pondering on things

Babies, they said, should be thought the rhythms and patterns of daily life so they will be less confused and less afraid of the things around them. They said that babies need to learn these patterns to make life more predictable for them; the more predictable life is, the easier it is to deal with, the less stressful. Therefore happier babies.

Babies who are allowed to explore and learn these patterns on their own grow up to be more confident individuals while those who were forced to learn the patterns and structures end up mama’s boys…but that is another story.

But I guess the learning never stop when an individual stops becoming a baby.

it is almost the same as in planning. a place that shows more or less a pattern in the, say, in its citizens’ activities are easier to understand, therefore easier to control. Meanwhile places who show sporadic and varied activities here and there require more effort to predict and therefore harder to plan. In the first world cities you can almost predict the rush hour because you know that at that certain hour almost all people go to work. In third world cities there could be no rush hour because very few people go to work. Oh, I almost forgot; there can be rush hour too: SM sale. But that doesn’t happen everyday.

I guess in a way, this predictability is easier seen in developed countries where unemployment rate is significantly lower and where citizens know where their hard earned money go and the rights that go with those hard earned money.

With a predictable environment, it is harder to get lost or should that happen, it is almost easier to find your way back than ask somebody for directions. One acquaintance said that if you get lost in their city (yes, it’s a first world city), you can always find your way back without asking a soul since there are phonebooths in almost every corner. These phonebooths are equipped with maps and all. If you get lost in their city and can’t find your way back that will only mean you have an IQ of the platypus (sorry, platypi, but this is just a joke stolen from k. smith). in a predictable environment the consequence of your action is easier known as in a predictable environment, 1+1 would always equal to 2.

But 1+1 could equal to just about anything in the philippines. It is very apparent by the way the loading/unloading signs change positions week after week as if they grow feet of their own when nobody's looking. you get off at this station today and by tomorrow it's already illegal to get off in the same station. in a predictable environment you can always ask somebody to explain those kind of things to you because you know who to get answers from but in the philippines, you just scratch your head and let it go. everything can be answered by the 8-hour sleep.

very few people enjoy these unpredictability. tourists hate it. Except maybe for that first-world-citizen acquaintance of mine. powerful countries send their experts and consultants to provide counter measures against these inconvenience; to help erase the fluidity and the unpredictability in the lives of the filipino. they teach the filipinos how to do this and that so it would result into something less confusing and easier to understand. Easier to conquer.

I hated these inconveniences before because I wanted so much a predictable world. a world or pattern. I would like a world that would tell me the consequence of my action but I realized in the end how boring that world is. I don’t want to live in a clockwork world. Diaz wouldn’t want to live in a clockwork, predictable world and without Diaz, the world would be a sad sad sad one. I perhaps wouldn’t be able to read the BIR experience post from a blog. I don’t think joyce colon would wack her brains out deciphering the ineptitude that is GSIS.

Now, that’s what I call nationalism.