A State of Mind (part 1)

I decided some time back that I was not going to let my academics as a graduating student get in the way of my education. This was why I decided today to listen to Alex Lacson and Adel Tamano's talk about nationalism. Once again I got to hear about the little things that Filipinos can do for the country, about national pride and how to uphold it in our everyday lives, and about the need to instill a culture of excellence in our country. That last part in particular struck me. What is it anyway with us Filipinos and pegging our aspirations too low?

I used to hear that our culture has a preoccupation with sadness and tragedy. I used to term this as the "kundiman mentality", as a reference to our poignant traditional music. We celebrate so many defeats in our history (assuming we remember to celebrate), but not enough victories. We dramatize with gusto the Passion of Christ, and forget that we have to live in His resurrection. We discuss so many bad things on the news, but we pass by the uplifting items despite some attempts to call our attention to them. We revel in the pain, the beauty of loss and suffering, and simply get up to go on, but we have never really set our eyes on the idea of eventually triumphing over our tragedies.

Or is it possible too that our culture is still one in anticipation, where hope and ideals are approaching but we still perceive them to be far from our grasp? Think about it. Rizal's great novel "El Filibusterismo" has a sort of 'pending' ending; there is no telling what happens to the young characters who survive the novel, or to the destiny of Simoun's vaunted treasure. We cling on to the promise of EDSA as we sing "Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo", and still somehow we forget that the point of that entire upheaval was a beginning, a means to an end so to speak. We anticipate without acting, such that we have learned mainly to expect without really working for it, or realizing to the fullest the true cost of the sacrifices we are called to make.

If culture is supposed to be destiny, according to Lee Kuan Yew, what kind of destiny are we writing for ourselves?