I was supposed to go out, run, and hit my 10k steps, but, well, the weather had other ideas. It’s drizzling, and I’m sitting on the side of the road sheltered by bamboo.
Typing. I guess it was inevitable.
Two things I had in mind since yesterday:
I’ve observed that in social media, the Uniteam dominated… until, in some of the recent surveys, the other candidate came on top, particularly in those ‘Like for this candidate, Heart for this candidate, Hug for this candidate’ type of Facebook surveys. The sleuth supporters of the Uniteam were very quick to discover that a majority of those who clicked to support the other candidate had foreign profiles – South/Southeast Asian countries.
So the other candidate wins, but by using artificial means. I see that the strategy here all along, even before she started winning these small surveys, was to change the perception on social media, implying that she may lose but she is still a contender.
The main observation for me here is that Organic engagement will always be better than Artificial (paid) likes in terms of quality… but with enough resources and through aggressive, repetitive exposure, weaker minds could be swayed by the perceptions Artificial engagement aims to change.
Everyone’s looking to turn the tide… by (1) weakening minds to indecision, and (2) aggressively campaigning to the undecided.
That links to the second thing I want to share. Bongbong Marcos shared yesterday on how our country lacks the “Political maturity” to support a multi-party system. I agree, but I think we (me included, especially) lack the general maturity to look at our own eye before wiping the speck off of another man’s eye… and this shows so much in Social Media, from all camps.
Well with one exception. I took a look at the comment section at the other candidate’s interview yesterday and saw absolute CLASS. But that was yesterday. If I have time I’ll go through her interview today.
Earlier this morning I had the opportunity to talk to a family friend about someone under their employ who also happens to be part of my church team. Unfortunately the report was not very good. We also talked a little about some common friends who have recently taken the plunge, or rather, literally started a new life in another country. I shared my initial doubts about their chances of success.
Well, we had doubts for both of these parties, and in our conversation we found something – a link or relation of sorts between what we felt for them: One of them was lacking diligence and initiative, but was overconfident in himself. The couple was the exact opposite (at least from my point of view): Their work ethic was without question, but they had what I perceived was an extremely low and unhealthy opinion of themselves.
I shared this on a post scheduled to be published this coming Monday on Instagram, but I think I need to share it here… because we could look at both entities and prescribe two separate solutions to two separate conditions, but I think what they need, as we all do, is a good booster shot of maturity.
In fact, actually, it’s nothing you can get injected into your bloodstream in two doses and so many boosters, but you can certainly escalate the process of maturity by taking people out of their comfort zone. The more they are in peril, the more scars they get – the less time they have to allow overconfidence or overthinking to weigh them down, the more time they have to actually get up and work.
If I was to share a general and not necessarily applicable observation, I see that this pandemic has done one of two things to us, parallel to what pain does to us: it gets us to cower behind our keyboards, in wishful thinking that somehow, some way, we would still be relevant in this vast sea of information and disinformation, with the paltry comments we post out of impulse…
Or, the pain brings us to just get better.
Or… well… it’d bring us to one of these, or a cycle of both eventually tearing us apart, and ultimately leaving us all in exhaustion… which is where the powers that be would want us, just so we would be so willing to give our freedoms up for what they offer as ‘rest’.
I think I lost the plot as to where I was supposed to go with all of this, but I must point out that last word – we need rest. And we can certainly find it in money, power, sex, pleasure, achievement, the pain of others, ad so ad infinitum…
But good luck finding lasting rest; peace that has no end, peace with its foundations on the eternal, versus the inferior comfort this finite reality has to offer.
No, no such luck exists. There is only grace.
Grace, and peace, personified by no less than Christ Himself.
Come on, you knew it was coming to this.
I enjoyed Boy Abunda’s interview with Bongbong Marcos, for another reason besides what was mentioned in social media. Rather, I’m sure someone out there already pointed this out, but I will as well – The King of Talk(?) presented the man with all sorts of issues, from drugs, to pornography, to overseas Filipino workers… and for all his eloquence (which I think is a deal-maker), he did not forget to present one solution which I believe he can deliver on – jobs.
Jobs to get addicts and dealers out of the downward spiral of dealing in illegal drugs, or selling their children to pornography. Jobs, and quality jobs so Filipinos don’t HAVE to work overseas for their families… but they can if they WANT to.
As a people I stand on what I said – besides, what nation wouldn’t do better if it was certainly more mature? The truth is, we’ve only been a nation for less than a century, and there’s certainly more for us to experience as a country, down to its provinces, down to its cities, down to its families, and down to us as individuals.
We would certainly ascend above petty overconfidence and constricting overthinking if we subjected, exposed ourselves to more high-risk, high-stake situations, in the name of greater returns, and if not, greater-value lessons.
And though maturity is already an ideal in itself, you can stop there – Or, I propose, we go deeper – because no maturity, no progression is to be made quite as much as if the student is at peace, in great victory or crushing failure.
And friends, all I’m saying is that Christ paid such a huge price for you to have peace – a peace and right standing with the Creator of all things that would have you fearing less, and loving more.
I feel I could have done a better job in piecing all this together, but hey, I’m just thankful you made it this far.
I pray you have peace. I pray that from your peace, you mature. And I pray that out of the experience and maturity, you would not be shaken or swayed by the smallest things.
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. – Colossians 1:17
JB's Personal Brain Defragmenter 
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