking." I guess it's harder for someone who spent a longer time there. As for me, I'm well into getting over it and I attribute my easy adjustment to the power of negative thinking.

I'm told, constantly, by my mother, family and society to "think positive". I try, I really do. I try really hard but thinking negative just comes natural to me. I know it's very detrimental to be a negative Nancy but it does have its uses. For example, instead of focusing on happy thoughts about our old house such as the open space, the shade of the trees, the picnics I had as a child on our front lawn, etc., I focused on the negative aspects. I thought of how dirty and dusty it was. I thought of how unbearably hot it got during the summer months. I focus on the rusty roofs, the termite infestation and the general dilapidation of the structure. I thought of how far it was to everything. I thought of all the bad things so much that moving to a our new smaller place seemed more and more appealing. Eventually, I couldn't wait to leave the old dump! 

Being negative can be made into a positive. Hatred, disgust and loathing are perfectly normal human emotions. All can be useful if channeled to correct thought and action.

Hey, people cope in different ways.

Happy New Year?

"Happy new year!", huh? Talk about putting the cart before the horse. Happy? I guess we'll just see about that.

Who knows what'll happen, really. Some freak earthquake could kill us all in any moment. Maybe we could contract a terminal illness. A stray bullet could do you in. Who knows? Might as well go on pretending like it's going to be peaches and cream.

Maybe it isn't what we know but what we'll do about it.

Transit

The most annoying thing about the holidays is the endless stream of news reports about how a lot of people are going home to their families. You have riveting news reports about people getting on boats.

So?

If you live in the Philippines, you know what I mean. I get why media devotes time talking about travel. The Philippines is an archipelago so people naturally travel a lot. But it seems to me like a whole load of nothing. People are getting on a bus. Wow.

Geez.

Troubles Elsewhere

What a week it's been.

Off in the South, you have some group I bet nobody has ever heard off until recently, take over Marawi City. Government forces are taking it back street by street but it's been a rough going to put it mildly. The most recent incident is some eleven army soldiers being killed in a friendly fire bombing. Why is it called "friendly" fire when it hardly is? 

In the North, some guy shot up a casino. Who knows? People were panicking that it was a terrorist attack. Now it seems it wasn't. Regardless, a lot of people died.

The Philippines being an archipelago has its advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is that problems are localized to some degree. Terrorist activity is more common in Mindanao than elsewhere. One disadvantage however, is that it can be hard to care about something when it seems so far away. It's cruel to say but one has to be mindful of one of the fundamental flaws of Filipino culture. Relationships are a series of rings extending outward from the Filipino. He cares for those closest to him first but grows more and more indifferent the further the ring gets. "So there's a hubbub in Mindanao. Typical. Big deal." When news of the gunman in Manila broke, people were more interested in the latest NBA game. It's hard to feel.

But I have a hunch we'll all be feeling something soon enough.

Miasma

One of the worst things about work is the smell.

On some days, the police bring in a large group of detainees. Sometimes, they bring in a major haul from a drug bust or other operation. No matter the reason, the halls become crowded and packed with people.

To call them "people" is just good manners. But these are the true "masang Pilipino". The poor, the forgotten, the wretched, the desperate and the guilty all find their way in those godforsaken halls and when they do, oh boy. As you can imagine, these dregs of society aren't a hygienic bunch.

The smell is hard to describe. It first hits you like a slap in the face and you feel like you're actually walking into some kind of physical wall. The smell is a potent mixture of stale sweat, unwashed clothes, excrement and despair left to stew in a barrel of vinegar. It's the smell of raw humanity; the illness of our society in a new form. If you can't see what's wrong with the Philippines, then you'll certainly smell it.

The smell is so strong that if you spend a minute in midst of the teeming mass, it actually starts to stick on your clothes, on your hair... on your face. You could breath through your mouth but your body might actually retch in fear of contamination by some sort of airborne acid. It's a smell that brings to mind thoughts of plague, death, decay and ruin. That wouldn't be wrong. If the people are detainees from the local overcrowded prison, there is a legitimate concern of contracting some kind of illness. Inmates are sickly as a natural consequence of prison congestion, not that anyone cares. They might as well be lepers.

Did I mention the office building has practically no ventilation and on top of that, its also extremely dusty? Just take a deep breath of the still tolerable air before you leave the office and then rush through the halls as fast as possible. You can run if you want to, people will understand.

Hazard pay.

Doggy Dog World Part 2

What brought on the previous article rambling on about the morality of caring for dogs more than fellow human beings, is because of a recent incident concerning the killing and eating of a dog.

Last year's Metro Manila Film Fest included a movie called "Oro". First things first, I didn't watch any of the offerings of the MMFF. I usually don't because they're usually garbage pushed by the big studios to promote their "products", both human and material. I heard the recent line-up was much better since it featured "indie" stuff. Whatever.

