He died for All of Us
Black Saturday. More than two thousand years ago, our Savior came to Earth and lived the life of a common man. He also died for all of us, so that we could live forever. Yes, that’s each and everyone of us. Including the idiots that walk this planet.
Today, more than two thousand years after that significant event, I found myself at Fully Booked bookstore at the Greenhills Promenade. The store staff sent me a text message on my cell phone two days ago informing me that my order of Warren Ellis’ Planetary was ready for pickup. I was overjoyed to say the least. My intellectual tryst with Planetary started about four years ago when Mike Simbulan of Comic Quest convinced me to buy the first volume of the Planetary compilation.
As I write this, Manila uncharacteristically remains peaceful and calm but Greenhills is a teeming madhouse. Every tom, dick and his family seems to be crowding into this place!
Planetary is a graphic novel. To those of my generation, the term graphic novel translates to “comics”. By reading this, you would surmise that as I approach my forty-first birthday next month, I have not lost my interest in comics. Oh no, far from it: getting older seems to have only increased my appetite for comics as new expanded compilations of various series both old and new are coming to the bookshelves every month.
So there I was, happily walking around the store with my newest acquisition wrapped in plastic. Before leaving, I went through my usual rituals when I am in a bookstore, whether here or abroad: the mandatory vigils before the History and Science Fiction bookshelves.
The History bookshelves offered nothing worth snapping up this time so I headed off to the Science Fiction collection. That’s where I came face to face with The Idiots. There were about six of them, four women, two men. All young, most probably University Students – most certainly from De La Salle University or the Ateneo de Manila, judging from their dress, their manner and their mode of speech. What ticked me off immediately was their wanton and casual disregard for the property of others. One of female The Idiots picked up a pocket book and after sharing a laugh with one of her male counterparts about how “books are getting smaller these days”, attempted to return it to the shelf. I say attempted because female Idiot missed the shelf entirely (maybe she’s afflicted with Cerebral Palsy?) and left the book to drop casually on the floor. Now the book will be bearing new creases, but of course she doesn’t care: it isn’t hers anyway. It’s store property so who gives a flying f---, eh?
All the while, her companions go yakking around the Judas Gospel which came out on the National Geographic Channel about four days back. Unfortunately, all of them professed total ignorance about the whole thing, and exchanged gibes and laughs about the dearth of their knowledge. I guess to The Idiots, ignorance is a funny thing and is pretty fashionable too. Hip to be dumb I guess. I remember being a rebellious, unreasonable and dorky young adult long ago. But God help me, I never reveled in ignorance!
It did not help that The Idiots blocked the other half of the Science Fiction books. It did not help that they chose to continue their brainless chatter while blocking my view of the books. It’s a good thing that they seemed to notice that I was intent on checking out the shelves they were blocking – and backed off before something really dire and nasty brought their brainless musings to a sudden and violent end.
I saw Gene Wolfe’s Sword of the Lictor and Citadel of the Autarch in one omnibus volume but parted with it: I already spent enough for the month on my caprices. I left the store soon afterwards.
As I walked to my car, I mused about The Idiots. I can’t say they are victims of poverty, of neglect, and the lack of opportunities which stalk the mass of our Filipino young people today. Far from it, The Idiots were part of the privileged class of this country. And it is from this privileged class that the next group of movers and shakers, the leaders of this country is expected to emerge. It is said that the future of this country lies in the hands of the young. Such as The Idiots.
I would imagine that if the future lay in the hands of The Idiots I ran into at the bookstore today, then this country is just truly and irrevocably fucked.
Game over.
Period.
I almost reached my car when I saw a heavy set teener and his girlfriend crossing the road irresponsibly. This resulted in a run in with a passing cab. The teener shouted epithets at the cab driver, most probably calculated to impress his girlfriend and prove his manhood. Well, this time, the cab driver called his act, stopped the cab and went down. Our brave teener just walked away not looking back even once. Even when faced by threats and challenges from the cab driver (who looked pretty young too) our very brave teener just kept going. I guess his balls just went south after the cab driver’s unexpected response to his bullying. So much for bravery: don’t start a fight if you can’t finish it. My heart actually went out to the cab driver. I’ve seen so much of that here in Manila: irate pedestrians who cross where they damn please regardless of where and when, and have the gall to even strike your car as they curse you when you try your best to avoid running them down. Like that teener, most of them are ball-less cowards as well. I’d have wanted to see the cab driver give the brave teener a knuckle sandwich. Would’ve done the fool a world of good too: next time he’d be more careful crossing the street.
All this on Black Saturday while peace reigned elsewhere in this overcrowded metropolis.
Yes, He died for all of us long ago. The sacrifice was made for ALL of us.
Even for The Idiots and the cowards who cross the streets with no brains and apparently even smaller balls.
God have mercy.
Today, more than two thousand years after that significant event, I found myself at Fully Booked bookstore at the Greenhills Promenade. The store staff sent me a text message on my cell phone two days ago informing me that my order of Warren Ellis’ Planetary was ready for pickup. I was overjoyed to say the least. My intellectual tryst with Planetary started about four years ago when Mike Simbulan of Comic Quest convinced me to buy the first volume of the Planetary compilation.
As I write this, Manila uncharacteristically remains peaceful and calm but Greenhills is a teeming madhouse. Every tom, dick and his family seems to be crowding into this place!
