The ‘bakit’ list
So tha was how I called one subfolder in my phone’s reminder app. It was a list of things I should do because: Why not? Like, try that new restaurant. Or buy that pair of shoes that will eat up half of this month’s pay. Proudly, I thought it was my original idea. A snicker was plastered on my face—until I Googled it and realized that, indeed, Filipinos are smart. I didn’t make up the term. We have collectively created our own spoof of the title of the much beloved Morgan Freeman movie.
Lately, however, that bakit list has evolved from a mere rundown of nooks and crannies. I have come to realize that it could be an enumeration of questions, the goal being to answer all of them before we finally kick the bucket.
But questions—bakit?—are funny things. They may seem harmless and typical, but they stir up funny feelings. It’s like they are meant to bring up the hidden or unknown. There’s the sinking feeling when one is asked: “Can I ask you something?” Or that skittish thrill when a celebrity is interviewed. Or the indignant self-righteousness when a controversial politician is interrogated in the Senate. Or that part of our subconscious telling us to shut up because, as children, we just asked too many questions.
When we were growing up, our ability to ask was challenged. To merely surrender to what is handed down to us seemed to be the mature, “grownup” thing to do. When we were kids, to keep asking questions was to be stubborn, defiant. When we were students, asking meant being slow. We have brought that kind of conditioning all the way to our adulthood—this stage of bureaucracy, mandatory payroll deductions, deadlines and Tindr. Thus, asking seemed to have become a pointless, time-consuming thing.
But questions are indispensable. From ancient man’s inquiry into the origin of things to modern man’s search for the meaning of life, humanity has asked questions in order to survive. Isaac Newton: “Why did this apple drop?” Charles Darwin: “What is the origin of man?” Facebook: “What’s on your mind?”
“The art and science of asking questions,” said novelist Thomas Berger, “is the source of all knowledge.” Indeed.
And we millennials seem to be at front row, center, at the receiving end of modern society’s questions. We are constantly being asked—by your mom, on what time you came home last night (and with who), or by your aunt, on what the point of Snapchat is. And then there’s the rest of the world, seemingly boggled by our behavior.
There are research studies wanting to know how we save our money, whether we like driving or not, how we want our future wedding gifts (cash, of course), why we are not saving for retirement, or why we don’t like politics. Or a study asking how potatoes fit into our lives. Potatoes! The US Chamber of Commerce Foundation thinks that this generation is perhaps the most researched generation in history, with institutions delving into possible answers underlying the bakit of our behavior. Who isn’t interested in us?
And again there’s us millennials—witnesses of the 9/11 attacks while still in our golden innocence, of recession while in our formative years (while ironically being trained for employment), of “Yolanda,” of terrorism, of Occupy Wall Street, of helicopter parents, of the Kardashians, and of 140 characters. It seems impossible to have swum through the tides of life and the currents of worldwide events without triggering questions that elicit anger or optimism, or a hashtag. It has become a pursuit: to conjure questions we hope can be answered by generations that went before us and are now questioning us. We have evolved from children demanding our mother’s attention and tugging at her skirt to young adults asking, in muted tones and faked confidence, a world that is trying to compose itself from the retribution of the previous generations’ successes and mistakes.
At any time of the day, you head to work and ask who caused the darned traffic. You arrive at your cubicle and remember to ask when the deadline is. You receive today’s pay and ask where the taxes go. You run into an ex who has clearly leveled up and you wonder why. And on the way home you move past the slums and the people who manage to survive and you ask how.
We have grown to be a generation plagued with questions, but have become afraid to ask. And it’s not because we fear the lack of answers. It’s the answers that we fear ourselves. It isn’t that we are afraid to dig, we are simply afraid of what we might find buried underneath. It isn’t that we are afraid to knock, we are just afraid to know who is waiting on the other side of the door. It isn’t that we do not want to wake up, we are just afraid of discovering reality being worse than our nightmares.
Yes, the bakit list has evolved from being a mere rundown of nooks and crannies. It has become a pursuit, a purpose. How many questions of yours were answered by His Excellency early this week? How many queries were solved by last night’s prime-time news? How many predicaments vanished into thin air, like flirtatious smoke flowing out of today’s pack of Marlboro Ice Blast?
God knows what’s on your bakit list, or when they will be answered (or if they will be answered at all). But let it be known: that we are a generation of questioners, of probers, of auditors, of inquirers. There is no hushed child in us anymore. We are out on a mission.
Questions—bakit—are funny things. They may seem harmless and typical. But there’s nothing in them to be laughed about.
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