#MINDANAO
Many dictionaries such as Collins will define level-headed as being calm in difficult situations. In today’s world full of uncertainties, this is a superpower.
Since 2020, I have been exposed to continual chaos. The only respite from this is Holy Week and Christmas when the world around me conspires to stand still against the uncertainties and disruptions that drive many to despair due to the sheer amount of information.
Based in Mindanao, I have long believed I was far removed from all the wranglings and tangles of power in the nation’s capital and the centers of power in the wider world. Yet since the pandemic, the ubiquitous smartphone, social media feed, chatroom, and Netflix account have brought the world deep into my ear, keeping my eyes fixed on the scroll of competing external realities, novelties, and viral emotional treats to pull my attention in. This disturbs the focus and mitigates against calm.
Being level-headed is a superpower since it makes us calm and able to focus on the tasks ahead, which, in most cases, bear an immediate impact on us, since dealing with what is at hand will influence how well the next steps will be dealt with. Unfortunately, being hooked on our social media feeds and their algorithms tends to derail our concentration, taking us worlds away from the immediate, and thrusting us into a constant daydream.
Being level-headed is a state that is built by strengthening the virtues of temperance and prudence, something I wrote about last Jan. 14. What it will need, is for us to cultivate the discipline to focus on what matters. This, in turn, requires a deep set of values. The more the distraction, the deeper we will need to dig to examine what is important to us.
Knowing all of this, I will probably be looking at the impact of Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency. I know it unnerves and inspires a good number of people. This returning US President has managed to run in three successive US Presidential elections, win in two, with the second victory coming despite many legal challenges against him.
The voter base that elected him this time around seems more diverse than it was in 2016. It therefore seems that political conservatives in the US have built a wider base, and will likely extend that influence to many countries including our own. Whether we like it or not, his election will shape our own views of history, politics and culture in the coming years.
Among his many executive orders, I am interested in monitoring what could emerge from the declassified Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy files. I wonder what new information these may bring to our global cultural consciousness, noting how these men, and their deaths, formed part of many recollections of the global political ferment of the 1960s, shaping how many of us view politics even today. Their lives and death were historical guideposts even for us in the Philippines, given the high level of admiration that many Filipinos had for them.
In all, we must be unfazed by the goings on in the world, including the changes we are seeing. I believe temperance and prudence informed by our values should make us all level-headed, helping us calmly navigate this world, to cut through the noise, confusion, and uncertainty, and, in turn, derive purpose, meaning and inner peace.