AT FIRST, I thought everything was just a simple case of agreeing to disagree. But let us just face it, people these days seem to love and live on that, to argue for its own sake. Not so much to resolve anything though, or arrive at an impasse even, but just to merely run through the motions of it all and just to be heard, which is the most important thing.
I guess for many, that has been the bottom line. In this digitally ruled global village, one’s own opinions can now sail a long way off as if to seek refuge among other voices of a similar kind. The end result is everyone talking at the same time, vividly pictured in the lyrics of that masterpiece, “The Sound of Silence,” which sings of “People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening…”
It has always been this way and somehow, if one reads our history, it has always been that we always get by. Or do we really? Just exactly, where are we at nowadays? Wherever one looks, if people are not locking horns with opposing opinions on vaccines, it’s junk analyses and continuous noise on electoral issues, with the usual mudslinging to make the exercise more entertaining.
On the subject of vaccination against COVID-19, the lines may have clearly been drawn already, even as the government continues to hopefully convince everyone to go out and be vaccinated. The threat of a new variant, as could be seen in the increasing number of positive cases here in the country and in the rest of the world, shows that the virus is still very much with us and will be for an indefinite amount of time. That means we cannot go back to our old way of life as long as it’s here. One would think that this reason alone might cut through the reasoning of those opposed but no.
On the subject of the slowly rising, every growing rumble of election talk on all platforms these days, it’s so much like anticipating Jose Marie Chan singing again come next month. We may think, is this just the result of cabin fever and being cooped up in this quarantine? Or is it an opportunity to take on a fresher topic other than that pesky virus?
The stage is set. While we throw our voices against others down in the arena filled with the saliva of those who came before us ranting about the vaccine, presidentiables, and the future of a new government, we totally miss out on the fact that we still have not attained one voice, much less, healed as one. As a people, as a country, high up in the proverbial tower of Babel, who cares anyway?
