Quality vs. Quantity

From my household to my school, I was always taught that quantity and quality is important. Their use depends on the situation. I was taught by my mom that I need to check the quality of the things that I need for a long period of time (eg. school bag). Quantity is when I need something to be used repeatedly but cannot be used for a long period of time (eg. clean school uniform). In my school, quantity is taught to be used to attain a greater accuracy or precision. With quantity, we can also achieve quality. In research, quality is used to deliver and compare data through observations. Quantity deals with numbers that is used to measure data.

Let us see it in another perspective. It is generally seen with people at my age - teenagers.

Girlfriends and boyfriends are common nowadays. Some people reach as long as years with their relationships while others only have a day or even less than 24 hours with their relationships. Yes, less than 24 hours. Back in high school, some of my classmates became couples for an hour just because they want to or because the other only sees it as a joke. After that, they would include it in their count of how many relationships they have so far. Of course not all are like that as there are also who reached 4 years or more. A friend of mine has a girlfriend and they are still going strong for 5 years. We can see examples where we can apply quantity and quality respectively.

While I was browsing through my Facebook newsfeed awhile ago, I noticed that a “friend” of mine changed again his partner in the “In a relationship” status. I have seen him changed this so many times that I lost count. The count of his girlfriend during his high school is very high, which we probably cannot count with two hands. At one time, he met a girl during June and they became a couple the following month.

I’m also an avid reader of “The (school name) Files”. It is a Facebook page where you can share anything as your anonymity is assured. There are posts wherein males and females alike are having two partners at the same time or where they would break up just because they met a new one.

Stuffs like these made me think “What’s their purpose or objective in doing those kinds of things?”. I have a girlfriend and we’re in a relationship for 27 months (2 years and 3 months). When other people hear this, they react with “Mabuti pa kayo” (Good on you two). At first I don’t get why they react the way they do but after some time, I saw the reason. It’s because our relationship is something we can see rarely in our generation and in the present time.

Other people would use quantity of their relationships as a mean to measure as to how famous, good-looking, or attractive they are. It’s sort of like a way to feed their ego. It is like saying, "The higher the number of relationships you had, the better person you are.” Of course it’s just my opinion. Others would also believe that it’s true love until something would go wrong. Then they would again meet someone, fall in love and get their hearts broken and the cycle continues. The number of their relationships would increase as they go into their journey to find true love.

For those who value the quality of their relationships, I salute you good sirs and madams. I believe that having a longer relationship with one another is where we can find the true essence of being a “couple”. We cannot see it in the numbers of relationships but we can see it in how serious we are in a commitment. For those who use the excuse of “meeting and understanding someone”, we have what we call friends and best-friends. I have no right to judge anyone. I would just like to remind everyone that we cannot measure how good (good-looking, attractive, etc.) a person is through numbers but we can see it through actions. Be honest, simple, and sincere, that way you can have a long lasting relationship with anyone. 

Dreams vs. Ideals

This would be my first post since I created the blog weeks ago. I just found motivation and an idea on how to go about this. As I was travelling from Baguio to Manila yesterday morning, I was reflecting on things, about our current system here in the Philippines and what I can do about it. It's been rough lately and I haven't had much sleep, so please excuse certain errors now and then.

I'm still a university student so I attend different classes. At one class, we were asked about our dreams. Before letting us answer, she said that ideals are not dreams because dreams can be achieved while ideals can't be. One example is changing the world. The problem is, THAT is my dream. Because of what was said, I couldn't answer. It got me thinking, is changing the world really impossible?

The Philippines is a third world country, as such, we (the people) can see many things that are wrong. First would be the current system - the government, the judicial system, the law enforcers, and the army. All of them have flaws in their systems. Powerless as I am, there's nothing I can do to fix these things. Even the President can't do anything about it. If there is one thing that I have learned from books and movies, it's that we should abolish our system and create a new one. Of course there's no way we can do that, people would be affected. There would be rebellions, scarcity of resources, and worse, the destruction of the country itself.

The environment is clearly deteriorating fast. There are waste segregations, tree planting activities, and environmental cleanups but evidently it is not enough. What can I do to help the environment? Joining in these activities is one but I'm starting to think it's futile. It's like the movie 300, we're facing a 120 thousand army. Imagine how many trees are being cut down illegally and how many are being planted, not to mention if they do live. I still believe that prevention is better than cure. It is better to prevent the annihilation of our ecosystem than try to fix it after it has been destroyed.

Is changing the world really just an ideal? Is there really nothing we can do to change our world?

I will still foolishly and naively hold on to my dream to change the world. I would like to believe that technology can answer these problems. One of my dreams is to connect the whole Philippines through a railway system. With every stop/station, we'll have malls that would be run by the locals. Of course, I would like it to be powered with solar energy (add-on: batteries for night travels) as it has no side effects to the environment. This would be strictly run by a private company, no help or anything from the government with prices affordable by a common Filipino household. I know this is crazy but remember that some of our most useful tools and gadgets came from such ideas. I believe that with the right people, capital, and support this would be possible.

I have many crazy ideas like a flying city, spaceships, space orbitals, and many more. Of course to some these are crazy things but to me they are dreams. These things are the things that I would like to do. I would like to solve the problems we see and encounter but I'm still as powerless as the guy next to me. I would never give up and I would never lose these dreams to anyone and to anything.