obama, frankl and me

I usually don't write/react/care much about politics. In grade school, I used to dream of being a lawyer/senator and my highlight of a grade school trip was entering the senate hall and getting the grand tour. I loved the smell, the aura of greatness and the power I imagined people wielded, to be able to change the country.

Sheesh, I was a naive little girl then.

Well, other things and events have shaped me since then and I’ve been averse to anything political- especially ours.

I blogged about The Audacity of Hope sometime back, in relation to a news item of a child gone mad enough to take her own life. I didn’t realize that the phrase audacity of hope which I just glanced upon in a BusinessWorld headline actually came from a book of the same title by the newest political celebrity, Obama. He’s quite becoming the poster boy for positivism. What I’m glad about though is that his (positivity) is the sort that hinges on action, and not the wide-eyed Pollyanna.

In his speech addressing the Democratic National Convention in 2004, Obama said: “In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope. I'm not talking about blind optimism here -- the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!” Thank you, wiki.

Well. Mahal ko na siya.

I don’t care that his book (of the same title) is reviewed as more of a political document, highlighting speeches and his platform for campaigns. And I also wish I could say something about Pinoy politics, but damn, it’s so dirty and convoluted, I don’t even want to start. Except that…is there no place for hope-fools like Obama in the Philippines? In a place where most talents opt to leave the country for a better life, can we afford hope?

If hoping is for fools, then I pray we be all fools for clinging on such old-fashioned values such as being strong and honorable. Getting down, sucking it up and getting to work because, by God, we all need to get our acts together, as a nation and what the heck- it’s Earth Hour today, as citizens of the world. Apathy is disgusting. Playing victim is so last season. Doing every bit in looking for solutions is part of that actionable hope. In a word, proactive.

[The word proactive pala, I remember is a term by psychiatrist Victor Frankl in his book Man’s Search for Meaning- a book based on his experience in Nazi concentration camps where he lost his wife, mother, father and family. Kaloka, ka-depress this book, but so rich in life lessons. Proactive was more popularized via Covey’s Seven Habits]