Sunshine and Cheese

jrfr:

I’ve been seeing a huge wave of nostalgia over the past few weeks in my Facebook feed and Tumblr dashboard, and I’m honestly irritated with what people are saying about all those photos of old Manila. Most of the shares have captions that say “Anyare” or “Back when plans were still followed” and other apathetic and egoistic statements I couldn’t bare to reiterate. Some even express hints of regret like it was their fault that our country turned out like this. Girl, you’re eighteen years old. If there’s anyone to blame, ask your parents or grandparents. They would know the answer to the Five Ws.

If there’s one thing I hate the most (in the dozens of things I loathe in this life), it’s people who romanticize the past and just stop there. Oh! The Philippines was so nice back then and now it’s butt fugly I fucking hate ette. Shut up and do something about it then. Study hard. Be whatever you want to be and be good at it. Pay taxes. Learn some history and culture. And most importantly, don’t be selfish. Because god knows that’s what brought us here in the first place. If you can’t do any of that, then, leave. This country doesn’t need anyone like you. I know these are strong statements coming from an undergraduate architecture student who hasn’t experienced how tough it is out there in the real world, but god, when did you people let go of your ideals? When did you start to fucking rise above yourselves? 

I know I don’t have anything going for me with what’s happening in our country and my aspirations for it, but that’s no reason for me to not fight and work my ass off. If there’s one thing we should feel about those photos of Manila, it’s inspiration. It’s cheesy I know, but with what we have now, all we could do is think that if our country was able to pull that avant-garde shit off before, why can’t we pull it off again?

Our generation’s going to make some fucking awesome changes. I say that not with arrogance, but trust and conviction. I say that to remind myself of what we ought to expect from ourselves.

As Michael Jordan said: “You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them” :)