Here in Negros Oriental, people consistently smile, there’s a combination of pleasant sunshine, light winds, then occasional heavy rain that quickly dries out. In Ireland where I come from, they are currently experiencing Arctic coldness, while bitter winds lash the island, and anyone must be sufficiently brave or perhaps silly to step outside.
Guess where I’d rather be this Christmas? There’s no prize for guessing the obvious answer.
Speaking of Christmas, one of the many excellent songs written by John Lennon sounds as good as when I first heard it in Manhattan back in 1971. The lyrics possess a timeless message about peace, and also has the lyrics “So this is Christmas and what have you done? Another year older, a new one begun.”
What have you done with your 2021? It’s an important question. An honest answer would confirm much about who you are, and perhaps more importantly, who you’re not.
Do you sense this Christmas season is subdued? These are the most joyless -ber months I’ve experienced. The usual sense of excitement and anticipation is markedly absent. Why is that? Perhaps it’s a result of society becoming worn out by the impact of this ongoing pandemic with variations consistently being added to the virus puzzle.
Hopefully, but not necessarily, 2022 will see a weakening, if not elimination, of its silent but deadly power over us.
As I welcome my aging process, I no longer feel the need to search for unclimbed mountains to summit, oceans to cross, marathons to run, or women to chase. Apart from not succeeding in writing an internationally-acclaimed best-selling book, I’ve achieved all I want from life.
I realize that’s a brash, perhaps arrogant statement. Apart from dying, my round- the-world journey in 2018 was probably my final adventure. And that’s fine.
I’m now focusing on maintaining good health, working on improving close relationships, while also writing my fourth and fifth books.
I’ve no fear of dying. But I’m of terrified about the process. I hope it will be fast and relatively painless. That’s an absurdly optimistic aspiration. But hope tends to “spring eternal in the human breast.” If I died today, there’s nothing I’d regret not having done.
That’s a reality few people ever experience. I’m very grateful for that, and much more.
It seems, if possible, ‘dangerous driving’ is on the rise in the Dumaguete area. Yet again, I wonder why there is not mass carnage on a daily basis because of the foolish and selfish misbehavior of some drivers.
That list includes all who drive from side roads unto main roads without bothering to look for oncoming traffic, and those who drive at nighttime with no headlights on. It includes cyclists who rarely have any form of lights on their expensive bikes as they ride most nights in total darkness down from Valencia, wearing highly- priced racing gear, but with no lamps nor reflector lights to protect themselves and the public.
With the holiday season fast approaching, drinking will inevitably increase, with a subsequent rise in accidents, injuries, even deaths. What’s sad is that much of the pain could have been avoided by even a modest increase in societal responsibility from drivers using our roads.
Speaking of accidents, this morning I had my third in the past 12 months, the second in the same location. It happened on the road from Dumaguete to Valencia at the Talay/Valencia crossroad. I experienced yet another painful example of idiotic, selfish, and reckless driving by a man on his scooter with his wife also on board. He callously endangered her, himself, and me. Since I hit him in the middle part of his scooter, he suffered the main discomfort. I didn’t even have time to beep the horn because he came out driving so fast, and with no signaling intended to turn left!
An exchange of documents was not possible. He had neither a driver’s license nor any insurance. I waited until the ambulance came, and took them away. In fairness, he did have the decency to apologize.
But after receiving three apologies, and significant injuries over the past year, apologies have become meaningless. It’s time to get a car.
I was struck by a headline in the New York Times this morning: “Largest shooting this year in US schools.” These tragic events have become so regular they’ve become the norm rather than the exception.
This time, four innocents were killed, and seven injured by a 16-year-old school boy. This desecration of life was reduced to being an insignificant statistic.
In the Philippines, there has never been a mass killing of students by another student. The closest to that was a police officer who had a gripe with someone in a school who opened fire but with limited casualties.
It doesn’t surprise me why solutions have not been found in America. They never will be found. After each mass murder, the predictable platitudes are rolled out by politicians from both sides, but quickly become silent. There’s no political will in America to end gun-related problems. The United States was created from violence, and evolved through the power of the gun, and prolonged violence.
Solutions have been found in other countries that had gun problems. However, many Americans’ obsession over a constitutional right that forever guarantees their “right to bear arms” denies any possibility of a peaceful outcome.
I even doubt that mass killings would end or significantly decrease if ownership of guns was abolished.
Both the National Rifle Association and their opposition consistently trot out the same aged rhetoric. No new concepts pro or con are ever brought forward. This is yet another sad example of the polarization of American society.
My first experience of American violence was three months after I arrived there in 1974 to work in Manhattan. It was at the height of the drug- related murder epidemic.
