It’s 6:30PM. In less than an hour I will be attending a meeting composed of three idealistic individuals foolish enough to think they can change the world. Or at least change people’s minds. A while ago I had lunch with a person working in an NGO concerned about social-entrepreneurship - teaching farmers how to create their own end products marketable to the mainstream with their crops, and adding other capabilities such as managing a business. Tomorrow I am planning to meet with another fool, like me. Who thinks he can also start something. Shake the world. Or people off their sleep. 

This morning, the world was tinted with gray. Raindrops dotted on my windshield. The temperature inside my car was nicely cold. Perfect, as I watched raindrops constantly appearing before my wiper sweeps it clean. All that was missing was some Bossa Nova music on the radio, to top the atmosphere. Instead, the radio played “I wanna be a billionaire.”

I hate Bruno Mars’ song lyrics. I don’t like “Just the way you are”, “Billionaire” and “The Lazy song”, songs about loving just the face, about money, about not doing anything in a day. The worst is not doing anything. Last sem I slept for an average of 3-4 hours daily, just so I could finish websites, be a part-time tutor, and do my thesis proposal a whole semester earlier than my batchmates, while on full course load. I was at the library before it even opened, and was inside school ‘til the Matteo Ricci study area closed at midnight. 

This morning, while inside the car, as the rain droned outside and the radio played, as I was embraced by conditioned air, melancholy set in me. I was all alone inside the car. Staring at the wipers. With the radio as my only companion. It was emptiness with airconditioning. And steady rain that couldn’t touch you, isolated in the car. Driving in early morning traffic. Early morning traffic of thoughts.

Now I’m feeling angry. Anger is what pushes me most of the time. To wake up at 4:30 in the morning. To get up and go to the library. To grudgingly work my way through the marathon thesis. It was all anger. Now I’m indignant that someone tells me I don’t do much in my life. Yesterday I was indignant as I listened to the story of the fisherfolk. The host aptly said it, “There’s a belief that poor people are lazy, that’s why they’re poor…” piercing silence filled the venue, as the fisherfolk also listened to what the hostess had just said… “But going out to the sea at 2 or 3 in the morning…” she said this teary-eyed, voice quivering, “and working for 36 hours straight just to get a few fish to feed the family…”

I could not remember how she ended it. But I also felt anger. Anger against the giant commercial establishments that destroyed the coral reefs and, with their kilometer wide nets, swept all the fish away from the small fishermen who earned even lesser than half the minimum wage. Anger against reality. Anger against the fisherman’s moving story. Anger against the pains that those people have to deal with day and night while commercial establishments destroy the environment and the fisherfolk’s livelihood. But most of all, anger against myself.

I was here, driving a car through the morning traffic, almost wishing for Bossa Nova to reach a perfect, melancholic atmosphere, rains delightfully landing everywhere. And there they are in a far-away province, working 36 hours straight for very little, as they continue to be exploited by capitalist giants. Who am I to be indignant when someone tells me I do nothing in my life? For, what is my 16 hours a day compared to their 36 hours straight? I’m just as well am doing nothing. Nothing for them. In fact, I am even helping exploit them. 

I look at a can of sardines. Or any type of fish bought from a commercial giant. And I think about how the lives of the fisherfolk that that one fisherman who travelled all the way here to tell in front of us during AtSCA’s State of the Poor address. Am I angry? All I know is I’m not happy about it. I’m not going to be singing “The Lazy Song” any time soon.

It’s seven. Time to go to the meeting.