The Concentration Camp

It was a Sabbath day. I awake into consciousness probably around 8AM. I didn’t really know or care. I was resting. I was half asleep thinking, believing that there’s nothing to rush, no deadlines, no meetings and no classes. You get the picture – it was a sweet Sunday morning. Then I heard it. At first I thought the neighbors were up early and ready to party with the Pussy Cat Dolls and Ciara. But then a jingle was next in the play list. It’s the one you hear when you’re in the blue-and-white-department store: “…HERE AT SM, WE’VE GOT IT ALL FOR YOU!”

This is what I wake up to every Sunday morning. A hypnotic relay of dance music that cycles in the atmosphere even before the mall opens and stops only when the lights are out. It’s the new “get ‘em while they’re dreaming” marketing strategy of SM Southmall. Even before people start thinking about going to church the SM jingle’s already nailed in their head. It’s as if playing the songs inside the mall wasn’t enough. They had to set-up pillars of speakers at the entrance purposely facing the quite villages of Las Piñas. People walking through the main entrance are practically blown off by the sound waves.
Gone are the days when we woke up at the sound of church bells calling people into service, or put some of us into deeper sleep. Now the BF Home Owners are awakened by the tormenting chant of Henry C’s medley calling them to spend their money. What troubles me is that SM did not start this morning get-your-body-moving craze. Some of our neighbors actually enjoy it. Some of us like to wake up in the morning, turn the radio on and pump up the volume in “WWR 101.9”. But I don’t enjoy hearing “For Life,” “Alam mo na yan” or “Kailangan pa bang i-memorize yan?” at the break of dawn. I’m sure I don’t feel like bumpin’ and grindin’ and singing Celine Dion’s “I’ll be waiting for you…” ballad before breakfast. Last year it was the kindergarten “spaghetti” and “basketball” jingles from the big-boob girl groups that drove my family mad. Sometimes its Mariah Carey singing in her dolphin pitches. No wonder a lot of Filipino children have speech defects.

Every day we are bombarded with information, stress and challenged by the insanity of pop culture. We are living in a concentration camp environment where everything we do, buy, and even how we act is directed if not influenced by the media. Whether we like it or not it sinks into our subconscious. The people behind all these things know how to use sublime temptation. They know how to get into our heads without us even knowing it. There is no escaping it but with a few moments between the time we open our eyes and the time the caffeine reaches our blood stream. It is what we have before we are flooded with all the things we need to do and finish. It is the time our mind is at peace, 100% percent receptive, from a good night’s sleep, that is. Let us use that time in peace.

COMMENT
This is supposed to be related to noise pollution. I hope the readers see the connection.

GE117