IF ONE looked at our recent history and transposed it into a song, it would sound like we’re doing “Repeat Refrain” in one long boring loop. In other words, “here we go again” is the term that fits nicely.
Without a doubt, like iconic bystanders inhabiting front benches of roadside sari-sari stores, it appears not to matter if we have seen it all before. Not just the constant flow of vehicles coming and going, mind you, but parades and convoys of all kinds, with special mention of circus acts as the main fare.
That is the rub. The reality of a common street scene in our eyes as bystanders is actually a mirror and representation of what’s really underneath.
Yet quite sadly, though, we don’t make the connection. As it is, we’re just lost in reverie at watching the steady blur of elegant cars going past and then leaving it at that.
Here one second and gone the next, it’s harder even to place them into our own tiny reality of standing still, because like sprites, they flash past us.
It could be our manifestation of stillness; in the midst of continuous parades passing us by, it deeply influences thinking so that it’s but natural to accept whatever comes.
One wonders: does this explain why, beneath the surface of this national pastime of tambay, with its trait of inaction, most of us now just watch, while our rights, our laws, and our tax money are stolen or pulled from under us by those whom we chose to lead us in the first place?
Could it be that our being bystanders to all these goings-on also carries along with it a strong martyr complex?
This sitting-by, highway-bystander status has likewise affected behavior, like people-to-people relations, most notably on social media.
In that arena, there’s a more heightened confrontative, in-your-face stance among users, in direct contradiction to our timid bystander posture. The common battle cry, “If not you, then who, if not now, then when…” rings hollow like a bell.
Experts say both the Internet and social media have a comfortable barrier that acts as a shield between parties.
This is why, for trolls, it’s easier to shame and bully others, as they’re virtually invisible, leaving some social media experts to say, “In terms of public shaming, we are currently operating at our lowest level as a species right now.”
But in the end, while us Pinoys sit outside Aling Nena’s sari-sari store while a never-ending line of jeepneys pass by, our alternative idea of confrontation sits before LED screens, mixing it up with a cocktail of news, fake news, junk, and whatever mis-, dis-, or whatever misinformation is coming your way and, better still, coming out of our “courageous” hearts.