Sociology is a useful discipline to study because it makes us aware of the juxtapositions in our world that are so easily overlooked these days. I had no notion of this growing up. My teen years can at best be characterized by a self-indulgence that I am still struggling to shake off in my early twenties. Of course, I’ve long-since realized that the need to color outside the lines eventually plagues everyone. This isn’t a fight exclusive to those of us in this 21st-century "whatever" generation... after all, the baby boomers, hippies, punks, yuppies and Gen-Xers went through similar bouts. Each new generation tends to create its own definitive stereotype by struggling for change amidst the baggage of its predecessor. In the opening speech of Ben Stiller’s cult ’90s film, Reality Bites, university valedictorian Lelaina Pierce (played by Gen-X poster girl Winona Ryder) says, "They wonder why those of us in our 20s refuse to work an 80-hour week just so we can afford their BMW, why we aren’t interested in the counterculture that they invented… as if we didn’t see them disembowel their revolution for a pair of running shoes."
These days, the dissatisfied intellectual slacker has sunk to embarrassingly lower levels. From what I’ve observed, this "whatever" generation I am part of is as disgruntled as its predecessors were. But while the young of previous decades once brandished radical symbols to make a statement, some of us wear them as $100 accessories to impersonate the footballers’ wives. While some of our parents compromised their principles to be able to pay our tuition fees, some of us cut class to get smashed and bitch about the cesspool we inherited from them. Guilty as charged, I decided to abandon it immediately for a drastic change of scene, where modern-day Orsinos and Ferdinands strolled through Cezanne-like backdrops in Ermengildo Zegna. And although my fantasy fell flat nanoseconds after I left, the voyage I made into the real world was much more astounding than my words could ever describe.
Traipsing between continents is a double-edged sword. My jaw dropped in awe each time I set my grubby Nikes on new ground, but my heart sank upon recognition of the social ugliness I had tried to escape by leaving the Philippines in the first place. It was everywhere I went, lurking between snapshots of beautiful architecture and picturesque landscape. The first sight I saw on the evening I set foot in Bologna was a junkie trying to fight the shakes so he could shoot up into his bloody arm. In Cuba, the beggars who approached me didn’t ask for money; they asked for pens or soap. The university students my class met in Havana were nearly brought to tears when we treated them to lunch, because it was the first time in their lives they had ever been inside a restaurant. When I declined to purchase a malachite sculpture from a market vendor in Zimbabwe, he offered to trade it for the dilapidated coin purse I’d had since I was 15. Some of the children I spent time with while I was in Africa died later that year. There I was, shedding tears for the people of countries I ran to because I loathed my own.
Shame on me.
I came home with a suitcase full of secret guilt. I couldn’t defend myself when my peers would scoff and tell me to "Get out, there was nothing for me here." It would have been easy to pack my bags and leave again, but I chose not to. I didn’t want to be like the kids in my "whatever" generation anymore. They cruised by on an inheritance that would dwindle rapidly on alcohol and substance abuse, were featured in fashion magazines for a wardrobe that skewed kids’ concepts of value, and only got anywhere because their parents knew someone who knew someone who could influence someone important. My generation can best be classified by hedonism that makes the ’80s look like the Great Depression. We go clubbing in couture till 7 a.m., sip lychee martinis and complain about the state of the nation. Sometimes we make excuses. Or worse, we don’t care at all. Here we are, the future of the country, all dressed up and with absolutely nowhere to go. Shame on all of us.
I’m not asking anyone to be a hero or a martyr. I’m just tired of all the excuses. I’m tired of the indifference. I’m tired of the way they define our generation as a bunch of sycophants in Seven jeans, burning our parents’ money to indulge in escapism.
I say we prove them wrong. It really doesn’t take that much to make a difference. Google Philippine charity organizations while you shop online. Buy that last garland of sampaguita when you’re stuck in traffic. Put P1 in the Caritas can of your coffee shop. Give a street kid your fries if you don’t want the extra carbs. It may all seem so trivial to us, but for those on the receiving end, it’s revolutionary. We’re going to run this show one day. I’d like to think that we have the power to set things right. It’ll make us worthy to dress up in glamorized, designer versions of what was once a real revolution. But if we carry on like this, without the slightest motivation to improve our country, then we’ll be trapped forever as pretty, vacant stereotypes in a world that will crumble like cigarette ash beneath our Guccis. And if that does happen, then we do deserve it.
Any bigger ideas on how to make things better for our country? E-mail me at whippersnappergirl@hotmail.com and I will help you make them happen.