here's praise for the Pinoy Bayanihan Spirit

BAYANIHAN is probably one of the most ubiquitous concepts of the Filipino Values system. If you're not familiar with it, the closest equivalent to the English language is collective community spirit.

The image most associated with Bayanihan is of a bahay kubo [nipa hut] borne on the shoulders of men to be moved to its new location... the image of an entire village helping out one of their neighbors in this most arduous task is one of those things that are taught by Social Studies teachers when they discuss certain Filipino Values or Traits once you hit first grade. [If it's not a crude first grade textbook drawing, I think there was a painting of it with a mother and child peering out the hut's window as they are being moved -with much artistic license, I remember...]

As the aftermath of the last tropical storm that hit the archipelago still looms over us, my praises go to the Filipino people as we all come together and help each other out through this most difficult time. Relief operations, donations, pledges, volunteers, are all but testaments to the Bayanihan Spirit. We as a people are resilient.

Some find solace in the fact that they are not alone in this, some find themselves with a stronger resolve to get through, some -though their faith may have been tested- still hang on to it... Hope doesn't run out easily for us.

But on the other hand, there's a lesson to be learned here. I hate to sound a bit preachy here but as a society, we seem to be very good at reacting to crisis but not in the calculated preparedness or the planned avoidance of it. I have seen my share of urban planning experts claim they had the solution to this years ago on paper, or experts uttering consequences to climate change, or government officials in their capacity or lack thereof reasoning to a broken people about their failure to respond to their needs... a waste of words, as I see it.

So I won't waste more, and will do what I can, and pray...

photo courtesy of heinzkieh [just click on the link]

...thus spake The Barefoot Baklesa

Thoughts of You...

"Once upon a time, I wanted to know what love was. Love is there if you want it to be. You just have to see that it's wrapped in beauty and hidden away between the seconds of your life. If you don't stop for a minute, you just might miss it."

~quoted from the movie CASHBACK

I think in the current state of things, I'm beginning to think that I keep doubting things too much, that I seem to not live in the moment, that I have certain fears about where this takes me...

But don't get me wrong, I'm in a very happy place -I have not been in a place remotely near there in like five years- thus the jaded and cynical shell of Barefoot Baklesa isn't one to shake off so easily.

There's really no such thing as a normal state of anything when it comes to love or loving -we are all weaklings and the wisest of us would not know better. Maybe that's why Shakespeare went as far as saying that "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid's eyes painted blind." [A Midsumer Night's Dream]

Frailty, flaws, and futile-fruitless-fits of infatuation all seem funny to some but as we know, some people spend an enormous amount of energy just to be normal and be above these.

Here's me, trying to shake off this undesirable shell of fear and doubt.

Bawal na talaga ang aning-aning...Hahahaha!!!

[oh yeah, the video above is for emphasis...]


thus spake the Barefoot Baklesa