One of the unfortunate side-effects of the rise of Facebook is that kids nowadays have actually drifted further and further away from writing. Not banging away quick and easy retorts to Facebook comments and current events; not the tortured compositions that pass for profundity in various status updates throughout the social webs; not the gonzo “ansaveh???” reactions to equally ludicrous statements by others.
No, not any of that. I mean real writing; the act of setting words down that, in their various combinations, communicate ideas, meaning, insight, and thereby enrich the minds of their readers.
Now this is actually sort of a general gripe for me; I’m always depressed at this reality. But with the Baranggay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections coming up in October, the discomfort has sharpened up a little bit, to the point where I feel it sticking in my craw everytime I swallow down the acerbic comments I want to make about some lobotomized statement I see online.
That, and I watched Heathers again.
Anyway, for the last few days or so, I’ve been scouring the web looking for long form content from young people – especially people connected with the SK. As you can expect, no joy.
People, I think, especially those who intend to go into public service in one way or the other, have to write more. Especially these youngsters who are gunning for SK in a few months. They’re the ones who should be putting their ideas on paper and submitting those thoughts to the wild wild web for comment, review, and criticism just as much as for praise and recognition.
Neil Gaiman once wrote a story about a parliament of birds, where a murder of crows gathers on an open field, surrounding one specific bird. All the others are silent – eerie enough if you know how chatty crows are – except for this one bird in the middle of everyone else. This one bird caws and and caws while all the others listen. At the end of his “speech,” this one bird stands silent, as if waiting for a reaction. Sometimes, Gaiman writes, the murder just flies off. Other times, they descend on the one bird and peck him to death after his speech.
It’s as if they didn’t like what he said.
The internet can sometimes seem just as harsh, but at the end of it, you live. Not like the poor bird. And living through the storm of criticism, you have a better than average chance of actually getting better – better at writing, at presenting your arguments in support of your idea, at convincing people that you are actually right. Unfortunately, most kids who experiment with writing nowadays just don’t seem to have the moral fortitude to go through all of that.
Which, especially in the case of SK hopefuls, is downright tragic. Being an elected SK official should count for more than just being with the power clique in your neighborhood. In almost every baranggay, there is a sizeable number of children – the SK’s natural constituency – that are deprived of basic education because of poverty or the ignorant negligence of their parents, that spend their after school hours begging when they should be studying or playing, that wander the streets aimlessly until the wee hours of the night.
Anyone then, who wants to win an SK berth, should be able to articulate what ought to be done about those kids. Forget national issues – leave that to the noisy older kids. If you’re fifteen to below eighteen, your attention should be focused more on the problems facing the youth in your immediate community.
And for God’s sake, write about it! The internet is full of people who will read you and tell you – with the brutal honesty that is only possible in the online world – whether or not your ideas are worth anything. On the even brighter side, there will be people who, seeing the potential in your ideas, can make them even better by contributing their own thoughts. Some might even take you up on your call to action. But even if none of that were to happen, then you will have at least put your ideas and your plans out there where people can find them and read them and perhaps be inspired by them. That opportunity alone is worth the effort of setting your words down on paper – or blog.
Start by telling people why they’re wrong about the SK. Start by arguing that the SK structure is capable of doing good for the community. Convince the voters that the SK isn’t some expensive failed experiment. And if you tag me, I’ll repost it here.
So write. WRITE!