Some parts of me that come to life on the islands
I’ve been in the Philippines for the past couple weeks with my family. Inevitably, that much time in a place will teach you a lot. Especially about yourself. That’s all the more true I guess when the place you’re visiting is your ancestral homeland.
Really, I came here so that my family, especially my kids, could start the lifelong process of building a connection with the land of their heritage. Oddly, however, a lot of what’s jumped out at me are the ways that my western upbringing gives me a different way of seeing and doing things… especially when it comes to parenting.
These are generalizations of course, but parents in the Philippines have tended to be more keen on preventing the falls and bumps that I consider a part of the learning experience. That’s just one example of a difference between the way I parent what’s more typical around here.
In a parallel world where I somehow ended up living the rest of my life in the Philippines, there would be some ways in which I’d feel very different from the people around me- like a number of parenting philosophies.
Whenever you travel, the differences are going to be much easier to notice. That seems pretty obvious to me. But if my purpose is to try and build a stronger connection with the Philippines, I thought it might be helpful to look for ways where my way of thinking, seeing the world, or doing things are reflected in my surroundings.
Here are some of those things:
The abundance of time
In the Philippines, time is abundant. Hurrying is unusual, and typically pointless. A meeting time is just a suggestion. This isn’t to say there aren’t people there who have busy schedules… Filipinos are as industrious as they come. But there is certainly a sense that what needs to get done will get done in the right time.
Honestly, I love it that way. I hate the feeling of being rushed, yet I find myself there often.
Like most working parents (and many other people), I’m very familiar with the feeling that there just isn’t enough time in the day to accomplish all the things I want to have checked off, let alone opportunities to unwind and enjoy it. I live in a very clock-focused society, aiming to make sure all the meetings are held on time and that as much work as possible gets done in between.
A number of things, including experiencing burnout towards the end of 2022, and going through Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals have helped me see the irony of how our lives our often overscheduled so we can make the most of our time, but they often make us simply feel short on time. In contrast, while the island life happens more slowly and therefore takes up more time, it always feels like there’s just enough.
I feel so much more at home in that environment. It seemed to have the opposite effect on my wife, who finds more comfort in the predictability of when things are going to start. Lucky for her, we live most of our days where that’s the norm. It’s been very refreshing for me to have a break from the rush.
Sheer resourcefulness
Sometimes I’ll see people try to follow a Filipino recipe found online by tracking the exact recipe they found online. But whenever I explain how to make a dish, it sounds more like:
“Use oyster sauce, but if that’s not around just cut soy sauce with brown sugar… You want snapper but tilapia works too… If you can’t get your hands on some peanut oil and annatto powder, just throw in some Skippy.”
The truth is, there’s no need to let the lack of an ingredient hold you back from what you’re trying to make. And that applies to more than just food.
With the bulk of our ancestors having been farmers and fishers, there’s always been an inherent knack for making ends meet.
I admire this trait, and the mindset of not being held back by what you don’t have. Instead, you work with what you’ve got and figure out how to make it work.
I’d like to think I at least have a little bit of that in me.
An integration with nature
In Filipino folklore, whenever you step into a forest or grassland you’re supposed to declare your presence by saying tabi tabi po. Excuse me!It’s so you don’t accidentally step on duwendes or engkantos that live in grass or water.
On the surface, Filipinos tend to be extremely superstitious and that’s pretty accurate. But to me there are two things going on here- a reverence for nature, its power, and the way our well-being relies on it.
There is also less of a divide between the material and spiritual worlds. Tangible things, from bodies to trees are expressions of the spiritual and they have an interaction with our daily lives.
After all, a lot of folklore originates from the need to explain natural phenomenon. Same with a lot of scientific discovery.
I’m both a spiritual believer and a lover of science… especially the life sciences. I find material things ripe for study and mystical things meant for experience. It’s always frustrating when the scientific community and modern mystics get too dismissive of each other. (Prioritizing empirical knowledge on one end of the spectrum, rejecting modern medicine based on pseudoscience on the other.) I’ve always resonated with the idea that the scientific and the mystical routes ultimately explore the same things, but with different lenses and language. Follow either path far enough and the line between gets fuzzier
Anyways, after some time back on the islands I feel a bit like I’ve come back to myself. A trip back always feels like a spiritual recalibration like that. I know I feel so much more rested after spending time on the islands, because many parts of me can feel right at home.