Convergence of fault lines
Wowser! I just went through hell and back. All kinds of crap has been going on in my life. Four separate stress factors seemed to converge into one horrible mess, each of which, individually, was enough to provoke thoughts of just pulling the plug and letting the life force drain out. But I got four of them at once!
Stress factor One. I hate birthdays. And mine came up a few days ago. I hate aging. I hate to be reminded that I’m getting older. So every year around this time I just want to disappear, to hit the road, to occupy my mind with new sights and ideas. . . and to stay the hell away from the internet so I’m not tempted to open my email because invariably there will be somebody sending me an e-card or somehow remind me of how special birthdays are to him, even though I’ve said over and over and over to please don’t do it because they aren’t special to me.
Stress factor Two. I’ve been dealing off and on for the last few months with a US government agency and just a few days ago got in the mail a large packet of crap I’m supposed to digest and sign and return. Gawd but I do hate those bastards and how they’ve treated me! This all started decades ago and I’ve done my best to avoid them. But now some things have changed in my life and I have to grit my teeth and play their game. So this multi-page packet arrived in the mail and I just could not sit down and deal with it. Solution, like the birthday thing, just hit the road so I don’t have to think about it.
So I did. On impulse I bought a ticket to fly to Cebu City and see some friends there. On one of the days I was there I had a birthday but didn’t even notice it. And forgot all about my pending bullsh– with the government agency. Things began to look good, until . . . .
Stress factor Three. One of my friends there has a very hard time getting free of work. She finally got her employer to let her have a day with me and texted me early saying so. She was on her way to downtown Cebu when my old allergy problem, allergic rhinitis, reappeared out of nowhere. A friend here in Pampanga, a homeopathic physician, cured me of this problem a year ago. But on this day it came back with all the pent up energy of a year’s absence. I suddenly had water draining from my eyes and nose. . . so much that I was amazed the human body actually holds that much liquid. In no time my entire face, nostrils, and eyes were beet red but it was too late to stop my friend from coming since she was already on the way. If not for that I’d have gone back to my hotel and rested, knowing that in a horizontal position I could diminish the effects of this condition. But, feeling responsible I waited for her, all the while getting worse and very unsightly. When we did meet, it was clearly under the very worst conditions. We met for a brief period and then I did retire to my room for the next two days. On the third day I felt well enough to move on, although my face and nose skin was peeling from the allergic rhinitis.
Stress factor Four. I took a ferry boat to nearby Leyte where a girlfriend lives with her little boy. That little guy has been part of my life since he was born nearly four years ago. I lived there in Leyte for a time but because of several reasons, access to doctors and the hated government agency, I have to live in Pampanga. But I do like to visit them in Leyte when I can. So while I was there I noticed that a lot of people in town had red and puffy eyes. And soon I had a really bad dose of it as well, with painful and swollen eyelids, constantly tearing up and making vision nearly impossible. I have only one eye anyway (the reason for my association with the hated government agency) and so the loss of vision in my remaining eye was especially scary. Hey, when you’re running on your spare it’s natural to be hyper-anxious about vision, eh! I was nearly blind for two days and after every nap would have to forcibly pry the eyelids open to separate the mucous and other accumulated crud. Being blind is NOT something I’d tolerate for the long term. Thoughts of suicide. . . ooops, I said that word when all this time I’d hoped to find cute euphemisms to avoid it. . . came frequently to mind. Six days went by with no noticeable improvement. I bought an air ticket to come home but was denied boarding by the airline folks because of the very evident eye infection. So I just took the bus. After a couple of days resting after arrival I forced myself out to find an ophthamologist who seemed to know his trade and gave me the right prescription to cure that crap. It’s improving now.
I could easily handle stress in small doses or even large doses if they came at peak energy periods. But getting four massive stress factors in a a matter of days was just too much.
To catch a thief
It’s very unlikely that you’ll encounter violent crime in this country. Filipinos are known for their gentle and friendly nature, and that’s quite a positive trait of course. But it also means they are non-confrontive, including the thieves. Yes, even the criminals seem to seek out non-confrontive ways of ripping us off. It also means that you cannot count on the Filipinos to help you out if you’re in trouble. They will simply watch the thieves do us in.I caught a thief in a jeepney just a few days ago. An old man boarded with some difficulty and sat down across from me, and near the front of the vehicle. Another man followed him in and sat on the right side of the old man. The thief sat with his left hand on the roof bar and his right forearm under the knapsack he had on his lap. His hand was hidden there and very near the old man’s front right pants pocket where he had his wallet. We were all packed in pretty tight in that jeepney so it wasn’t all that evident, unless you know what’s going on. I’m certain all Filipinos know it and I do now as well, having lost something to a girl pickpocket once before.
