As I write down my thoughts, my pen is not just centered on a blank sheet of paper. But through the course of its writing, it is more focused as to how it would make amends on different problems our country is facing nowadays. I believe that as it freely shouts its voice in this wide paper called world, it can go places.
I was once a typical teenager who didn't care about the political and economic situation in our country. I would often prefer to go to my room and listen to the radio while the elders downstairs were busy arguing about the current issues in front of the television, usually every evening.
Like all other parents, my mom encouraged us to be aware of the news by subscribing to monthly news magazines, having an Internet connection to our family computer and buying newspapers daily. This was her only way for us to be updated, lest we spoil ourselves with computer games and other vices that are a waste of time.
Sometimes, I couldn't understand why they would opt to discuss these things and not just leave them all to the concerned officials responsible for the kind of business. Why, of all the beautiful things under the sun, would they busy themselves with problems that will be forever unresolved? Besides, headlines always contain bad news. And I thought to myself, it is impossible to solve these crises in just a snap of a finger.
Frankly speaking, the reason why I don't subject myself to these matters is because of its complexity. This is true among young people. Most of us think of economic and political issues as brain draining. Of course, we would rather talk about the latest versions of iPod, our admirers, and the like than politics. It is very rare that we talk about national issues. Many find it really boring and not a good icebreaker.
However, my numbness about our country changed when I became a writer of our school newspaper. Because of the endless responsibilities being handed down to us, I have developed and acquired qualities needed to reach my fellow students. Soon, I became not just a student journalist, but a student leader as well. Little by little, I have expanded these qualities and thought of other ways on how I could better serve not just my schoolmates, but also my country and its people.
Let me share my story with you.
I am a junior staff writer of our school publication. Since all of us are amateur writers except the editorial board, they have decided to conduct a free workshop for us this summer. This would also prepare us for our competitive exam or the search for new editors this June.
During the first month of the training, I was more attentive to the creative writing session. I always listened keenly to our literary editor and complied with his commands. He encouraged us to try our luck in on-going literary contests this summer and told us to write a poem for our literary folio and if our entry was chosen, it will be submitted to a prestigious poetry contest.
A couple of days after, we were very excited to submit our poems. Our literary editor was thirty minutes late so we decided to comment on each other's works. When he came and started to read our poems, we were very disappointed that he rejected all of them. Why? Because all had typical themes - teenage life and love. He even added: “Don't dare pass these poems to the Palanca Awards because no love poems ever won a literary contest.”
Then as I scanned winning pieces of famous poets through in the Internet, I noticed all writers had things in common: they wrote for their country and people. While reading some of them, I realized that my pen had the power to change people's views, or at least, help them make a move just like what their pens did to me. I realized that there are endless possible themes for a poem such as abortion, corruption, national elections, poverty, human rights, nationalism and even local news that need more attention than emotions. Ever since then, I have become more aware of my motherland and have written my insights in a poem.
Now, if you're going to ask me, how did I develop my nationalism? My answer would be simple: because I love writing. Besides the incentives given in writing contests, I have become more aware now of becoming an active citizen in my country because it relates to my passion. And for that, I would do anything as long as I wouldn't give up writing.
My advice to the government officials is simple, yet, I believe, very powerful: focus on young people's enthusiasm and passion. Stimulate their minds and hearts to be nationalistic through their interests. A famous orator once said: An architect and a writer can give different definitions of the Sierra Madre Mountains. The same goes with the youth. A fine arts student, a student leader and a varsity player can have different ways to love their motherland.
"Help them use their skills not for their own profit. Teach them to ask not what our country can do for them, but what they can do for our country."
This depressing quote is evidence of a mind fully inculcated into sacrifice morality, an anti-life code of ethics. In all people that adhere to sacrifice morality, there is a moral dissonance, because you can never truly be a good person. To strive to always be good under the sacrifice morality is to be with out possessions and dead. To sacrifice is to give something of value for something of lesser or no value. It does not create value, it only destroys it. If we all followed this despicable code, humanity would perish and only the sinful would be alive and successful.
Good things, the creation of value, virtue, etc... All come from VOLUNTARY, MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL relationships. Democracy, government, and politics are all INVOLUNTARY, PARASITIC relationships which destroy value and virtue.
If you want to make a better world, than profit from your time, talents, and efforts. Do not buy into the game of trying to work a system so as to violently bind your fellow human beings to your agenda and that of your representatives. Give value to others through your literary skills, and get value back. That is creation.
My advice to youth; rebel from the prison-like education system that seeks to infantilize them, rob them of their ability to think critically, and indoctrinate them with an ideology and morality which legitimizes the rule of a criminal elite. Strive to be an independent, sovereign, moral, skilled adult who seeks to live their dream. Through out time, most cultures have kids who entered puberty already transitioning right into adulthood. By 15 most kids have nearly the same mental, emotional and physical capacities as adults, and often times are actually at their peak in terms of performance in memory, learning, muscular development, etc...
Invest in yourself, live your dream, don't let others try and de-rail you like the public school system and don't waste your time and try and hurt others with immoral schemes like democracy.