The Breakup

Not mine.

A friend asked me to write a paragraph-long break-up letter because she needs to dump someone and doesn't know how to do it properly. She read me her draft, and it was way too nice, sweet, and apologetic. This is the first time I've ever had to write a break-up letter for someone else--and to write one to a girl, for that matter--so I just thought I'd post it here, to remember.

My friend's name will be changed for anonymity. The crazy chick she's dumping never gave her real name in the first place, so I'm using the fake name she gave.

Warning: The language isn't the foulest thing on the planet, but it's not for children.

Dear Sweet,

You are quite the opposite of that, and maybe that’s precisely why you ironically chose that fake name. At first I thought you actually were nice and sweet, but you’re a fucking crazy, egotistical, opportunistic bitch who can’t seem to make up her mind and preys on people’s emotions to make herself feel better. You expect to be pursued and treated like a queen while treating others like shit. You probably derive some perverse pleasure from hearing someone say that about you, since you seem to be so fixated on the idea of yourself as some crazy, unstable bitch. Who knows, I could be completely wrong about you, and you really are nice and matino pala, but that’s not what you’ve shown me, and I’m not sticking around to find out. So for both our sakes, I’m putting an end to this sham of a friendship/relationship, this twisted game of yours. I’ll stay out of your life; please stay the hell away from mine.

Laura

In addition, I gave my friend these instructions:

And then, VERY IMPORTANT: If she calls, DO NOT ANSWER! Under any circumstances! Or the whole dumping will go down the drain and be for nothing. Not answering is just as important, if not MORE important, than the letter! The period after the dumping is CRUCIAL! Do not answer, and block her number on your phone! And then delete it from your address book. IMMEDIATELY!

Even if she texts, saying, hey, can we talk, one last time? DO NOT TALK TO HER! You don’t even have to respond. But if you must, just say, no, we’ve talked enough, I’m done, goodbye. Brief, curt, detached. No sad googly-eyed sorries or anything like that.

And if she replies again or tries to call again or whatever, IGNORE. IGNORE HER LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. Because IT DOES!

I hope this does it. Because "Sweet" needs to be gone, and "Laura" needs to stop letting her back in. Fingers crossed!

The Power of an Apology

This is really quite ridiculous. A couple of months ago, the hot issue in the Philippines was the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill. I don't remember any other national issue being nearly as polarizing as this one. Most people lean heavily in one direction or the other, so much so that calm, respectful, objective discussion and finding some sort of middle ground are nearly impossible. Things have gotten ugly over this.

Members of the government are no exception, and here begins a tale that is much longer than it needs to be. Senator Tito Sotto is staunchly against the RH Bill. He has his reasons, and I won't go into what they are or whether they are valid or otherwise. (For that matter, I won't go into my own stand on the bill.) What's important is that he made an impassioned speech about it during Senate deliberations, and it was discovered that his speech contained material copied, word for word, from a blog post, which he did not credit as his source.

In response to accusations of plagiarism, Sotto at first denied that he took the material from elsewhere. Later, he admitted that he did take the material from said blog but maintained that he did not plagiarize, because blogs are not covered by copyright. This enraged everyone, most especially bloggers and writers, whose intellectual property rights have basically just been snubbed by one of the country's lawmakers.

The good senator, in response to this public outcry, gave a couple more speeches over the course of the Senate talks on the bill, again taking material from other sources (a few more blogs plus a speech by the late Robert F. Kennedy)--again quoted verbatim, without attribution. He continued to insist that taking from blogs isn't plagiarism. As for Kennedy's speech, Sotto claims not to have plagiarized that either. You silly people, you thought you had me, but Kennedy's speech was in English, and mine was in Tagalog, and even if my speech contained a translation that was as direct and exact as it gets, I still did not plagiarize because obviously, Kennedy's speech and mine are in two different languages.

I mean... was this a joke? Was this his way of being cheeky and sticking it to the people? Or--and this is kind of a scary thought, considering this guy makes decisions on behalf of an entire nation--was this really, truly, actually  the product of his logic?

Needless to say, citizens were outraged and indignant, and Sotto instantly rose to Internet infamy and became everyone's current favorite object of ridicule, contempt, hate, etc. News articles, blog posts, statuses (stati?), memes, and comments criticizing him, making fun of him, and lambasting him flooded the Internet.

I kind of felt bad for him. Yes, what he did was wrong, and yes, he should've just admitted it and apologized, and no, he definitely shouldn't have done it again, which it seems he did on purpose, just to piss people off. And yes, people have the right to speak up against what he did because we have to fight for our rights and fight for what's right and not tolerate less-than-upstanding behavior from the people who run our country. (I just used "right" 3 times and "fight" twice in the same sentence; I think my inner activist has been unleashed.) Still, Sotto is a person, with a life and a family and feelings and a sense of self-worth that takes a beating when people criticize him, and a lot of what was being said and posted on the Internet was just downright mean. Rather than rationally, intelligently dealing with the issue and criticizing Sotto's actions (which some people did--kudos to them), a lot of people simply ridiculed him, cursed him, called him names, spat venomous words directed at him, belittled him. Yes, he sort of brought it upon himself, but no one deserves to be treated without basic human respect.

