Paddle

                          (photo: rappler.com)
Young people are dying. Their death confronts us nightly inside our living rooms via cable TV. There are those who were killed by the police and lately, through hazing. These kids are allegedly made wrong decisions in their early lives…But do they deserve to die the way they were brutally killed?

There was a time when I looked  at the one thousand and eight hundred learners doing their rehearsals for a field demonstration. I was enveloped by a religious fear that most of them would fail or become problems of the society. I looked at those truant ones who were stepping on the flowers stamping on them like their enemies. What would become of these little cretins? I sighed. But deep in me, I knew that they still have the chance to venture on cleaner grounds. Isn’t it our roles as teachers to guide them to better directions? Then, why would others decide to curtail the good possibilities which might happen to them?

Being exposed to Stephen King novels at an early age, I realized that adults have twisted beliefs and practices victimizing the young ones through their selfish intentions and unreasonable actions due to unmet needs. Children of the Corn was so terrifying that I spent a sleepless night thinking about those kids eliminating the adults since they are the “sinners”. Stand By Me and It have these themes as well although the former is focused on friendship and the latter is about childhood fear materializing induced by the adults’ neglect or abuse.

I was listening to someone insistently telling me that the blame must not be put on adults but to some extent, to the children as well. There are those children who could be mean. Yet, I often ask the question: Who molded them for who they are now?

Julia, a novel by Peter Straub, allowed me to think deeper of the so-called absolute evil. The author profoundly tells the story of a natural-born killer in the person of a kid who stabbed her dolls then rehearsing with small animals and eventually humans. The book is a modern-day classic of the horror genre and debates continue due to its theme. But are kids really capable of absolute evil or they are just the shells of a deeper evil?

One thing is for sure: the world is changing and we must cope with the parenting and nurturing skills that we have to make our children better individuals. We could not make a template for them to function well but we could try changing our mindsets on how to understand them. We continually have to reinvent the wheel since the roads that we are trekking are constantly changing as well.

These are difficult times. We are experiencing the ultimate times of uncertainty. Even politics are not predictable anymore. Human behavior is also evolving. Pop culture and emotional instability among the young is erratic. Even in fashion, the so-called “baduy” is the new beautiful. Leaders must be resilient and adaptable since unexpected stuff is in the offing. For who would have predicted Marawi and the planned strategies of the Armed Forces to have gone bonkers?

We continue living our lives with the hope that we are contributors to positive change, not the other way around.