Olsim: Advanced mag-isip

THE “advance akong mag-isip” meme is probably the funniest Filipino meme I’ve encountered since I made my Facebook account 8 or 9 years ago. For those who live under a rock, or those who have not visited their social media pages for some time, the meme came from the interview of a young call center agent who was recently arrested for drug dealing. He justified his actions by saying that he had envisioned himself using the drug money to improve the local economy, or to do good for the country by running for public office – according to him, that is how advance his mind works.

The social media then exploded with the funniest expressions and quotes using “advance akong mag-isip” as the final punchline – “di na ako gagawa nang homework, babagsak din naman ako...advance akong mag-isip!” or, “di na ako magdadiet, tataba rin naman ako...advance akong mag-isip eh!” or the latest on the Gilas-Boomers ‘basketbrawl’; “bugbogan na, talo din naman tayo...advance magisip” etcetera.

The joke, however, can turn unnecessarily gloomy when analyzed by a drunken pessimist – “why work when we die anyway?”, “why bother to love, when we will get hurt anyway”... “why have kids, when they will grow up and leave us anyway?”. The thing is, everything in life ends in some way or another. That is the absurd reality that we must accept...nothing lasts forever. Perhaps, what is more valuable is the process rather than the product, the journey rather than the destination, the actual experience rather than the proof of such experience, the climb rather than the summit.

That is why they say “enjoy the game” and not the results of the game. That is why we play songs and enjoy the music until its final beat. That is why we let icecream linger on our mouth longer before we swallow it. That is why we live our lives like adventure stories, and elude thinking too much of the story books’ endings.

The “advance akong mag-isip” logic, however, should be applicable in planning for the future of our communities, and our country in general. Hence, economic efforts shall lean towards ‘Sustainable development” – development that meets the needs of the present but does not sacrifice the resources or the assets of the future generations. Our failure to consider this idea makes us backward-thinkers...definitely, not advance mag-isip.

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In a recent guiding duty, a foreigner friend wondered if Benguet infrastructure people do not care about their public comfort rooms since according to him, he has yet to see a clean and orderly public toilet in his years of visits to the province. I can only reply with a lip service or cheap assurance that our requests for clean and good public toilets are on their way to realization. During the recent orientation for Benguet’s tourism plan, almost all tourism stakeholders demand for a world-class toilet that reflects the quality of the Benguet People – who would wish otherwise? As tourism workers, of course we dream for great access, decent infrastructure or facilities, and excellent service systems. Overcoming the challenges to the said vision is part of our journey which we call work.

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