These are indeed interesting times, and it’s doubly so here in the Philippines. I felt that I had to write something in order to get my thoughts in line with what’s been going on and what I can do to make the most of it. This goes beyond my own prejudices, biases, political leanings, and religious beliefs. I’m not one for political commentary as I’m neither smart, driven, nor qualified enough to do it well. But perhaps it’s now time for it’s open season.
This website, the YouTube channel, and the social media accounts are my platform for saying whatever I want, and I haven’t taken full advantage of them thus far. I’m of the belief that opinions expressed in great frequency without long-term weight behind them are wasted and bound for the aether. That’s why I stay my tongue most of the time. However, here is both a dark era and a gold mine rolled into one.
And it’s doubly so here in the Philippines.
WTF Am I Talking About?
The day before, I wrote this post on why I believed in democracy more than autocracy. Then the US Election took place, and BOOM. Six months before, we had our own similar moment with a loose cannon being elected into office. (I’m not that vehemently against said loose cannon, but I’m wary of him nonetheless.)
Obviously, this blog post was written because of the election of spray tan enthusiast Donald Trump into office. If there’s one thing I can give him, he knows how to win in life somehow, no matter how classless he does it. He has put liberals, social justice warriors, and the like into the dirt by showing how lack of vigilance and hubris can go so wrong.
But while he hasn’t officially entered office yet, cries of terror have been reverberating the once-cavernous echo chambers that these people used to listen to themselves with. Many of them are now rallying to prepare for a long drawn-out war against what can be described as a hulking brainless mass.
Here in the Philippines, we’ve had for six months as of this writing an elected who I can describe as a human equivalent of Azathoth of Lovecraftian lore—a brainless hulking mass, seemingly inconceivable and bent only on chaos. His followers are blasphemers themselves, and they’ve recently enshrined He Who Must Not Be Named into our equivalent of Valhalla.
Surely, these must indeed be dark times, but maybe there’s a silver lining in all of this.
Can Anything Good Come Out of This?
Every negative has to have a positive beneath it, no matter how dark and gruesome. In the darkest of times, humor and creativity become tools of survival. When things get this ugly, you have to laugh at it somehow or lest ye be consumed by the darkness itself. When you stare into the abyss long enough, you have to spit a loogie into it when it starts to stare back at you.
I must say that I don’t take as much stock in what they tend to say off-the-cuff in front of the cameras. I’m the same kind of guy who thinks trashtalk in professional combat sports is entirely utilitarian and holds no weight in the grand scheme of things. But of course, taking it way too lightly can become regrettable later on. There’s no surefire way to predict the weather, after all.
All actions have consequences, including what I’m about to get myself into.
The full slogan to this Avoiderdragon brand is, “Exploring experience through digital adventure and amusement engineering.” It’s now time to exercise the full extent of that phrase and tap into the full potential of this platform, no matter how small it may be. My head is swimming in ideas right now, and I’ll have to really get started and grind harder.
It has been mostly about banal things like recreational entertainment and pop culture. That’s not going away, but commentary must now be injected with the vitriol of politics. Ill-advised, to be sure, but it’s a direction I know I’m fully capable of taking.
Let’s see if we can find a way to polish this turd. Maybe there’s lemonade to be made from these lemons. If there’s somehow a gold mine or oil to be found beneath all this seemingly impenetrable rock, we’ll find a way somehow.
Strap yourselves in. We are now truly open for business. The world is open for play.
Open season. Time to hunt.