I routinely look around to see where everyone’s hands are and I saw what the thief was doing. I looked up and saw that he was looking at me, and knew that I was on to his game. I try not to be the loud kind of American who gets in folks’ business so I waited for a Filipino to warn the old man. But soon the old man shifted and I knew the thief had made his first, but unsuccessful, attempt. Still nobody said anything so I touched the target on his knee and told him he must watch his wallet because the man next to him, and I pointed to him, is a thief.
The old man had at first a look of panic, then looked at the thief and shifted away from him. The thief looked at me, then casually said “para!” (stop!) to the driver. And when the jeepney stopped he got out without apparent fear or urgency.
I told this story to a friend and he said in Thailand passengers will beat the hell out of any thief found in public transport. But it won’t happen here. Everybody on my side of the jeepney had to have seen this going on, yet they were going to let it happen.
Filipinos are not predatory people and that makes them nice to be around. But they sure as hell won’t help you out when you’re in trouble either. I told this story to a Filipina I know, a woman who has a degree in psychology, and she asked me “You know why they do that, don’t you?”.
I said “Sure. It’s because they fear retaliation; but I have a duty to aid my fellow man, even if there is some risk involved.”
Our Western sense of community is much different from their’s. We see all others as part of our society; they see only their immediate family and extended kinship lines as worth fighting for. Anybody else is fair game.
I shook Abe Lincoln’s hand
I was recently on a flight to Tacloban but because of high winds we got diverted to Cebu City. I spent about four hours with the same seatmate who turned out to be a pretty interesting character. We talked all that time, both of us from Minnesota and both of Norwegian descent. He was 76 and active in Rotary International.
Our conversation turned to the long time-spans in our families. Because my parents were already in their 40s when I was born, and because both my parents were born in similar circumstances, we have some very long generations in our family. I have an uncle who died in the 1917 flu epidemic; yes, an uncle, not a grandfather or great grandfather, an uncle. He was an older brother of my dad’s, one he never knew. I also had an aunt, my mom’s eldest sister, born in 1899.
My seatmate told me that one of his Rotarian buddies shook Abraham Lincoln’s hand, once removed. Lincoln personally decorated some soldiers at one point during the American Civil War and shook their hands. One of those soldiers was really young at the time but he had a son when he was very old. That son is now really old and is (or was) the Rotarian buddy of my seatmate. So my seatmate told me that he shook a hand that shook a hand that shook a hand of Abe Lincoln. Now that’s really intriguing so I asked if I could get in on the chain and offered my hand. He took it and now I can say that I shook a hand that shook . . . okay, that’s enough! You get the picture.
Of course this has as much validity to it as the guy who’s selling the original hatchet of Davy Crockett, except of course the handle has been replaced three times and the head replaced twice.
Really diluted treatment, eh? Kind of like homeopathic medicine. Still, it’s kind of fun to say I shook Abraham Lincoln’s hand. Sort of, kind of.
Stupid terrorists, inept people
Michael Ledeen commented about the marked stupidity of the terrorists in the latest attempts in the UK, asking “Did you really expect high-I.Q. martyrs?”
Well no, we wouldn’t expect high IQs from most of the people in the region of terror, including the north of Africa, the Mid-East, and Central Asia. The average IQs of those nations range from a low of 83 in Afghanistan and Egypt to a high of 87 in Iraq. The authors of IQ and the Wealth of Nations say that an average of 90 is the minimum required for sustainable technological development. Not only are these people of terror incapable of building ports and railroads on their own (Is it not to wonder that Iran, with all that oil, has to import gasoline because it has no refineries?) but they can’t even properly design and detonate simple explosive belts and car bombs.
Sure, sometimes the terrorists succeed in killing others. But on the whole one has to admit they are really inept folks. If they had any smarts at all they could really do some damage. If I had one of them in my household I think I’d have to insist he wear a helmet and use plastic tableware for both our safety.
It’s a fine and noble ideal to offer them democracy and security but it’s an elusive and probably unreacheable goal.
To have a functioning state requires both a desire and capacity for community organization. The desire is absent in a tribal society; the capacity is absent in a low IQ society. The result is chaos.