Oro had a scene which involved the slaughter and eating of a dog. Apparently, the scene was so graphic, that the Chairperson of the Film Development Council of the Philippines asked a representative of the film production team about it. She was told that it was  just a goat and some prosthetics. As it turns out, that was a lie and they really did kill and eat a dog.

Personally, I find lies much more offensive than the death of an animal. Nevertheless, this didn't sit well with animal rights groups. Social media, or the "outrage machine" as I like to call it, raised a big stink, as expected. The whole thing devolved to a he-said, she-said. Some say a pig was used. There was talk that two dogs were killed. I don't have the patience to dig into any more to this story because this story isn't the ultimate point. Besides, you probably already know how the story goes.

The point is this: there was outrage over the killing of a dog. In response to this outrage was outrage that the outraged people were more outraged over the killing of a dog than the outrageous killing of four people, which was a true story (The "Gata 4" Massacre) that the movie was based on. Taking the outrage a step further, and making it more topical, people expressed outrage that people are more outraged over the death of a dog than the thousands allegedly killed in President Duterte's  outrageous campaign against drugs, which is outrageous.

I hate social media.

If I may go off on a tangent, social media, I've observed, is just full of people signalling their virtue and trying to one-up one another in appearing more virtuous. The first group of the condescenderati wanted to appear all good and noble in protesting the dog slaughter as animal rights is still kind of chic. They were outdone when a second group protested the misplaced priorities of Philippine society in holding the lives of dogs higher than the supposed hundreds of people being killed every day. Taking it a step even further, and advertising their leftist street cred, some even argued that dog-eating is done because the poor do what they must to survive and its just those privileged bourgeois who whine about it and forbid the oh-so-noble Filipino "tradition" of eating canines. They never mentioned that in the Social Studies books.

I am aware of, and have no problem with, the dog-eating that happens in many parts of the country. However, I wasn't aware that people would go so far as to elevate it to some kind of proud cultural rite. Sometimes people are just hungry, you know?

So back to square one. Was all the outrage about the butchered dog, when our own countrymen are butchered, misplaced? Well the whole thing stands on a flimsy premise: that the people outraged over the dog are the same people who cheer on President Duterte's alleged killing of suspected criminals. It's possible to be outraged by both. They're not mutually exclusive. It's just cheap rhetoric. The outrage over the dog just seems amplified and high-profile while the outrage over the ever-rising pile of human corpses seems muted.

Perhaps the real kicker in all of this is that something was done about the dog but nothing is being done about the killings in the streets. With regards to the movie, people were reprimanded, people were suspended and awards were revoked. As for the humans...? That's the thing that really stings, eh?

Maybe we are really going to the dogs.

Doggy Dog World Part 1

A week ago, a stray dog wandered into the parking lot outside the office building. Normally, there's nothing unusual about a stray except that this was no ordinary mongrel. It looked like it had a breed; a Rottweiler by the look of it. It was a very big dog and would have been even bigger and more intimidating if it wasn't visibly starving. It was weakly limping about with its legs shaking. It's ribs and hip-bones were sticking out and its guts looked stuck to its spine.

Many regulars, myself included, felt pity for the creature and donations of food soon went its way. One of the security guards looked after the dog and even expressed his openness to the idea of adopting it. It was clear that with food and care, it would be a good dog to have. It looked like it would have had a good physical appearance, if fattened up, and it had good temperament as well. It was very, very friendly in a way you wouldn't expect from a normally mean-looking breed. Still, maybe it was just friendly out of desperation. It isn't wise to quickly trust a strange dog. The prudent thing would be to test it and see if it growls around certain types of people, if it zealously guards its food or if sudden noises and running set it off but I digress.

The reason for sharing this is that it brings to mind a common criticism often leveled at dog owners or people who are kind to dogs in general. "Why can't you extend the same kindness to fellow human beings?" There are street dogs and there are street people. Is it wrong to be more caring to stray dogs than people?

It's easier to feel sorry for an animal than a fellow human being. Not all animals, mind you but those animals which are cute and are often made into pets. Dogs are probably the go-to for this. There's a certain "innocence" attached to dogs. There's this idea that dogs are just these good, noble and loyal creatures who would wait forever for you outside a Japanese train station. They are, after all, man's best friend. Hence, it's always a bad thing when a dog dies in a movie. There's nothing quite so deliciously villainous as the designated bad guy signalling his evilness by kicking a little dog.

 But yes, this particular guilt-trip is familiar. The life of a human being is more important than that of a animal. Yes, but is it more important than a dog? I say yes but only because that's something I agree to as a member of civilization. There are many people in society that are living arguments to the contrary. There are people who are no better than dogs. The President seems to believe so. There are people who literally act like dogs. Even this whole damn country is going to the dogs.

