Question Everything.

What always fascinated me is our capacity, as Filipinos, to have a complete lack of appreciation for sarcasm and deadpan humor.

Case in point: during a conversation with an older female relative, she asked me tenderly whether I loved her.

"Well, sometimes", I said. "The chances are greater if you put my name in your will".

She pouted. But soldiered on, and asked me, "Aalagaan mo ako kapag matanda na ako, di ba?"

"Nope", I replied. "Itatapon kita sa nursing home, kahit inalagaan mo ako ng matagal nung bata ako".

"Bastos ka talaga! Punyeta."

"Joke lang. Para namang di mo ako kilala", I answered.

At this point, I had to backtrack and buy her a couple of bottles of red.

She's known me, and my sense of (non)humor for 10 years. This is the same case for Filipino acquaintances, friends, miscellany.

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It's a completely different case with my coworkers and friends. Here's an anecdote (from...Monday, I think):

G fired the first question. "How'd the weekend go?"

"Same old, turning tricks. I think I still have some cum in my teeth.", I said.

He tried not to laugh. He then asked, "So, what made you turn gay anyway? I can't understand how you people turn into homosexuals. How can someone like dick up their ass?"

"I think it was in grade school, when a man tried to show me his Tootsie Roll at the back of a semi.", I reply. We try hard not to laugh. He fails, and snorts.

"Or was it when I fucked your mother?", I reply. "I don't know anymore, man."

We burst out laughing.

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Which leads me to think about it, this Saturday afternoon, while I'm having stale coffee in between cigarette meals. Why don't we get/appreciate it?

Is it a culture thing? Come to think of it, a big chunk of mainstream media has black humor in trace amounts, in some cases not even acknowledging the existence of it.

Is it our not-too-finely tuned emotional antennas that rarely pick up anything expressed without the subtlety of a sledgehammer?

Is it the older culture that hammered the idea that "pamimilosopo" is wrong and is punishable by a hundred lashes of Tatay's Belt Of Terror?

Or is it because I'm wrong, and there may be a lot more Filipinos who dig black humor, but I've been only exposed to a circle that dislikes it?

Or is it because black humor is intrinsically wrong, and I'm a sick, maladjusted fuck for liking it too much?

Who the fuck knows.

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For the record:

 - I'm pro-gay/lesbian/bisexual/trans
 - I love my family
 - and before you say "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit", read some fucking WIlde, Hemingway, Kafka - heck, just read.

Fuck you. Fuck you hard.

Fuck the sense of tradition that you distill in the hearts of a lot of your inhabitants. The tradition that says "This is the only way". The tradition that recycles old, failed ways again and again, and never learns. The tradition that is wielded like an authority, when it has no fucking merit at all.

Fuck your hivemind. The goddamned unwritten law that makes not listening to what others listen to, not watch what others watch, not do as everyone does, a fucking social crime. I do not have to be a lemming to fit in.

Fuck your present-day "revolutionaries". The ones who are there because it's "cool". The ones who are there because it's "radical". The ones who are there, screaming about change, but doing nothing to induce it. Endlessly quoting dead, failed leaders for some hope that it gives them some semblance of mental stamina.

Fuck your fads. Fads exist in other places, but not to the extent that yours do, magnified to the extent that hardly anyone can be different. Career choices, University picks, Musical/fashion tastes, THE WHOLE FUCKING MINDSET.

Fuck your ability to stage a revolution, a "reenactment" of your past, dead glories - and your current passivism when faced with a leader that criminalizes dissent, blatantly lies, and actively participates in corrupt, dirty tricks to your face - while you sit there in front of the television, treating it as some sort of a reality TV show.

This is Ding, and I fucking hate you all.