Solipsism: Human ignorance in the time of COVID-19 (and all of modern time)
For of the people’s [Word] Of The Moment Series
“Solipsism” /sol-ip-sis-m/
(n.) The philosophical view that the self is all that can be certain to exist; that the self cannot be aware of anything else except itself. (Thanks, Wikipedia.)
I’m in the kitchen. It’s my fourth try at Dalgona coffee and I really just can’t seem to reach the needed texture and fluffiness of the coffee cream to call it a success. I’ve tried every single method available so far but I was still to no avail. I checked the fridge and I’m almost out of milk from trying. How will I have my coffee now?
I went to my mother and asked if we could go out to the grocery to please buy more milk. In her words, “Hindi kayo mamamatay nang walang gatas.” or in English, you will not die without milk. Which was true. We had food at home, enough to handle a household of 7 for a month or so. We could call for delivery anytime we wanted to, and here I was, panicking and feeling like my life would fall apart without a glass of milk for a week.
Earlier today, there was a protest held in Sitio San Roque, Quezon City. Members of the community gathered together on the side of the road and held a protest, claiming that they have been starving and that the local government has not provided any aid as promised. Instead of providing aid, 21 individuals were arrested in a violent manner by police force.
It was late at night, around 9pm I recall, and I was scrolling on Twitter looking at what other people have been up to during the quarantine. I came across a series of tweets live-quoting Duterte’s address on the current issue. I found a link to the stream and watched it myself.
“Do not intimidate [the] government. Do not challenge [the] government. Matatalo kayo sigurado.” Duterte says. (You will certainly lose.) He then mentioned the incident that occurred earlier. “Magtiis na lang siguro kayo ng delayed delivery pero dadating yan.” (Just be patient with the delayed delivery but it will come.) He said. Duterte then followed with the statement: “Hindi kayo mamamatay sa gutom.” (You will not die of hunger.)
Now this is a completely different statement compared to what my mom said earlier. My mother’s words made me realize that there are a lot more difficult things happening to other people right now. Hearing these words from our president somehow felt the same way, that one’s hunger was to be not much of a problem. Reading the statement again, and giving it a bit more thought, I instead inferred that he meant (in the plainest manner ) to be patient and to be secure and trust in the government, that we will not die of hunger. Reading it a third time, though, and pondering on it a bit more, you think again.
Weeks before, Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said in response to the criticism towards the NCR lockdown: “Walang namamatay sa gutom. Ang isang buwan, hindi ka pa mamamatay.” (No one dies of hunger. In a month, you still won’t die.)
“Walang namamatay sa gutom. Ang isang buwan, hindi ka pa mamamatay.”
No one dies of hunger. It’s disturbing to see how we’ve chosen these detached individuals to lead our nation at a time like this; that their own citizens see their own death not by the coronavirus, but from hunger. What is even more disturbing is to see how these officials, instead of stepping down to further understand their citizens and their concerns, have the audacity to keep themselves on a pedestal and gaslight the needs of others: the sick, the hungry and the dying.
Maybe it could be true that no one really dies from hunger, but rather from the selfishness and greed of the people around and above us.
We’re in a difficult time. There’s literally no other way to put it; to think how the world has reached a million cases of the novel coronavirus the first week of April after it was first detected in December, with the numbers even tripling weeks after.
This coronavirus won’t even be the last of it. As long as global temperatures continue to rise and as we return to our “normal” after we are stuck in quarantine, we are bound to face more difficult and stubborn situations to be led by stubborn national leaders and worsened by an *even more stubborn* population that follows by their example.
There is a solution, though. This solution is nothing new or fancy or too scientific of any sort. We’ve been hearing the same thing over and over again, and yet we choose to remain deaf to our own detriment.
We look at ourselves as higher beings, putting ourselves on a pedestal above everything else — the ideas, beliefs and religion of others, our Earth, and most especially from each other, too. It’s both impressive yet incredibly disheartening to see that in this social world full of people and beautiful things and creatures, we’ve created a world for just ourselves — not for each other, but for the fulfillment of our own selves.
We often get caught up in our own personal desires and ideas that we tend to forget that what we have on this earth is limited, and that we are not the only ones on this planet. We live in a social world, full of people of different backgrounds, shapes, colors, and sizes, full of things of life that crawl and bloom, a world that is definitely not ours only. We live in a world that is not ours to own, but ours to learn, collaborate and coexist upon. We need to learn to break down the walls that we have put up from one another — be it due to a difference in beliefs, religion, skin color, accent, whatnot — because no one is above the other in this world. We live in a world where there are no real winners; most especially if we put down others to raise ourselves up. Putting ourselves on pedestals does not put us above the rest, but instead further separates us from one another. We forget that we all need one another to coexist: our differences to strengthen each other, our minds to connect and form bigger ideas, our hearts to love one another.
We create too many boundaries to separate ourselves from one other, and yet we still fail to acknowledge how some of us are more privileged than the other. We forget to listen and come to the aid of the struggles of others simply because they are not our own. Most people from the upper and middle classes — among those our very own government officials — are often blinded by their own privilege, failing to be empathetic towards those in the lower classes and their situation. It may be easy to say “Why can’t you motherf*ckers stay at home?” when one does have a home, or has enough means to sustain a home, or has the privilege to work from home, but why do we find it difficult to understand that others do not?
The clear lack of empathy, concern and understanding and the absence of a sense of urgency among our government officials towards this pandemic and how it has affected billions of lives, most especially those who have lost their jobs, has not only caused the numbers to go up, but it also has further divided our nations when what we need now more than ever is unity.
We keep wanting more for ourselves, but it might be too late when we finally realize that soon enough, we won’t have anything left for any of us — regardless of our status in this society. We live in a world where we are taught to want, be, and have more than what we already have; but we often look to the wrong things for this so called “more,” the more that should be saved for other people who lack it and need it. We need to redirect our desire for more to a better purpose — to be more understanding accountable, transparent, just, and most of all, more humane.
But until then,
Perhaps we may really be a lonely species, after all.
A lonely, solipsistic species indeed.
of the people’s [Word] Of The Moment series is a weekly mini-publication relating a new word or concept to a current and relevant issue today. This week, Chiara Tolentino relates the concept of solipsism to human ignorance in modern time, particularly towards the current COVID-19 situation and the government efforts involved.
If you’d like to submit to the series a word, a concept, a topic or a piece of writing, you can email us at weareofthepeople@gmail.com with your name, age and city. We would love to hear from you and have you be part of this growing community.
