Refining Resilience

Alain de Botton once said that a good half of the art of living is resilience.

If resilience were to be defined in poetic language, I have only Alfred, Lord Tennyson to credit for these words in Ulysses:

We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will,
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

The poet William Ernest Henley’s Invictus defines resilience in no uncertain terms:

In the fell clutch of circumstance / I have not winced nor cried aloud. / Under the bludgeonings of chance / My head is bloody, but unbowed.

To not surrender despite the odds. To hope against hope. To learn the art of bending with the wind without breaking.

Resilience is humanity’s practical response to that which threatens its existence. Be that from fellow humans or from Nature, much of humanity is hotwired to rise to the occasion.

Resilience, likewise, is the poor man’s badge of honor, his chance at a medal of valor. It remains the only path left for him to take in order to face, resist, and overcome what is otherwise insurmountable.

To be resilient is to be absolutely and undeniably human, the same human being with the propensity to loom larger than life if and when the occasion calls for it.

Today, Filipinos are faced with a dilemma: to either remain resilient in the face of catastrophe or stop in order to convince a largely indifferent government to do its mandate.

This mandate is not only required but demanded by the Constitution, but oftentimes ignored by the State if only to satisfy its taste for corruption. Government fools people into believing that they have no choice but to be resilient in the face of overwhelming odds.

This is done so that resources earmarked to help the people amid the onslaught of catastrophe would end up funding officials’ personal interests.

It is no secret that government expects the governed to simply bite the bullet as though corruption, murder, and incompetence — part of the social catastrophes we face every day — are unavoidable.

Thus, this “romanticization” of resilience by the government has become unacceptable to many in the constituency. They argue that government cannot insist on the show of people’s resilience and later grab credit for our victories. Worse, the State uses the people’s resilience as an excuse to dodge the constitutional mandate of reaching out and spending resources reserved for its people during times of extreme difficulties.

As a consequence, many made calls on the public to stop being resilient, with the hope, perhaps, of convincing the State to do what it is mandated to do — to stand and work for the people’s sake.

Resilience is then mistaken for surrender, for hanging up the gloves, for accepting our fate blindly despite facing the greatest catastrophe of all: government corruption and indifference.

We must understand, however, that resilience, by definition, doesn’t begin and end with enduring difficulties; its etymology suggests the idea of “springing back” into shape, overcoming the odds. Finding what has been lost, fixing what has been broken.

Allow me some queries: do you really believe that a tyrannical government hellbent on satisfying its bloodlust every single day — killing Filipinos for ego and for sport — would suddenly look at our condition with compassion all because we’ve stopped helping ourselves in the midst of catastrophe?

What convinces you that this government of Rodrigo Duterte, too insouciant to even lift a finger in favor of frontliners and patients amid a raging pandemic, would suddenly grow a halo just because they saw you buried in lahar and mud together with your house, doing nothing for yourselves?

Aren’t you aware that despite the pandemic, assassinations are still being carried out almost weekly? Isn’t it enough proof that this bloodlust is insatiable? Do you really think your suffering would even matter to them?

Metaphorically, it’s easy to speak of choosing to break than to bend. But real life, real suffering, real losses are not as painless as metaphors.

You mean to tell me that after seeing your espouse, your children, your parents, suffer the loss of a home, after witnessing a friend or a neighbor get buried in the mud, or a stranger struggle with others to rebuild their community after a disastrous event, that you wouldn’t lift a finger to help? Isn’t it true that what we do for others we do likewise to ourselves?

Do you mean to suggest that after having suffered the consequences of government corruption, of the myriad injustices corruption brings, that you would just blindly accept what the State wants you to believe as your fate?

If I we go by the definition of resilience — the ability to spring back to our desired shape and form — resilience, therefore, becomes not an enemy of resistance but a key component of resistance.

Allow me my humble take on the matter: our resilience is PROOF that government is incompetent. For why even bother fighting to survive if we’re getting all the help and support to which we’re entitled from the State?

After four years of blood and mayhem, it should be clear by now that this administration cares very little for our sufferings. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that government is the source of much of it. True, they’ve extended some assistance, but compare that with the staggering figures of their loans, what we were given were mere scraps from the table.

Our sufferings, therefore, will never attract their compassion and pity, much less their sense of responsibility, if at all they have one. They will only be too happy to see us die.

It’s our triumphs as individuals and a people, the results of our resilience, that we must use to hold them accountable for their indifference. These same triumphs are proofs that government has no claim over our victories. That our resilience, in fact, is undeniable evidence of their incompetence.

If I wait for this administration to do something on my behalf, as I lie there buried in the mud, or suffer its injustices, it would be the end of me and my family.

We can hold government accountable while being resilient. To be more precise, holding them accountable should be the by-product of our resilience.

The act of helping ourselves and overcoming our circumstance means that resistance is a key component of people’s resilience. This is where resilience becomes a scathing condemnation of their uselessness.

Telling people to stop being resilient, I feel, is the wrong way of going about this. We mistake resilience for surrender, for accepting a dire fate. That is not resilience, folks. That is defeat. Accepting sufferings by doing nothing to confront its source is the mindset of slaves. We must address it swiftly by calling it what it is.

People should realize that they are a whole lot more than what government says they are.

Holding government accountable means we must address the government directly, telling them that if they refuse to follow the constitutional mandate, then they will one day face not only the law but the fury of a people who’ve had enough.

In the beginning of this piece, Khalil Gibran said, “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls”. For what service must we summon that strength if not for resistance?

Humanity is not designed to go quietly into the night. The call to rage against the dying of the light is stronger now than ever before.

Our resilience stands as our resistance. Thus, our dire reality must ultimately bend to the force of our resilience, because if it refuses, then we are left with no choice but to break it.