We owe human beings more than dogs because the lives of people are more important. I'm disturbed that I can't seem to articulate why this is so. The fact that I secretly question this is probably a reflection of my dwindling compassion, inner corruption and ever-warping sense of morality. I have to remind myself that if, hypothetically, me and a dog were both drowning and a person chose to save the dog over me, I'd be a little bummed.

How about a third option. Can't one be nice to both dogs and humans? Why should anyone care, really? The universe doesn't seem to care. God doesn't seem to care. The sun shines alike on both the flowers and the weeds, the good and the wicked. If good is being done, does it matter to who or what it's being done to or will the argument shift on how being good to an animal is not a sign of good morals? If actions towards animals are free of any moral color, does that mean it wouldn't be wrong to torture a dog?

This is getting out of hand.

How did feeding a stray dog turn into a debate on morality. Overthinking things is hell. The world is a frightening place, cold and gray. Sometimes all you can do is just do what you believe is right. Back then, giving the dog some food seemed like the right thing to do. So sue me,

A few days later, the stray dog disappeared. The security guard told me that it had simply wandered on, maybe to the next lot. It was a stray after all. It's either on it's next great adventure or stewing in some idiot's pot. Typical. Did our supposed acts of kindness even amount to anything? Does anything ever amount to anything?

Speaking of dog meat...

Work Hazard

What a way to start the new year; a lingering four-day illness.

I used to only get sick once or twice a year but ever since I began working in this dingy office building, it's once or twice a month now. The place is dirty and dusty. Prisoners and assorted poor people (yeah, I said it) come in and out and they're not the cleanest people on the planet. We work in cramped interiors where we spend the all day breathing on each other. There's no ventilation whatsoever and the windows don't even open. The storage room on the fourth fourth floor is full of cat shit and urine.

I should be getting hazard pay or something.

Start With a Bang?

The new year has barely begun and already half my new year resolutions are broken.

"Happy" new year, eh? I guess we'll just have to see about that, won't we?

What is it about the media's obsession with firecracker-related injuries? Statistically, they're insignificant. Yes, they happen. It's impossible to have zero firecracker injuries nationwide. But what's the point? Who cares?

Then there's the stray bullets. Tragic, true but then again, it just happens. People are stupid and fire guns indiscriminately sometime. Big whoop. A more interesting statistic would be injuries from discriminate firing. How many got hit by guns fired at them on purpose or are people in no mood for that during the holidays.

It's just one of the media potboilers. It's just another one of those standard things we're supposed to talk about. Unless the number of injuries even reaches close to the amount of people allegedly killed in the "drug war", I doubt there's any sense to a moral panic.

Yeah, just rambling to show I haven't died yet. 

Slow day....

Down

Been feeling down lately. Maybe it's the weather. Dark skies, strong rains...

Yeah, it's totally the weather and not my own self-inflicted misery.

Leadfoot

You know what irritates me to no end?

Leadfoot taxi drivers. I run into them at least 80% of the time.

What are they, you might ask? There are many taxi drivers out there who drive their cars without any sort of finesse whatsoever. What they do is slam into the pedals instead of slowly pressing or slowly releasing them. Leadfoot drivers stomp on the gas then stomp on the brakes then stomp on the gas again.

Stop-go-stop-go-stop. The worst part is when they have to slowly come to a halt. Instead of slowly stepping on the brake, they just step on it multiple times. Stop-stop-stop-stop. I thought my head would separate from my spine.

I need a massage or something.

Amiss Universe

So how about that botch?

It was quite a sight to see. It's not everyday you get to see someone's soul crushed on live television. Awkward as hell.

In the end, there were no winners coming out of that, ha!

Fresh Meat

There sure are a lot of bad things out there in the world that can kill us. Global warming, terrorism, bird flu, viruses etc. Now the alarmist media tell us that processed meat can give us cancer.

Everyone kinda knew processed meats were, in some way, bad for them but were too busy eating sweet crispy bacon to care. A recent issue of Time magazine cited a study finding that processed meat, red meat and fried or grilled meat were bad. Geez, give me a break.

You know what this means? By comparison, Lechon is pretty healthy huh? Granted, it's red meat but hey, no nitrates! So drop those Christmas hams people and just eat them roasted pigs. It's the healthy option!

The best things in life are fattening.

11/30/15 Home

Finally.

The exam last Sunday was the worst ever but I don't care at this point. It's in God's hands now. I'm just happy to be home, to eat home-cooked food and to sleep on my bed.

It's been a learning experience. There were ups and downs but no matter what happens, I'm kinda glad to have done what I did.

I think I'll sleep well tonight.