Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Yap: Dementia praecox II
By Januar E. Yap
Meanwhile
So let’s continue with our lesson on dementia, otherwise known as schizophrenia. We said something about its escapist beginnings. Unable to cope with real life, one turns to the warm folds of the imagination, to fan-tasy. The potential schizo, with an undeveloped ego, thanks to a dysfunctional family structure, gradually loses hold of reality. Worse, the eyes turn their vision inwards, into that kaleidoscopic void inside his mind. For one moment, I thought I just dropped an oxymoron. But, no, a schizo’s mind sees empty spaces differently. I guess that explains why “mad artists” sounds like a redundancy. The artist, of course, tames madness with a special skill.
Madness, I suppose, probably starts as a small act of defending oneself from a hurt.
Let’s project the equation, a society under duress, soothes itself by turning to what is pleasant and available. People turn to movies, gambling, to soap opera, as a way of escape, to make a crisis bearable. Didn’t Marx say something about religion being the opium for the masses? A potential schizo, on the other hand, merely daydreams at the hint of a hurt.
The tragedy, I suppose, in our country is that the Filipino masa, that large bulk of the populace that facilitated the most undeserving candidates into the seats of power, is a demented lot. It is one that found education in the academe of FPJ movies. Resigned to the cycle of poverty, they find solace seeing the awesome swish of Ang Panday’s dagger. The FPJ character and the triumphant twists of fates in his movie plots perfectly embody the masa’s dreams, levitate them to heights of hopefulness. They are seduced by their promise.
In the end, people dwell in the realm of entertainment like it is real life. Like the schizophrenic, they have long lost touch of reality. What is FPJ in the movies is FPJ in real life. What is in the movies, in fact, is real life. You don’t have to scorn and scoff at that fact. It is precisely that one true dementia praecox that placed us where we are today, tugging at the tail of Asia’s tigers.
How do you deal with schizophrenia?
(February 11, 2004 issue)
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