Malay mo totoo?

The Logic of Online ‘Cursed’ Messages

I have long been irritated by messages that I’m sure you’d find in your e-mail inboxes, YM offline messages or friendster/myspace bulletins. Some controversial header would catch your attention: “Yahoo Messenger is Shutting Down”, “Urgent, please read” or as absurd as “Don’t Open”, “My family was massacred”, “Walang Pasok!” or “Crush Kita”, “Goodbye”. You’ll get curious so you’ll open the message and lo and behold, a message strikes fear on you, “Since you opened this message, someone will call you by phone and you’ll die in seven days, unless you repost this” or try “Repost this message quickly and blessings will come to you in 3 days.”

And you wonder why such absurd messages run amok in the internet. So let us analyze this social phenomenon, shall we? The message is obviously designed to attract your attention. Because curiosity is a human thing, and no one can resist opening a message with a header “Do not read”, you open it. To your shock, the message has that FEAR factor. Familiar thoughts would come to mind: “What if this is true?” or “I won’t lose anything naman if I repost this.” Applying a twisted version of Pascal’s Wager, you just say “If this is true and I repost this, nothing will happen to me because I just did what the post told me to do. But if in case this isn’t true, nothing will happen to me as well.”

Well truth be told, Gossip has those same elements with these so-called “Online Doomsayers”.

It’s like saying, “Don’t tell this to anyone ha?” to make the person interested in what you’d say. Then you change your voice modulation, with an eerie ghostly feel to it: “Because you’ve listened to me, you’ll die in seven days.”

Apparently these rumors are rampant among us Filipinos, because we still believe in what we call, ‘chamba’ or ’swerte/malas”. Everything depends on chances. “Malay mo totoo. Wala naman mawawala di ba kung gagawin mo?” That train of thought has the assumption that there’s no telling if this is true. Chances are, these might happen. Wala naman mawawala di ba? I beg to disagree. Something was indeed lost. That is, our will to choose, that capacity to summon our energies to redirect our so-called ‘fate’. Lose that and you’d just end up being a victim of circumstances (in this case, a victim of a measly piece of message) and not a mover in history.

I mean, c’mon… would you even believe a baseless statement?

Would you believe “The Earth is Flat” simply because I said it? Of course not. All the more so, considering the one reposting the message you just received just got tricked by that message. One can logically conclude that the sender of the message is a ‘victim’ of the message that was sent.

So here is my suggestion. If you ever encounter such message again, even if it threatens you by telling you, “If you don’t repost this, something terrible will happen to your family”, don’t believe it. You’re not a victim of ‘what ifs’ and other irrational statements. You have every right not to believe simply because it doesn’t have any basis at all. Don’t be easily convinced and resort to resignation.

Trust me, you’ll save people in your email address book from reading another message that may yet waste their precious time. Just treat it as spam.

~resplend3nt

Libraries as marks of civilization

i’ve always been fascinated about libraries. a library is not just a boring repository of printed material. instead, i’ve always seen it as a mark of civilization. it describes what kind of civilization a culture has or what sort of potential a society has. whenever i watch asian films, i get instantly captivated by the “books” kept in the libraries. the circular library in Hero for example, is so wonderful. books in the form of bamboo scrolls. in beijing, i actually saw sun tzu’s art of war carved in one such bamboo scroll. very interesting. in dae jang geum, the medical library had shelves of books on oriental medicine, complete with the illustrations of ginseng and even an octopus.  the massive library in ancient egypt, which is lost to history, makes us imagine what sort of things were kept as a foundation for the next generations.  in the west…the trinity library built by queen elizabeth the first, is overwhelming to say the least. it’s as if you’re swimming in an ocean of books.  in the playful vein, what about the library in lemony snicket’s a series of unfortunate events? haha… very amusing. who can forget the futuristic library in star wars??!! whoa… that’s something.  even the world of super hi-tech can’t live without a library! whatever form a library has, it necessarily sheds light on the salient characteristics that are crucial in forwarding culture. there’s a simple rule of thumb that is useful. a small decrepit library of a large population denotes a lack of vision and a lack of importance given to learning. a large library on the other hand (think about the 14 floor national library of singapore), denotes the recognition that the cultivation of the person through learning is integral in the building of a culture, society or nation.

one time, i was in the restroom of a five star hotel. some ladies were chatting. one lady had the problem of not knowing how to spend her 1 million.  her friend advised her to spend it on a diamond. i almost blurted out…. BUILD A LIBRARY! but in the end, building a library THAT WILL MATTER FOR THE AGES TO COME, does not depend on who has the most resources. rather, it’ll depend on who carries great visions & dreams and who bears a big heart for the future generations.

–The Fool