I Had a Birthday + Shout Out to a Free Speech Martyr

 

As of last Monday, I have reached a milestone I knew I'd reach but never imagined myself reaching.  Yep! I turned the big 5 - 0!!! I still don't quite feel "old" yet, but I can easily see I'm part of an older generation.  It would be great to be young again, but at the same time I'm glad I was born when I was.  Gen X is having a good run I'd say.  I certainly do NOT want to sit around grousing about my age and my life lamenting "OMG I'M 50" all over the place.   For one, it would be a waste of time and energy.  But also for a bigger reason, obsessing over age is exactly what the baby boomers did.

Many of you younger millenials and all of Gen Z have only known boomers as these creaky old curmudgeons.  But, those of us in Gen X witnessed the boomers when they started aging and, believe me, it was pathetic.  Practically the moment the first boomer turned 30, age is all they would talk about.  "Oh my God! I'm 30 now! What am I going to do??", is something we heard from them all of the time.  There was even a prime time drama dedicated to placating these people:

That is a real show.  It was a drama series with a highly depressive tone that was just 54 minutes of people trying their darndest to cope with the despondency of...................... being more than 30.  I'm so proud of my generation for not getting like this.  Millenials are in their 30's and 40's and they haven't said much about their aging either.  We're watching Gen Z though.  They could create shows on Netflix/Hulu?TikTok all about being "triggered over becoming old and cringe".  Here's hoping that can be avoided.

OK! That's all about aging I'm going to talk about in this post and anywhere else.  I'd like to spend the rest of this time talking about someone who everyone should be talking about more.

A man named Jose Rizal!  He is a great man who made the ultimate sacrifice and started his home country of the Philippines on a path to freedom.  It all started by him simply writing a book.

It all really started in 1521 when the explorer Ferdinand Magellan landed on the shores on the Philippines and conquered it for Spain.  He and his conquistadors immediately and brutally imposed so much of Spanish culture on to the island inhabitants.  Heck, the place was named Maharlika when before they showed up.  Magellan then renamed it the Philippines after Prince Phillip,  One of the biggest aspects of Spanish culture foisted upon the Filipine people was its catholicism, which still very much exists to this day.  

This was all very much a way of life for the Philippines when Jose Rizal was born in 1861.  He went to school just like every other kid at the time.  However, his grades were so exceptionally high that he was granted the opportunity to attend university in Madrid, Spain. Living outside of his island country of origin gave Rizal a much broader perspective.  He recollected all of the Catholic missions in the Phillipines run by the Spanish.  Upon reflection, he could see just how restrictive and even abusive they were.  This inspired him to write a book about his experiences with these missions: Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not)

You can pretty much guess how both the Spanish Government and the Vatican felt about Rizal's work.  They weren't just mad because of the words he published, they were absolutely seething moreso because his book had sparked a revolt among the Phillipine populous.  The United States then intervened on the Philippines' behalf and they were soon liberated from the iron fist rule of Spain.

Sadly, before that liberation could happen, by order of both the Spanish government and the Vatican, Rizal was executed by a firing squad on December 30, 1896.  Still to this day in the Philippines, December 30th is a national holiday.

Someone being killed by two authoritarian institutions for the "crime" of expressing oneself is definitely someone who belongs among the pantheon of free speech heroes, much like other people we know:

FREE AT LAST! FREE AT LAST! GOD ALMIGHTY, HE'S FREE AT LAST!

So, in that spirit, attempted drawing a picture of Mr. Rizal.

This is my first and only crack at it so far.  Not the best nor the worst picture I've ever drawn, but I think it looks fine nonetheless.  Leave your opinions in the comments below.  My bigger point is that more people should be drawing pictures of him and celebrating him.  But, more than that, we should all stay vigilant that no place on Earth slides into the kind of dystopian nightmare scenario that lead to the execution of people like Rizal ever again.

With that, I leave it there and thank you and one last happy belated birthday to me.