The tragedy continues...

Forgive the impertinence but I never believed when it was written that ‘To whom much is given, much is expected.’ Take for instance the case of work supervisors. In the past five years that I have been torturing myself in the office I have known only one supervisor who works herself to oblivion. She usually puts life and work in the same equation and is worthy of more than a lifesize molded gravel and sand in Luneta. Then came the nightmare. I was taken under the wing of a non-Filipino boss and as soon as I put that I-need-not-soften-my words-to-get-my-message-across smile it was immediately wiped off by the you’re-just-a-Filipino-staff smirk by my supervisor.

Of course it would be self-aggrandizing to claim that I worked myself to death (because i am still kicking!) in an effort to empty the well of work, so I won’t claim that heroic attempt to salvage the Filipino pride, or the hardworkers of world, for that matter. You can not salvage something which can not be killed.

Suffice to say, that even with so much effort to remain a wallflower, well, at least a useful wallflower, I can not seem to stop myself from getting into sticky situations. The tragedy is, even if we argue black and blue that the there is no such thing as a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, she would insist that the I haven’t looked that hard. Yup, digressing again. Anyway, the meaning being simply that the powerful, always defines, the powerless is defined (citation forgotten).

As a lowly employee everyone would think that I am mentally challenged, never mind that everyone knows the boss is utterly exasperating in spelling and doesn’t have an inkling of an idea when it comes to human relations. And we take this everyday in our own country – from institutions where human rights, equal opportunities are the rah-rah slogans. Everyday, I take crap from people who’d find even a way to blame adam and eve for the tiniest of mistakes, who thinks that a diploma sealed with the empty airs of some US University is worth more than a UP tracing paper bought cheaply at the shopping center. Forget that the word following has no plural form no matter how many numbers follow the colon. I am flabbergasted, disillusioned and has lost whatever faith I put in social justice and I no longer believe that the world is round. To whom much is given, much will be given more, so workers of the world unite… my apologies to unforgotten sources of these quotes.

Yup everything here is quotes. But who cares?

...serial tragicomedy

I am one of the slaves in an international organization meatgrinder in the country and somehow that statement seems cold, callous and unpatriotic way of describing our beloved Motherland. So on the risk of sounding overly parochial, I’d say, I work here in our Motherland, the Philippines (and still that statement has an overly dramatic ring to my ear). I wish I lived in the days when Henry Ford’s workers are able to buy what they manufacture with their salaries. Forget that you have similar drab colored cars and always seem to be in a funeral convoy. At least he knew what fueled consumption behaviour. The glory of capitalism.

Fortunately for capitalists and anti-capitalists, we live in an age where the dividing line is similar to sotanghon – thin and translucent - where everything is interpreted on a level of metaphors and everything revolves around the meaning of meanings but oh, Wendt would object and say that ideas, institutions and material capacities would always determine who eventually determines meanings, and in the end, power. Meaning then becomes a non-issue– it becomes a given. My apologies to the constructivists. We no longer discuss metaphors, we bleed ourselves dry to interpret meanings - meaningless and colorless statements become subject of endless debates. And we’re not even on the same dimension. Going back to the context of a workplace, and on the risk offending the sensibilities of avid readers, I’d quit writing disjointed stories and get down to the gist of an ephemeral assault... maybe later?

Tragedy of the (un)commons

Around 1960’s Garett Hardin specifically used the same phrase to describe the problem of free-rider in public goods. He has nothing to do with the rest of this article. The title just seemed to have attracted my current mental state. So econ majors, I am not going into the lengthy details of the herd story and try to go around in circles with the hope of convincing you through my lame arguments. If you put economists in one room, they may not be even agree on a single thing , so I won’t even try.

I would’ve want this column to be named high blood because I am precisely at that state but I have not reached that age when it is fashionable for me to mull over the atrocities of daily existence with such relaxed musings, resigned expression, tamed activism topped with we-can’t-help-it shrugs and deep exhales. I am at an age where signing up for friendster is still reasonably tolerable (even with studio-shot photos complete with silly hats) but at that point where forwarded if-you-don’t-email-this-you-die chain letters would go directly to email trash bins without having been slightly pillaged. In short, I just turned 26. Never mind the connection.

Braindead-er by the day

I thought it might do my grumpy little self a lot of good to go out and do something different, for once, and I decided, spur of the moment, that it’ll be this summer or never. After this soul searching, I hope and pray that I’d have enough realization to stick to “things I’m supposed to do as a 23-year old”.

Since my braincells are taking a break, when asked for the reason in enrolling in “recreational” classes, I can not even compose a profound and noble answer like those of my classmates to satisfy my maestro’s need for self-gratification – you know how much teachers wanted to hear that reason for enrolling is because “we love so and so very much”. Instead, I ended up giving a not so intelligent reply of, “ I wish I know why”.

Even if I refuse to do much thinking, I ended up complaining the gullibility of characters in every sequel in the nighttime soaps I’m sure my sister’s just dying to throw me the vase or smash me in the head. I can’t sit in front of the tv and say nothing. Every night, I keep on promising myself not to say anything uncomplimentary but my mouth seems to have a mind of its own! And since I enrolled myself in a language class I used to take in the undergrad, my reaction every class bordered from sheer boredom to contempt for the professor who assumed we knew nothing. And so starts the supposedly enjoyable summer.

Summer of What Youth

So my summer swings from my classes to frequent drop-bys in my former work hole. Whenever I ask some of my friends for their work, they tell me everything’s fine, and start complaining all sorts of office blahs. Terribly so, I miss all the complaints. After how many nights regretting and not regretting that I quit work, I am suddenly uncertain where to go. I mean, while doing absolutely nothing has appealed me for a while, I realized doing nothing at all tremendously improves shopping mall’s gains at the expense of deflated brain cells and reducing one to a mere spiritual pauper. Spiritual pauper. And I’m supposed to be soul-searching. I worked three d!mn years for my personality to be stable, I mean I can look a person in the eye and say that I am contributing more to fullness of humanity than individuals my age, at half the price. You know, many institutions still believe that age must be relatively proportional to salary.

Once I tried inquiring about a dance lesson and about to pay the fee. A mother sitting next to me is patiently waiting for her turn to pay for her daughter’s tuition, I glimpsed the line next to age. It was seven. I was supposed to be having a dance lesson with a seven-year old kid! A good ego booster, indeed! I said bye-bye to a cool cool hip hoppy groovy summer. But I refused to be bullied into such “immature outlook”, so I started looking for other studios and (un) luckily, I found one. I also enrolled in a European language class to occupy time and so for the few weeks following came the unparalleled boredom of my life.

A couple of weeks after my good senses took their leave, I was constantly haunted by how much the no-particular-reason reply is keeping me awake at night and asking me where all these is leading to. Getting a life or being sick and tired of the real life? Amazing how real is used to convey a totally different meaning, hmn? If I had more sense, I shouldn’t have let my braincells take their leave and let life’s joke push me towards the dance studio and a language class. Now that they’re back, bored yet happy and refreshed, I think I can start some damage control on the way I play this GAME called LIFE. Now that my senses are back, I get to stand back a little and think over why I suddenly bolted out of the office door and came running into not-so-interesting classes. Rationalizing seems to be the best cure for my insanity.