All too often, those who prate about the quality of human life, those who proclaim their devotion to what is true, human, and abiding, mistake the pimples of their sensitive petty-burgeois souls for the more mundane concerns of the great mass of their fellowmen, whose “anguish” is usually tied up with painfully concrete realities – how to stretch eight pesos a day in order to feed a family of six three times a day, and have enough to spare for the rent, the light, the water, and a new pair of shoes for the school-age kid. I think particularly of Camus, that exquisite existentialist, the humane observer who was so caught up in the contemplation of the eternal verities that when his countrymen in Algeria rose up in revolt, on the very concrete issues of “bread and the land” (in the words of Frantz Fanon), he was taken by surprise, and ended up rejecting, repudiating, virtually condemning his people’s struggle, which didn’t fit his definition of what was true, human, and abiding.
Sa kasamaang-palad, hindi ninyo ito magagamit sa labas ng kampus, dahil magagalit sa inyo ang mga manang at kardinal kung ang inyong malayang kaisipan ay gagamitin lamang ninyo sa pamomroblema tungkol sa ating sumasabog na populasyon, o sa panonood ng mga pelikulang katulad ng Kung ang Bigas Naging Palay, May Bumayo. Pero hindi kayo dapat padala sa pesimismo. Hindi kayo dapat mawalan ng pag-asa.