typography II - in dependence

Is it just me, or has the celebration of Independence Day lost footing and relevance to the current generation? Considering that this year is also Jose Rizal’s 150th Birth Anniversary? Has the significance of independence or even the idea/ concept of it been lost in the masses, whose short attention span is currently being hoarded by the amoral volleys between a self-righteous proselytizing church and the smear campaign exploits against a legitimately elected president? Have we fallen prey to indifference and other various follies perpetrated by an encroaching global mindset, or do we simply do not care for it anymore? That the idea of democracy and independence, sovereignty and vox populi have been implored, invoked, used, and abused to the point of utter desensitizing?

The idea that democracy is a privilege and not a birthright has been lost in the memory, and consciousness, of the younger generations. Even the history of our unending plight against the debilitating servitude of colonialism, and the struggle to relieve ourselves from the tresses of this enforced assimilation, is too alien, detached and distant, for the youth today to even begin to comprehend and contemplate. In fact, the very concept of democracy, essentially, has been deformed and diluted into meaning absolute, infallible, automatic, and deserved free will. This is the sort of freedom that may very well lead to anarchy and social unrest, or in our case, political fickle-mindedness.

The ignorant and arrogant have obfuscated the idea of independence, misconstruing it as an all-access pass to self-righteous, self-serving, and self-entitling indignant selfishness. They have become dependent on the belief and précis that their independence, as citizens of this sovereign country, protects them from misguided or detrimental preferentialism. Thus, they fail to recognize that our inherent regionalism and provinciality harbors this very elitism and discrimination.

Maybe it’s not the idea of independence itself that erroneous, but how the public interprets and valuates this thought. Independence by definition is positive, in that it affords an individual the capacity to decide for himself devoid of any perceptible dissuading or inciting from coercion or convincing. However, when independence is taken loosely as an unmindful expression of pure and absolute free will, applicative to the whole spectrum of human cognition and experience, what we get is sheer venal egotism parading as a human right, which is in many ways inhumane and detrimental to social structure and order.

So what does it really mean to be independent? It is more than the sum of our human rights, and way more than the simple function of deciding the fate of ourselves. Think about it, are we really, truly, undeniably independent? Even on this day and age of open-source information and global socio-economic inclusion, the semblances of our culture are the threads that bind us together. The summation of our nuances, mannerisms, discriminations and dispositions is the value that which defines us as a culture. We are never fully independent of being Filipino, nor are we beyond ourselves. The very action of imagining dreams, borrowed futures, discontent and its myriad manifestations, creates the dependency that affords us focus and determination, will and perseverance. Our very resilience, an oft-used descriptive for the typical expatriate Filipino, is a product of dependence on various things – faith, will to succeed and/ or survive, and fear of disappointing the family.

Truth is, although it may seem absurd to the purist and myopic, independence comes at a price. That democracy cannot be practiced by the rule of all, but rather the quorum and thereby through the function of compromise, is a detail most have conveniently overlooked. Independence, thus, requires responsibility, as a nation, a citizen, an individual, and a human being. To be independent obligates one to act responsibly, to be self-aware of how a decision could be advantageous or otherwise to others. The faculty to balance this is the value that reflects one’s independence.

Independence is the gun that we point upon our own temples, the Russian roulette that spells either total anarchical hegemony or benevolent altruism. Its effects are a cobwebbed and shifty weave that touches as all, minute and subtle for some, massively devastating for others. The actions we discern on our own discretion prevail and transcend beyond the future of self. How we wield this independence reflects upon us, as it cumulatively does on our nation. The trigger is delicate, precariously tethering under the weight of our fingertips, and the outcome always extremist, self-damning or redemptive.  The day we learn this and act in accordance to what it entails, is the day we can call ourselves independent.



Text using Rockwell font.
Graphic done using CorelDRAW X5.