Hierarchy of Needs

I know I have no right to judge anyone base on how they feel of things but these questions are really bugging me since I was in high school. Up to now, it is still unresolved. I have figured out things to answer it but I know that my answers are too one-sided.

A lot (I said A LOT! Not ALL) of Filipino films and telenovela are depicting poor people as happier than those who are richer than them. The poor family, having nothing to eat, is bonded and doing their shares inside the household with smiles on their faces and respect with their mother and father. On the other hand, the rich family has everything and yet they barely have quality time together, the mother will meet her amigas, the father is either too busy with his work or with his queridas while their children are free to roam around the city and do whatever they want. If we think about it, these depictions might not be true. It can be just a media tool to pacify the poor in our society - To give them an edge compared to the rich; the poor are depicted as happier than the rich.

Another thing I notice is this: the cliché statements "Eh ano kung mahirap lang tayo… masaya naman tayo" or "Hindi natin kaylangan ng pera para maging masaya." might just be statements of "sourgraping" by the poor. How can one say that he is fully satisfied and happy when in fact he/she did not even know if he will still survive the hunger that's been bugging him/her for days? How can one beggar sleeping on the sidewalk, fearing that his life might be taken by some rugby boys be happier than the man sleeping in a five-star hotel pent house? How can one, deprive of all the basic needs in life, deprive of the security that the government should give him, be happy and satisfied when in fact, according to Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, one needs to fulfill his basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing and security first before advancing into the next stages and before achieving happiness and satisfaction which is placed, if I am not mistaken, on the top of the pyramid? Survival comes first before anything.

No matter how many times people say that money can't buy everything and that the best things in life are free, at the end of the day, one will always seek to be richer in order to be happier. In the first place, the basic needs in order to survive require one to have money.

The Apathetic Me

I was once an activist. In my first two years in college, I join rallies, voice my leftist opinion regarding human rights, criticize the government and think that communism is the answer to the ills of our society.

I didn't know what happened but I just woke up one day and found out that my passion for being an activist has been lost. My views changed in just a small span of time and I can't find any apparent reason why it happened - I no longer see any good in joining rallies. I now think it is just a waste of time and effort since no one's going to listen anyway. I also became aloof with my former leftist friends. I see them now as hypocrites. I am guessing that few years after graduation, when they are already feeling the qualms of their stomachs, they will give up fighting and end up applying for a job in a transnational company that they once criticize. I now defend the government like it is an institution that knows no red tape. I even hate those academicians who can't stop opposing the government and saying bad things about it. If those people are so wise and they know what to do in order for the Philippines to be saved, why are we still a third world country? Why can't we progress? I now perceive human rights as something abstract. something so intangible and something which is devised to persuade people to fight those in power. The word "right" is now overrated. Even animals have a "right". I sometimes think that the manequins in shopping malls will have that so-called "right" too in the near future.
These sudden changed in my ideas bother me. Being a leftist makes me alive before. Now that I no longer have the passion for such left things, I am still alive but I have this fear. A fear that bearing the conservative and rightist makes me a traitor to the belief that I once have before - I fear that I might wake up one day and realize that I am already one of those apathetic people walking around the country and chasing the wrong things.