Heartaches in two weeks

By Alex P. Vidal

“Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.”

—Eric Hoffer

WE can’t blame other candidates in the May 9 Philippine election for acting like children in the classroom of adults.

In only two weeks, some of them would be hounded by terrible heartaches; they would submerge in the boulevard of broken dreams.

Their combative and irrational behaviors are signs of panic and fear of losing, an enigma that has been with the human psyche since we learned to compete in life’s chariot race.

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave can best explain the point I’m trying to raise in connection with the forthcoming election.

Sometimes these behaviors surface during unguarded moments, when they mistakenly thought they were acting normally and saying words rationally.

This can be attributed to stress, anxiety, and burn out after several months of hooping from one region to another all over the archipelago and spending oodles upon oodles of money; the tired and weary mind and body can produce eerie reactions that are verbalized.

Several months back, we wrote that no candidate in the election believed in defeat.

Once the candidates began hitting the campaign trail, they thought nothing could stop them from winning. If they lost, they were cheated. No one would admit they were simply bested by their rivals fair and square.

The realization or the coming to terms with objective thinking has always been late.

When the mind and body are well-rested, certain chemicals circulate and replenish our internal ecosystem and guide us to accept the reality.

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Most Filipinos don’t care at all if Twitter will be owned by a man many critics have long suspected to be the “devil” (I personally reject this absurd “suspicion” and I don’t tolerate it if some bashers of Elon Musk make such south-of-the-border accusations).

After Mr. Musk made an offer to takeover Twitter, tensions started to run high across Twitter as news of the billionaire’s takeover bid of the company spread across the service recently, with users contemplating what the service could look like under his watch.

Things were reportedly little different inside Twitter. The New York Times reported that “many employees felt rocked by the news over the last 10 days that Mr. Musk wished to purchase the company and reshape it in his image.”

To quell employee concerns, Twitter management recently called an emergency all-hands meeting led by Parag Agrawal, the company’s chief executive, according to five employees who attended and were not authorized to talk publicly, according to the New York Times.

Among the most pressing issues: Was this takeover bid for real? And if so, will Mr. Musk overhaul the service that many of Twitter’s employees have spent years thinking about, tweaking and refining with a painstaking level of care?

We, Filipinos, don’t mind it as long as Twitter has been giving us quality service and quick access to what it happening around the world as part of our daily life as social media addicts.

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IT’S OUR FAULT, ACTUALLY. We were created with flat teeth because we are not supposed to be carnivore; therefore, we can’t eat meat but only vegetables.

But when Prometheus discovered fire and handed the knowledge to mankind, we learned how to cook and thus we started to eat meat–and started to suffer heart attack due to high cholesterol.

Let us eat more vegetables and fruits and less meat. Let us minimize if not totally stop the wanton slaughter of animals.

STAND UP STRAIGHT. This sounds so ridiculously simple, but it’s one of the most evidential traits of those women we so admire. Stand against a wall with head, shoulder blades, and heels touching, and buttocks pushed into the wall.

THE SUN IS OUR SKIN’S NO. 1 ENEMY. We should always make sun protection a priority. Let’s use a sunscreen formulated for our skin along with our moisturizer. Much of the evidence of aging, rough skin, wrinkles, age spots, etc. are really the result of too much sun.

CONTROL THE EMOTION. A man’s bad temper is the number one cause of his downfall.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo.—Ed)