So, are you ready for round 3 people of the Philippines? Did my last two beatdowns hurt? Well then, get ready because this is going to hurt even more…
See, as I’ve come to note again and again, when people coddle you, you never really pay attention to them. Not only do you refuse to listen to them, you ridicule them even. As one commenter, Mr Zaxxun I believe, cited in one of my previous articles, people in the Bible often hated prophets for calling them out on their stupidity and wrongdoings. They went as far as killing them by stoning and worse because they were the kind of people who just wanted to be happy all the time. They refused to stop and reconsider the error of their ways and the consequences of their actions. It was only when the disasters promised by God came that they realized just how wrong they really were.
Look, I’ve been here on GRP for more than six months now. To be honest, I doubt we can really achieve so much. We’re only bloggers after all and all we can really do is do the best we can as individual human beings and try to awaken as many Filipinos as possible and rally them behind our cause. However, as I’ve come to discover, there are a lot of you who don’t want to wake up. There are so many of you who’d rather sleep and play than accept the grim reality that terrible things are afoot and that, unless we do something about them, they will spell the end for us and our families.
Stupidity, as you can see, isn’t the same as simply being dumb. Dumb people just don’t know any better and can at least be forgiven partly for their errors. However a stupid person knows better but he or she keeps doing the wrong thing anyway.
So why do I think Pinoys will always be stupid?
Here are my three points:
Pinoys Are NOT Attentive
Okay, let’s talk about my previous article, the one with the AlDub photo. How many people do you think actually read the whole article before reacting? How many do you think simply let their emotions get the better of them when they commented? Better yet, how many do you think simply let their own emotions answer for them instead of considering what they’ve read first?
In the comments section alone, as I’ve mentioned in the article I wrote before this one, I have commented multiple times that I was not the one who chose the photo and that the article itself had nothing to do with the AlDub couple in the first place. However, one can note that many commenters simply assumed that I was attacking the AlDub couple and its supporters without even bothering to look at the comments I’ve made on the issue.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is our inability to read between the lines and listen to what is not being said that has ruined us time and time again. As I’ve said in my article about President Aquino’s “Straight Path”, it just sounds good but one has to ask what is it really and what has it achieved for us as a nation? More often than not, we react almost immediately without first considering what’s in front of us and what our actions might cause. We are so much like dogs who bite first without ever thinking that we are essentially biting into poisoned meat.
We Like To Delude Ourselves
The thing is, I was actually surprised by the great number of comments on my previous article but was disappointed to see that a lot of commenters missed the point entirely. Again, as I have said, people simply saw what they wanted to see, heard what they wanted to hear and thought what they wanted to think. The whole point of the article was never even considered by a lot of commenters as they went on to assume things and come to their own (often wrong) conclusions about what I was actually talking about.
It’s painful to note that the point of the article was quite far from bashing the AlDub couple yet still, the brave defenders of the noon-time sensation went on to insinuate that I was accusing the show and those who watch it as “stupid”. Also of note, in no point in the article did I imply that I was excluded or exempt from the five negative traits I mentioned and I even actually admitted to it in my next article. At the end of the day, people just resorted to taking my words out of context and using personal attacks simply because they altogether failed to grasp the actual gist of my articles.
See, the problem is, we really like to lie to ourselves. We especially like to do it to make ourselves seem superior. When people attack or offend us, we like to take words our of context and make assumptions like “they must be attacking me because I’m beautiful” or perhaps “they’re just bitter at me” instead of really considering what is being said. More often than not, we let our emotions do our reasoning for us, especially our pride, and refuse to consider how out-of-context our own assumptions may be.
We Are Always In Denial
Here’s another one and this goes hand in hand with our hypocrisy as a people.
When other people, especially foreigners, call us out on our wrongdoings, we are quick to vehemently defend ourselves and insist that they are wrong or are being cruel. We never even stop to consider the possibility that they might even be right and that it is we who needs to apologize to them and not the other way around.
How can we say that we are not thieves when just about everyone seems to think that stealing is okay as long as you don’t get caught? How can we say that we aren’t perverts when we put films like Etiquette for Mistresses over masterpieces like Heneral Luna? How can we say we aren’t sadists when we find other people’s misfortunes funny?
See, refusing to answer these questions aren’t going to disprove them. Denying them is like sweeping rotting food under the carpet. Sooner or later, it will just stink, attract flies and other pests and become a nuisance. Unless we actually clean them up, things will only get worse.
***
So again, I utter my challenge:
Prove me wrong!
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