First Monday

When he and I last spoke, my old and dear friend, Big Lew said, that when I had finally retired and emigrated from the United States, I’d no longer have an excuse not to write. While our leaving for Sibulan is still a week away, this is my first Monday as an officially retired person, so I suppose his statement still applies.

The age old problem is, of course, what does one write about?

The political situation in the U.S. no longer interests me. People living in a democracy (or democratic republic) get the government they deserve. You folks put the current regime in power; now you have to live with the consequences. 

From my point of view, the current POTUS isn’t the problem…..he’s a symptom of the degradation of the American culture. Abortion on demand is the law of the land and same-sex “marriage” will soon be. Far too many people wish to suck on the government teat, rather than work. One political party enables the proverbial drunken orgy that is America, while the other party is far too splintered and dysfunctional to achieve any worthwhile intervention.

I am not moving to a paradise; Philippines is by no stretch of the imagination, a Utopia. At least the country is not the dystopia that the U.S. is quickly becoming. Certainly, the fact that Philippines has a Catholic tradition, while the U.S. has a Protestant one, has a good deal to do with the difference.

America’s love for rugged individualism has led to an “I, me, mine” society. In the U.S., nothing can stand in the way of “me and my desires” no matter depraved and anti-social those desires are. America is the logical conclusion of the Protestant mind-set.

Most of my former co-workers imagine that my new life will consist of mostly lying on the beach or fishing. They’d find my plan to spend my time writing, attending Mass every day, gardening and raising pigs, too boring to even contemplate; too much like living in a monastery for their tastes, I suppose.