Friday, September 13, 2002

View From A Third World

Living in the third world country has its ups and downs. When you're up there, you are rich and down there means one is poor. There's no middle class, just rich and poor. This classification, of course is not equally divided. An impoverished country would have people with such diversity in principles and ideas. Moral values and standard of ethics too differ magnanimously. Graft and corruption, fraud and embezzlement to name a few are prevalent. All things decadent is acceptable by many and condemned by the idealistic few. Everybody just seems to have his or her way around the system. Right and wrong seem to be just left for the Almighty to decide upon come redemption.

Correct me if I'm wrong, if you must ... religion seem to play a major role. It is, afterall, a way of life. It is used in all its glory as an escape for living life. Take the Mid-East conflict, it's all about their religious beliefs. The suicide bombers' massacre in the name of their "Allah". India, in the name of their "Sacred Cow", a lot of people are suffering from malnutrition. The Philippines' unending sovereignty between Catholics and Islam is no different. Whatever religion it is that one practices, we all believe in One All Encompassing Being unless one is an atheist, of course.

Just a thought, we believe... we live our beliefs. In our hearts lie our beliefs... our fate that man by nature is good and bad. In our way of life whatever religion we choose, we all curtail the "badness" in all of us. We all try to be good.

In a third world country, temptations are of greater intensity. It is not a matter of being good but staying good. A decent man earning his keep is surrounded by greed. Crooks go around the system to suit their needs. I don't know ... this is a blog, just streams of thoughts that seem to mean something and yet doesn't seem to make sense at all. I don't know ... perhaps, that is the meaning of life at aged 42.