Saturday, April 14, 2012

JoeAm vs. Filipino 100 Percenters


Some of you know I have been prowling on Get Real Post, offering up thoughts to thoughtful articles and fending off the parasite sucker fish aka morality police force consisting of parallelaxe, trosp, dude, ahehe, and observer so far. You know their style, right? Personal insults in the guise of responding to the thread subject, nothing substantive to add at all.

Well, the other day a gem of enlightenment cropped up during my banter with "dude". Neither of us expected it, and I am confident he still does not get it.

JoeAm:  Dude, well, I suppose you are right, in many instances I could let my opinions bake a little before I take them out of the oven. Still, it is a lot of fun letting them rip, and having confidence that better educated people can instruct me as to my naiveté.

And, I suppose another essential question is, do I inspire people to think new thoughts, or to smile in amusement? Some seem to get it, some do not. I write for those who do, and I hope those who do not will read more.

Dude:  @Joe, so you are now saying that people should not be taking you seriously at all.
Thanks for the heads up! 


When he wrote that, a light bulb popped in my head.

EXACTLY!

If I could have shouted it, I would have.

  • Take NOTHING I write seriously. My writing is aimed at loosening up your thinking. If it comes down in a different place from where it took off, great. If not, no harm done.

Therein lies the problem of why I have so much difficulty with the morality police and others, from time to time. They are taking what I write seriously, as if I am prepared to defend it to the death, as if my whole self esteem rides on proving myself right.

Because, you see, that is EXACTLY what most Filipinos do. On blog sites. In politics. In life.

They are 100 percenters. They take what they say as 100 percent firm, final and accurate, and there is no room for debate. To concede an inch might as well be to toss in the towel in defeat, run off to a separate island and hide forever. It goes back to a point I made previously, most Filipinos are not in dialogue to learn, or even to teach . . . but to WIN.

Morality or Else

That is why clans bicker, and presidents jail prior presidents, and the morality police hunt down Joe America, and blog commenters can't find agreement amidst strife, and the Chief Justice goes on political rants demeaning the fundamental ethic of judicial restraint and maturity. To be criticized means responding in kind, even more forcefully. To see someone else succeed means taking them down a peg, for their doing well suggests we are less than 100 percent ourselves. So  journalists get shot and neighbors huddle, snickering in envy driven gossipy sniping.

This 100 percent serious point of view means satire simply misses the mark. Satire is not meant to be taken literally, but unread Filipinos take it seriously. Or try to, and it confuses them. The morality police on Get Real Post accuse JoeAm of being "phoney", a "liar", and "inconsistent". Because in satire he will say exactly the opposite of what he means, and the next day he will say straight what he means.

To the 100 percenter, that is inconsistent, indeed. One day's statement must be a lie. Clearly someone who speaks out of both sides of his mouth is a phoney.

Truly, truly, truly, I do not need to be taken seriously. Ever. Any day. At all.

But I invite you to read what I write, and if it sparks an idea or makes you think, and your thinking lands in a different place than where it started, I am extraordinarily satisfied. If you smile, I am happy.

I'm not out to DEFEAT anyone. Well . . . except for the morality police . . . I seek to pulverize them.

Or hope that they finally GET it. That JoeAm is no threat to anyone with an open mind, sense of humor and confidence.

Indeed, that is why I spend time at Get Real Post even though I disagree with their "get Aquino" agenda, and find Ilda difficult to relate to, and benigno stuffed of shirt. They are not my enemy, and if I put them in that box, I would be a 100 percenter, too. I go there, learn, opine, laugh, swear . . . then leave, somehow richer. I develop the discipline of choice: respond to an insult in kind, or don't respond, or respond politely. Generally, I don't respond, for the morality police are like Taliban warriors, not exactly open to new ideas.  I leave a trail of comments behind that either helps other people get intellectually richer, or does not. It doesn't matter. If benigno decides to "spam" one of my more literary dirt-minded insults to the parasite parallelaxe, one of his favorite morality police, as he did, I simply see him as another vacuous 100 percenter out to win, not think.

The 100 percenter acts to prove strength. He MUST prove strength. Because way down deep inside, he has issues . . .

Well, in truth, we all have issues. You have them. JoeAm has them. But he is further along the path toward an open mind than most.

And if you try to tell me otherwise, I'll . . . I'll  . . . I'll DELETE you!!!!!!!

15 comments:

  1. Joe,

    I am amazed that you are so naive to believe Filipinos can be swayed by an American blogging from Biliran.

    First of all, Talk IS weak. Filipinos (and most people in the world) respond to power. If you still think you can influence probably the most stubborn people in the world, then you are a fool my friend.

