Let It Go
(cross-posted from my blog)
It is the Tao of the schoolyard: the best way to deal with the bully is not to stand up to him, but to walk away. It is not cowardice or self-preservation, but a matter of denying the bully his power. It is a matter of being bigger than the bully, of being more capable than he will ever be in letting it go.
“It,” to the Filipino nation today, is the “Desperate Housewives” issue. As of this writing, a troop of Filipino healthcare professionals are protesting outside the ABC Studios in New York demanding more than an apology for how they were “demeaned.” It’s just like a schoolyard: only the game is played in cyberspace. Everywhere from YouTube and online petition services, we see some Filipinos rising up in indignation… or maybe something to that degree.
Master Yoda says that anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. We have now come to that point where anger over Teri Hatcher is slowly metamorphosing into hatred, and in many cases, sheer anti-Americanism. One need only see a protester outside the ABC Studios bearing a placard with the word “bigot” in it.
I cannot blame the Filipino: 300 years of being considered second-class human beings by colonizers have led us to believe that we should also extract our pound of flesh. Restitution in the Philippines has always been equated with retribution, and justice is put at the same level as revenge. It’s the same everyday story of the schoolyard bully: a man murdering his father’s killer, the demand that Joseph Estrada go to jail, Joey de Leon demanding that Willie Revillame apologize for the umpteenth time. The “Desperate Housewives” protest is just another one of those things where the blinding flash of anger becomes a heavy burden. The only way to get rid of a burden is to let it go.
As long as we keep weeping – and weeping – and dwelling – and dwelling – over the “racist remark” made in “Desperate Housewives,” we will never leave the schoolyard. The boy who stands up for his manhood in the schoolyard stands up to the actuality of a busted nose, a bloodied lip, and a black eye. It is not cowardice to walk away and let go: it is cowardice to stay in the schoolyard trying to pick a fight when you only win in the schoolyard of your dreams.
Any person who has had an experience with a bully in the schoolyard will know that you cannot expect an apology or anything more when you stand up to him. To be above the bully, though, means to do something a bully can never do: walk away and let it go. As long as you’re in the schoolyard, you can never defeat the bully. To deny the bully his power means to fight him where he can’t fight back: where the strength of your character far surpasses the strength of his fist.
