ONE Sunday afternoon, a friend was sharing memories of his college years, more particularly about the professor who would tell his students, “If you get inside the septic tank, you’ll get sophisticated,” and “The books in the library are absolute.”
It’s easy to see what’s right or wrong if you know the rules.
If you don’t know the rules, differentiating right from wrong is possible through common sense. For example, if a professor is right there in front of the classroom, giving lessons about septic-tank suffocation and the library’s obsolete books, it will still be disrespectful for a student to suddenly stand beside him unless the professor himself asked the student to do so.
Another example. A student doesn’t like the professor who says sophisticated instead of suffocated, and absolute instead of obsolete, so he brings his own favorite professor to replace this professor without asking permission from the dean.
But what if the professor actually says suffocated for suffocated, and obsolete for obsolete, what will then be the student’s excuse to replace him with someone who says sophisticated for suffocated, and absolute for obsolete?
“R-E-S-P-E-C-T/Find out what it means to me,” as the Aretha Franklin song goes.
The opposite of respect is bastos which can start in a situation where there’s a sense of entitlement such as what a grafting and corrupting politician has when he uses the national treasury as his own piggy bank. There’s the 20-something who parks at the space intended for senior citizens. And there’s this Pinoy proverb: “A fly that lands on a carabao feels itself to be higher than the carabao.”
There are times when the non-billionaire behaves like a billionaire. When the staff behaves like a boss. When the vice president behaves like a president.
Less responsibilities, less knowledge, and less wisdom produce more clamor for relevance. The billionaire, the boss, and the president will always be remembered, while those lower in rank may require proof of life.
I remember this certain individual who always reserved a seat for the most relevant person in her universe. She would order anyone who happened to be sitting on that chair to scram, so that she’s assured of always being seated right next to most-relevant-person. Yes, she was the fly, and most-relevant-person was the carabao.
There was that one evening when the fly was tasked to introduce us to visitors from Manila. Thus began her monologue: this is so-and-so, owner of the world; so-and-so, creator of Heaven and Earth; so-and-so, she’s the central bank of Cagayan de Oro; so-and-so, president of a multiverse… I was supposed to be the next but she decided to ignore me and proceeded to continue with the other people next to me: Her Majesty The Queen; so-and-so, the Daughter of God.
One of the Manila visitors noticed that I was omitted, so he introduced himself to me and that’s when he realized I was the Netnet he had been communicating with. He then introduced me to the other members of the Manila contingent.
Where is the fly now? I heard she’s looking for a new carabao because the carabao she used to reserve a seat for, doesn’t like to be used, misused, and abused anymore.