Planetary is a graphic novel. To those of my generation, the term graphic novel translates to “comics”. By reading this, you would surmise that as I approach my forty-first birthday next month, I have not lost my interest in comics. Oh no, far from it: getting older seems to have only increased my appetite for comics as new expanded compilations of various series both old and new are coming to the bookshelves every month.
So there I was, happily walking around the store with my newest acquisition wrapped in plastic. Before leaving, I went through my usual rituals when I am in a bookstore, whether here or abroad: the mandatory vigils before the History and Science Fiction bookshelves.
The History bookshelves offered nothing worth snapping up this time so I headed off to the Science Fiction collection. That’s where I came face to face with The Idiots. There were about six of them, four women, two men. All young, most probably University Students – most certainly from De La Salle University or the Ateneo de Manila, judging from their dress, their manner and their mode of speech. What ticked me off immediately was their wanton and casual disregard for the property of others. One of female The Idiots picked up a pocket book and after sharing a laugh with one of her male counterparts about how “books are getting smaller these days”, attempted to return it to the shelf. I say attempted because female Idiot missed the shelf entirely (maybe she’s afflicted with Cerebral Palsy?) and left the book to drop casually on the floor. Now the book will be bearing new creases, but of course she doesn’t care: it isn’t hers anyway. It’s store property so who gives a flying f---, eh?
All the while, her companions go yakking around the Judas Gospel which came out on the National Geographic Channel about four days back. Unfortunately, all of them professed total ignorance about the whole thing, and exchanged gibes and laughs about the dearth of their knowledge. I guess to The Idiots, ignorance is a funny thing and is pretty fashionable too. Hip to be dumb I guess. I remember being a rebellious, unreasonable and dorky young adult long ago. But God help me, I never reveled in ignorance!
It did not help that The Idiots blocked the other half of the Science Fiction books. It did not help that they chose to continue their brainless chatter while blocking my view of the books. It’s a good thing that they seemed to notice that I was intent on checking out the shelves they were blocking – and backed off before something really dire and nasty brought their brainless musings to a sudden and violent end.
I saw Gene Wolfe’s Sword of the Lictor and Citadel of the Autarch in one omnibus volume but parted with it: I already spent enough for the month on my caprices. I left the store soon afterwards.
As I walked to my car, I mused about The Idiots. I can’t say they are victims of poverty, of neglect, and the lack of opportunities which stalk the mass of our Filipino young people today. Far from it, The Idiots were part of the privileged class of this country. And it is from this privileged class that the next group of movers and shakers, the leaders of this country is expected to emerge. It is said that the future of this country lies in the hands of the young. Such as The Idiots.
I would imagine that if the future lay in the hands of The Idiots I ran into at the bookstore today, then this country is just truly and irrevocably fucked.
Game over.
Period.
I almost reached my car when I saw a heavy set teener and his girlfriend crossing the road irresponsibly. This resulted in a run in with a passing cab. The teener shouted epithets at the cab driver, most probably calculated to impress his girlfriend and prove his manhood. Well, this time, the cab driver called his act, stopped the cab and went down. Our brave teener just walked away not looking back even once. Even when faced by threats and challenges from the cab driver (who looked pretty young too) our very brave teener just kept going. I guess his balls just went south after the cab driver’s unexpected response to his bullying. So much for bravery: don’t start a fight if you can’t finish it. My heart actually went out to the cab driver. I’ve seen so much of that here in Manila: irate pedestrians who cross where they damn please regardless of where and when, and have the gall to even strike your car as they curse you when you try your best to avoid running them down. Like that teener, most of them are ball-less cowards as well. I’d have wanted to see the cab driver give the brave teener a knuckle sandwich. Would’ve done the fool a world of good too: next time he’d be more careful crossing the street.
All this on Black Saturday while peace reigned elsewhere in this overcrowded metropolis.
Yes, He died for all of us long ago. The sacrifice was made for ALL of us.
Even for The Idiots and the cowards who cross the streets with no brains and apparently even smaller balls.
God have mercy.
posted by judgefob at 7:27 PM
2 Comments:
I think it's important to raise the next generation with a sense of what's right and wrong, to have respect for the world and its denizens. Your group of so-called Idiots possibly acts that way because they take a lot of things for granted. They have no disabilities and have never lacked for food or worried over the impermanence of their shelter.
So I guess their comeuppance is that there will come a time when their parents will no longer be paying for their expenses and they will have to be getting jobs to pay for the very things they used to take for granted. They will have to live in a world where they must share breathing space with other people of other walks of life and thank God that the cabdriver in the cab they may ride in won't rob them and leave them for dead in a dark alley.
Acting with the foolishness and ignorance of youth when you are young is excusable, but acting like a brat when you're too old to be dependent on your parents is not.
I believe there is goodness in almost everyone; there may be a flipside in that the careless teen who lets the book fall down in the bookstore might one day be a volunteer worker for Habitat for Humanity. But we don't know this, so we can't truly judge; we can only trust a God whose love creates a harmonious balance in the Universe.
Yes, I guess you are right. Giving the youth a very large benefit of the doubt is always a good thing. Maybe I am just feeling my age when I begin to compare myself with them.
Post a Comment
<< Home