    Second, you are blogging from Biliran. If you were blogging from the Hamptoms, Palm Beach, The Caymans, Tuscany, or The Swiss Alps, then maybe some Pinoys may take your advice. Why does location matter? Dude, you are living in FUCKING BILIRAN!

    A know this guy who has a helipad in his estate. During one of his parties, a helicopter landed an a US Senator came out to greet him. That is WHY I LISTEN to this guy. HE DOESNT LIVE IN FUCKING BILIRAN.

    Get it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ouch, I got it. What's the guy's name so I can listen to him, too.

      Delete
    2. Expat,

      Okay, I've reflected on your remarks and offer the following elaboration. First of all, I don't write as a professional, and I don't write as if success were determined by power, as you correctly read Filipino values, where power is held in high regard. If I wanted to be a "powerful" blogger, I'd improve my blogging platform (Wordpress), do a better job of tagging my posts, make sure there are lots of cross-links, go out into the social communities and write up a storm, publish on more popular sites, and recruit pushers to go to other sites and post links back to my site. Lots of things.

      Second, this is a self-discovery tour for me, as the primary mission. I learn by reading and thinking and writing. Writing helps me crystallize my cross-cultural understandings. I speak to an audience that is there only if they get anything out of it. When I started, my audience was my daughter. Now a few people do poke around regularly. I presume they get something out of it. That's great.

      It is hard to tell who reads what and how influence flows. I did a six part series on education about a year ago. It culminated in a more popularly read article posted on blogwatch.tv. Two months ago, a Congressman on the Education Committee recited many of the same ideas I had posted. Did JoeAm have anything to do with that? I dunno. The point is, we don't exactly know who reads, gets an idea, and uses it. Or what gets stored and passed along in different words at a different time. It is the proverbial grain of sand tossed into the sea, that changes the fate of the planet forever.

      If I wanted to apply the energy to have writing power, I could. That's not my place right now, thanks.

      Finally, I write to perfect my writing skills. Some articles are better than others. But they are generally better today than they were when I started. It's better than letting my retired brain rot.

      And, by way of footnote, Biliran Island is gorgeous, peaceful, and reasonably prosperous. I have no shame living here, or writing from here.

      Where do you live? Are you a power guy, yourself? That is, do you influence the Philippines to develop better, faster?

      Delete
    3. keep writing joe.

      Delete
    4. FUCKING BILIRAN!

      Sounds like someone's trying to make a new meme

      -patrioticflip

      Delete
    5. PF, yes. Well his idea is to belittle everything, so it works in his mind. Hit and run artist, it would appear.

      Delete
    6. Love your response to Exbutt's argument... To be honest, with comments like these, I think I like reading your arguments more than your articles... For someone who writes with such character from 'Biliran', there's no doubt you're a better 'blogger' than your so-called '100%ers', and they know it. Continue to be a stimulating source of unprejudiced opinions to everyone.

      Delete
    7. 1DC, say, I've missed your visits! Thanks for the compliment. Actually, I enjoy the dialogues as well, and wish more people would elaborate and even argue. That's what pushes me into new thinking.

      Delete
  2. Most of these guys see things in absolutes.

    They'll insult you if for some reason they convince you to agree with them and at the same time never stop arguing until you think like them.
    It's very confusing to say the least.

    They're pretty much think like how lawyers think. You say something contradictory to what you've said earlier and they try sending you to jail. Except that in the Internet, the goal of reading and commenting is to share and generate new ideas instead of duking it out in a debate

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AJ, indeed. Absolutes. And now that you mention lawyers, I am inclined to wonder what parallelaxe and trosp do for a living (or did). One would make a good lawyer, the other a really bad one.

      Delete
    2. Trosp is an engineer and you're an egoistic liar. Get that in your mind.

      BTW, can you refute Trosp in any of his claims against your dishonesties in GRP blog?

      Otherwise, you're really a dishonest person.

      Delete
    3. Ah, son of Trosp, good of you to visit. I personally would love to visit GRP to refute Trosp's bizarre claims, except that GRP does not allow me to visit. They are afraid that I might make sense in their unending rants of nonsense.

      Delete
  3. AJ’s mention of lawyers is interesting – they do talk to win. Come to think of it, so do sociopaths. Turning every conversation into a contest of right or wrong is tiring and futile. The average person chats with his/her mates because it’s enjoyable. I see you blog as more on the “chat” end of the spectrum. I guess that’s why I keep coming back for a look.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ahahaha, yes, lawyers and sociopaths. Good to see you poking in again. I figured you got tired of me ragging on the Occupy Movement. Cheers!

      Delete

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