Sotto thought so too, and he found a way to stop people from saying bad things about him ever again: Right before the brand-new Cybercrime Prevention Act was signed into law, the sneaky senator inserted a last-minute provision on libel, whereby absolutely anything that anyone says or posts on the Internet that is interpreted as malicious can land the person in jail for up to 12 years--posing a great threat to freedom of speech/expression. (How this last-minute add-on made it past all senators [except one, who voted against the act] and the president of the Philippines, who signed it into law, is unthinkable, but that is another musing for another time.)

So now, the entire Internet (the Philippine portion of it, at least, although the issue is starting to get international attention from the media and organizations such as the UN) is again up in arms, protesting against a potentially repressive law and the government officials responsible--foremost among whom is Sotto. In so few months, this guy has turned himself into an object of ridicule, a caricature of an idiot politician, an object of hate, a villain, an enemy of freedom.

The shitstorm goes beyond just Sotto. The other senators and people in government are scrambling to react. Some have been caught embarrassed and have had to admit to not thoroughly reading and studying the act before voting for it. Some claim no responsibility, pointing the finger at those who actually penned the law, or those who should have questioned it but didn't. Some are standing their ground, saying that citizens have nothing to be afraid of if they are doing nothing wrong. Some are realizing that this provides a golden opportunity for them, and they have swayed over to the side of the people, hoping to win their sympathy, their allegiance, their votes. I wonder what all this looks like from the outside. A silly, minor blunder bound to right itself in time? A potentially troublesome political situation to keep an eye on? A sign of serious government incompetence and the beginnings of political unrest, warning investors to stay the hell away? All I know is what it looks like from the inside, and it's a bit of a mess.

The thing is, all this probably could have been avoided, if only Sotto had, after the first instance/accusation of plagiarism, simply admitted he was wrong, apologized, and promised not to do it again. It's the most basic lesson in human behavior, one of the first things we are taught by our parents: if you screw up, tell the truth, say sorry, and don't do it again. Had he just done that, all the Internet buzz about him would have died out quickly, and he wouldn't have felt so bullied that he needed to sneak a libel clause into the Cybercrime Prevention Act, and our government wouldn't be scrambling to save face over this, and people wouldn't be up in arms to fight against repression. And maybe by now we'd have made some progress regarding the RH Bill--which, although quickly forgotten and overshadowed by this whole Sotto saga, is what might have started it all in the first place.

Arrogance

I wish that people could be confident about themselves, their abilities, their ideas, without the tendency to become arrogant.

I think every single person has moments of arrogance. It could be the overall arrogant demeanor of those who think they are just better overall than everyone else and walk around like they're the shit--what we usually visualize when thinking of an arrogant person--but it could also be partial/compartmentalized: religious arrogance, moral arrogance (self-righteousness?), intellectual arrogance (which could be "I'm smarter than everyone else," "I'm deeper than everyone else," "I have better taste than everyone else," "I don't conform like everyone else does," and so on).

I suppose maybe arrogance is just part of the human condition, part of the struggle to validate ourselves, to find meaning in our lives, to discover what makes us important and unique and valuable. It's a see-saw between worthlessness and arrogance, a healthy sense of self and confidence being the ideal balance. But as we know, even when we've attained that point of perfect equilibrium, it takes just as much work to stay there. Flinch or blink for a second, and you find yourself falling to worthlessness or arrogance, overcompensating, falling to the other side. And the see-sawing continues until you get back to that state of balance or until you get tired and just give up.

Like all things in life, I guess the important thing, then, is just to keep on going. This is not school, where we are graded purely on outcome. This is life, where you can actually get an "A" for effort.

Children

It's all about balance. When I have children of my own, I want them to do well in school. But I don't want them to be all school and no play. I don't want my (future... like WAY future) 5-year-old to be able to multiply double-digit numbers but be uncomfortable singing and dancing and playing and socializing and talking nonsense. Sometimes, kids just need to play and explore.

One thing I miss from childhood: Planter's Cheese Curls and Cheese Balls (okay, I guess that's two things).

I don't want to call the (future) father of my (future) kids "Dad," nor do I want him to call me "Mom." I love the idea of the man I love being the father of my children, but he's not MY father. He's my lover, my husband, my partner. And so I will address him as such and treat him as such. And I want my children to grow up seeing that. I want them to grow up seeing romance between Mom and Dad as a normal, lovely thing, not as an icky thing.

Coriolanus

Flighty and feeble like birds
Like trees, swayed by the slightest of breezes
Man is akin to nature, all right

We often see ourselves as separate from nature
But really, we are a part of it
And so we possess the same characteristics, have the same tendencies
The good and the bad