I didn’t know that fact back then, but was introduced to it one Saturday night at Molly Malones Bar in 72nd Avenue. In burst three men with what were called ‘Saturday night specials’. They let off blasts over the bar, shattering liquor bottles, and sending shards of glass in every direction. Screams began as people realized they’d been hit. ‘Specials’ were inexpensive hand guns with poor accuracy. In other words, dangerously unreliable.
The robbers failed to do their homework. They didn’t know that just down the street from the bar was the local police station. Many police, as usual, were eating at the bar when the robbers came in. The outcome was not favorable for them and for one unfortunate bystander on 72nd Avenue during the wild shootout that erupted. Four more names were added to the list of those killed during that chaotic time in America.
I’m sitting in a relatively-new restaurant in Dumaguete. Ground Zero is a delightful new addition to the Dumaguete landscape. As I look around, as always nowadays, almost everyone is sitting in a transfixed position as they stare with fierce intensity at their phones with what seems close to adoration more suitable for a church setting.
This is another epidemic, a silent one, that’s happening and will not do away. Interactive social engineering is at the heart of this revolution.
Society has unknowably been taken over by technology in a subtle but dangerous way. It particularly saddens me when I see an entire family ignoring each other while absorbed in their phones.
In the same way as important family times used to revolve around preparing, then eating dinner in a communal setting, phones have replaced that important family interaction. How sad that is. This technological intruder is silently but rampantly crawling through the underbelly of all societies.
When it finally triumphs, nobody will notice. That will be the ultimate irony, while also confirming the triumph of technology over the human condition. The utterly-naive concept that social media and the internet to bring people together will instead alienate society with reprogramed individuals unable to interact socially on a face-to-face basis. Only online will they be able to communicate. The essence of what it was to be human, a social animal, is being challenged, and will eventually be replaced by technology.
I’m fed up with what’s called political correctness. It’s to me a dangerous impulse designed, perhaps unintentionally, to destroy our individuality because of the enforcement of false communal values on everybody.
I’d very much agreed with the political correctness principle for many years but now, for me, it’s redundant because of the unreserved condemnation of everybody, anybody who says anything that might “upset individuals or groups.”
Moronic silence now is the required response so that everyone can clap loudly while rejoicing in nobody being offended, apart from those who would wish to comment but have now been banned, cancelled, or discarded into oblivion.
When an episode from arguably the best-ever TV comedy was deleted by the BBC, it was time to take up my tent and disappear into the distant mountains. The episode about Basil Fawlty being concussed then interacting with German guests about WW2 has been pulled from viewing by the BBC. What a bunch of pompous, self-righteous cowards with zero principles, other than to carefully submit to anger on the internet.
But in fairness, I understand they must not dare to upset the sensitivity of the German people who murdered several million Jews, also “undesirables” such as travelers, gypsies, homosexuals, or anyone who voiced discomfort with Der Fuhrer’s plan for European purification through ethnic cleansing. Under no circumstances should we do anything to upset their delicate sensibilities!
Another example is ancient, long-forgotten actresses, “bravely” coming forward, and complaining about improper advances by various men 30 or 40 years ago. Wrong behavior? Absolutely, but who would go into that business without knowing the dark side required for advancement?
That’s no justification for bad behavior but it does make me question the motivation of the ancients coming out from the past, and screaming indignation. They now have nothing to lose.
Is this an example of brave behavior or simply an opportunity for a final performance? As the bard once said “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”
What’s happening with 174-hectare reclamation project? The volume on discourse and outrage has dramatically turned down. But rest assured, work is being quietly done behind the scenes by both opposing ideologies. Watch out for renewed hostility in 2022.
I’ll soon be returning to Ireland for one final visit, then bid farewell to the country that formed me.
It’s often said one can’t go back.
But it’s also been said that one never really leaves.
What I do know is that the Ireland I ran away from in 1970 has forever been changed. A new terrible beauty has been born. Immigrants and displaced peoples from Europe and Africa are now becoming part of the Irish societal fabric.
Is that good or bad? I’ve no idea. It would seem to argue positively for moving toward a non-racial, international world.
But I do know there will be much push back from prejudiced Irish people, especially in the rural areas where any change is traditionally resisted.
As always, time will resolve those issues. These new immigrants will pay a harsh price when facing prejudice and institutional barriers while they work their way upward in Irish society.
Just as Irish emigrants once did all over the world, the first wave of immigrants will pay a painful price so that future generations can prosper.
Finally, I won’t wish you a happy 2022 because some of us, including me, may be dead before the New Year bells chime on Dec. 31st. But I wholeheartedly wish everyone a peaceful and productive today.
Please consider maximizing your energy on positive rather than negative thoughts and actions today. Be happy as possible because at midnight, today will be gone forever.
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Author’s email: [email protected]
