Stagnation

I think Filipinos are smart (generally), creative (in our eccentric aesthetic taste), and hardworking (especially when it comes to piracy) but the flaw in all this is that we allow ourselves to stagnate. Once we're satisfied with something, we stop. Not stop in production but we stop seeking better methods and solutions.

I mean one has just to look outside our windows to see the same jeepneys used several decades ago until today. We used to be a thriving country in Southeast Asia but slowly, the other countries crept up on us and we were left behind. Even Ms. Bellen pointed out earlier in our class that while we may claim that Filipino Children's Literature is still "young", we can't always be using that reason since that's what has always been said ever since. When will we grow?

Perhaps if this were a thesis, I'd even state piracy (duplication) as a sign of this stagnation. I mean in piracy, we merely reproduce another person (or country/company's) product. It's nearly identical to the original but the only innovation going on there is the ability to crack the safeguards the product has against piracy. Even our method of piracy is imported from other countries, like blank CD-Rs or the replicating machines.

Maybe the reason Filipinos are gaining acclaim as computer programmers (a.k.a. virus/worm creators) is because this is one of the few scenarios where Filipinos aren't hampered by limitations and there's a need to evolve and to improve one's "art". I mean when it comes to programming, the playing field is more or less "equal" (well, equal for us considering all the pirate programs and photocopied material available here).

But that's just a theory and the reason I love ramble on my blog is because I don't have to cite my sources and I'm not trying to prove to everyone else that it's actually true (it'd be nice if it was).