The Construct

People just love to give unsolicited advice. They’re annoying as they are but one thing that I really don’t like with people who do so is how many of them lead with “Tingnan mo ako…” (better translated as “Compare yourself to my case…”). These people just don’t factor in what can be a fundamental disconnect between their situations and others’.

For example, this one acquaintance of mine asked me why I don’t put up a business of my own just like what he’s done. “Ako nga nakaya ko, ikaw pa,” he said. (“I was able to do it, you should too.”) Fact of the matter is he had help from his upper middle class family to put up the capital and the ground work. He should know he was talking to an orphan from a lower middle class family who never had assets or wealth to be inherited.

Or this other acquaintance who dispensed advice (to do this and to do that) without even hearing the real deal behind my situation. Not like she’d be able to relate anyway. Trust fund babies just can’t. People who haven’t tasted failures (note the plural) or faced desperation and adversity really don’t have much to offer in terms of “wisdom.”

Lifehacker tips work because they’re oriented to cater to a wide audience. You can’t be too surgical with a shotgun. Not because you’ve been able to catch a mouse with cheese, means that you’d be able to bait a cat with it. Even if mice and cats are both mammals. Context counts.

And as a know-it-all who has every tendency to be the type of person I hate, I’ve decided only to give personal advice to people who ask for them.

Here’s a pretty good article from 30 Sleeps on dealing with unsolicited advice.

Rizal Day. To me, it’s just a holiday extender. Something to lengthen the no-work build-up towards the new year.

Of all the historical figures we now dub “heroes,” only Jose Rizal’s life and works are mandated by law to be studied as a college course in the form of PI 100 (known to some students as Putang Ina 100). And what did I learn about Rizal in all my years studying him?

Thanks to Prof. Ocampo and a few other readings, all I know is he’s just a rich kid who had some pretty radical ideas and experimented with penis weights. Oh sure, maybe he’s a genius. But did I ever consider growing up wanting to be shot by firing squad just before the new year? Hell no. Even in the grade school toss-up between Rizal and Andres Bonifacio, I’d take Andres. I particularly liked violence as a method of conflict resolution as a kid.

But all this national hero debate is just a mental exercise. As far as culture and tradition are concerned, we Filipinos have a pretty messed up notion of what a hero is.

So many people think that as long as you’re doing your job, you should be commended. Here, you build an ill-placed waiting shed with substandard materials using taxpayers money allocated specifically for development purposes, and you can already claim it as your key accomplishment. We just love to bestow upon ourselves these false senses of entitlement even if all you’re doing is just what you’re supposed to do.

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Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

People would consider doing “the same thing” every year during that long stretch of 100 Days before Christmas up until Epiphany (Three Kings to all other Catholics not institutionalized by Catholic private schools).

Sure, there’s the Filipino part to it. The parol. The dawn masses. The noche buena. A couple of things that I really don’t get is the fake plastic pine trees and mall Santas. Yeah, a pine tree in the tropics. (Are you suggesting pine trees migrate?) History and social conditioning tells me that there’s just something plain wrong with some old Caucasian guy with Southeast Asian kids sitting on his lap. (Racist!)

And there’s always the commercial aspect to it making more jaded people (like me) believe fervently. December’s peppered with all sorts of Christmas parties that it becomes obligatory for one to blow a substantial part of one’s income on gifts when there’s always a very low chance that the gift would really put a smile on that person’s mug.

We’ve even institutionalized it with the whole exchange gift/monito monita thing complete with a price cap. Never mind if we all have better uses for that money. Remember Sheldon Cooper’s remark on gift-giving. Might as well exchange X number of pesos every year. Set up a trust. Have it earn interest.

It’s quite nice to know that despite all of this blatant bullshit, some people still adhere to the whole spiritual aspect of Christmas. The spirit of unconditional giving and the value of the family.

Happy Christmas, everyone!