All I want for Christmas is a job that I can love, and one that loves me back. Thank you.
(and maybe just substitute "job" for "man" if you're feeling extra generous!)
Peace on Earth. xoxo.
From The International Herald Tribune, published today, December 7, 2008.
MANILA: In cities and towns across the Philippines, traffic was practically nonexistent Sunday. The crime rate was zero in Manila and other major urban centers, the police said. And days before, the military had announced it would not be opening any offensives against enemies of the state for a day, while Muslim insurgents responded by promising not to attack.
The event that brought everyday life in this deeply Catholic country to a Good Friday-like standstill was the historic matchup in Las Vegas between Manny Pacquiao, pound-for-pound the world's best boxer, and the Mexican-American boxing legend Oscar De La Hoya.
Filipinos were glued to their television sets as Pacquiao claimed victory over De La Hoya. Restaurants and movie theaters were filled with mostly poor Filipinos, cheering Pacquiao and taunting his opponent, while pedicab and bus drivers stopped plying their routes, to the consternation of some commuters.
"We don't get to do this often, so you understand the excitement," said Erasmo Baltazar, a 52-year-old bus driver who decided not to show up for work Sunday. "Besides," he added, taking a swig of his beer inside a roadside restaurant, "I never miss a fight by Manny."
In many army camps, televisions have been set up for soldiers, whom the popular Pacquiao has always made sure to visit. "The soldiers relate to him because his life is an inspiration to us all," said Major Gerardo Zamudio, an air force spokesman.
Pacquiao, 29, is considered the greatest sports hero this country has ever had. He is dubbed the "people's champ," earning as well the moniker "the national fists."
His victory over De La Hoya, who surrendered after the eighth round of a 12-round fight, cemented his legendary status, which had been buttressed by his humble beginnings (he dropped out of school when he was 12, sold cigarettes in the streets and turned to boxing in order to survive) as well as his reputation for generosity (he reportedly spent $700,000 for tickets to the match that he gave out to friends and relatives).
To many Filipinos, Pacquiao is the embodiment of a dream fulfilled. Across the country, boxing stables are filled with young men who had run away from their homes in the provinces in order to train to be boxers - many of them hoping to emulate Pacquiao. He has almost single-handedly made boxing the national sport in what used to be a basketball-crazy nation.
"Manny lives up to his billing. He is truly the people's champ," said John Nery, a writer who has written profiles of the boxer. "But I think he is also teaching his millions of fans a valuable life lesson. Talent, even of world-class quality, is not enough. You need discipline."
Prior to the match, Pacquiao had been deemed the underdog against the heavier, taller and more experienced De La Hoya. But his training and preparation bordered on the obsessive, many sportswriters had said, with reports depicting him as a hungry boxer determined to prove his nonbelievers wrong.
Apart from being a source of inspiration to many young Filipinos, Pacquiao's fights have a way of deflecting attention from the country's troubles. For instance, the news that 16 people had been killed Saturday in the worst cops-and-robbers shootout in recent years - including a man and his young daughter who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - was eclipsed by stories on Pacquiao. "Time to make history" went the lead Sunday headline of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the country's largest.
It is commonly said of New York City that you could easily go through everyday life here, in this city of 8 million people, and still feel like the loneliness person in the world. We live alone in this culture, most often in our solitary apartments, on top of other solitary apartments, forming no real connections to the masses that surround us and only interact with them in the shallowest of manners. We push through each other in the crowded subways and streets everyday, fight for reservations at restaurants and tickets to shows, and lay awake at night unable to sleep while a zillion car horns blare and pedestrians chatter excitedly on the sidewalk outside our windows. There is life all around us, and somehow we are so removed. I can put on my Ipod and tune it all out.
Mark Twain called it “a splendid desert—a domed and steepled solitude, where the stranger is lonely in the midst of a million of his race.”
New York Magazine's cover story this week is about this so-called "Urban Loneliness," and how recent sociological studies are proving this to be more of a myth than we feel. How so? Humans are social animals with a hypothesized biological need to interact, ultimately ensuring the survival of the species (i.e. sex). Really, that's all it comes down to? Everyone needs someone to love them. Woop!
That's the ultra-simplified analysis. Read more here.
