As someone who has lived for extended periods in different parts of the world and therefore have some experience to compare, IMHO the biggest reason filipinos take life so lightly is because philippines is a tropical place where temperature is guaranteed to stay within a narrow band between about 30°C and 40°C on the average, year round. This produces a mindset that one can do what one deems anytime, and in a sense, planning for anything is much less critical.
By comparison, in four-season countries like o canada where I live now, there is always an urgency to cram in many activities that need outside access between about late april and late october to take advantage of the likelyhood of the between 20°C and 30°C temperature before the snow and cold comes and prevents any of that. One is forced to strictly schedule and prioritize activities because the window can pass by; it can’t be taken lightly.
In the philippines, for many poor people, the sky is the shelter, whether sleeping under the stars or getting drenched in a howling typhoon. They can live on the streets and under the bridge in a cardboard box. In very rural areas, with a little ability, vegetation is lush and they can pick it for consumption, or source it very cheaply in the wet markets, along with the fish. They can live like this and indeed take it lightly, because they never have to contend with snow storms and getting buried in a 10ft snowbank and freeze to death. To them snow and cold are very exotic things in faraway lands, a romantic notion that conjures images of santa claus and his reindeer, and not much else. They have no idea how deadly it can be, and at how the cold very severely restricts and forces one not to take anything lightly.
And inspite and despite the tropical, or probably because of it, there is something in the air that imparts apocalyptic amounts of a happiness drug in filipinos. The vast majority of filipinos of all social standings are just naturally happy; it’s the default. There is just the natural tendency to see and do things in an enthusiastic and happy vein. Forget depression and that lot. Things like “shrink” and “psychiatrist” and “mental illness” and “therapy” are alien to the vast majority of filipinos; they will never see or encounter any of those concepts in their lifetimes. I can attest to this as true: I was horribly bullied as a child in and out of primary school, but the humongous amounts of happiness and enthusiasm I naturally had carried me all through it, without therapy or teacher intervention, or anything like that and came out as a fully functioning adult with all my abilities intact. In comparison, some my age then would have resorted to drugs or suicide or violence for the same amount of punishment or trauma. If I approached a grandparent then feeling a bit low, I would have been greeted with a snarky remark like “me nalalaman ka pang “depressed”; kulang ka lang sa sampal” (all you need is a good slap)(!)
The ocean of happiness the philippines is swimming in is probably also the same factor pushing filipinos’ apocalyptic untrammeled shamelessly sky-high levels of fecundity and libido. Procreation is a philippine national sport, a paean to the demented rc church “every sperm is sacred” mantra. Whatever situation filipinos are in, happy, sad, good weather, typhoon, employed, jobless, the answer to any and all of that is make babies, lots of them. In the philippins, there is very little or no planning involved in bringing another child into the world; baby-making is simply done, regardless. The attitude is as casual as “ooops I got pregnant with my 10th child, ho hum…” Homo sapiens is not going extinct soon, for one, because of filipinos. Where other countries lament their dwindling birth rates and no amount of incentive and motivation from powers-that-be in those places seem to push their citizens to procreate, they should just tell them to go to the philippines and hope to catch or get infected with this happiness take-life-so-lightly bug. It’s not that bad (OMG there I go again….lol😉)
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