I REMEMBER the Oscars awards held early this year. As a result of the recession, the affair scaled down the glam and glitter. In lieu of a regular emcee, the awards had Hugh Jackman singing—and dancing—the introductions. In lieu of film clips showing the nominees for best actor, actress, director, and movie, the awards had previous winners addressing the nominees and lavishing them with praise. In lieu of big productions, the awards had quieter moments, like Queen Latifah singing “I’ll Be Seeing You” in memory of those who just passed away.

The result was something more touching, more thoughtful, more memorable. Challenged to do with much less, the people who made it did much more.

I remembered this after I read an interesting item from Reuter last week. Market research firm Synovate polled 11,400 people worldwide and found that a fourth of them were actually glad the world economy slumped because it made them realize their priorities in life. Malaysians led the group. “The credit crunch has been felt,” said Synovate, “and it has reinforced the family values of Malaysians, helping them to appreciate what they have rather than continually strive for more.”

I belong to that one-fourth, though my reasons have little to do with family values. I too am glad the slump has happened because it forces us to do several things.

First off, it forces us to be creative, the way the Oscars were so this year. Of course, for most of us who grovel in poverty, the experience is not new. The poor have been “creative” for a long time in dealing with want. Look at the habal-habal in the provinces, a motorcycle straddled by wooden planks that manages to ferry a dozen people at one go. That is one hell of a balancing act. That is one hell of desperate creativity.

As for those of us in Metro Manila, maybe the slump can force us to improve public transport. The trains are doing a magnificent job. If they hadn’t come along, Edsa and Taft would now be just be one huge parking lot. The sudden proliferation of motorcycles and bicycles in Metro Manila by itself already testifies to the hard times. If we can just provide better public transport, I wouldn’t mind that the private car goes. But then that’s probably more a matter of will than of creativity.

I leave others to pitch in. On a broader plane, I’m glad the slump has happened because it forces us to try and get only as much as we need and not as much as we want. You wish you could say that only countries like America are gripped by consumerism and wastefulness, but that’s not true. We are too.

If you’ve been to the US, you’d be astonished by the vastness of the wants, which afflicts Filipinos especially. Not surprisingly because the material abundance is also blithe advertisement of success. It confers status. Which is useful when friends and relations drop by, or when one visits the home country, armed with plenitude. If you’ve been there, you’d be astonished by huge refrigerators bursting at the seams, and the amount of food that goes to waste.

But that’s true as well of us, arguably less spectacularly but with the alarming difference that it is the product of a spectacular divide between rich and poor. I’m always amazed by the comment, particularly from balikbayans, that the Philippines isn’t really wallowing in want—“hindi naman naghihirap”—because of the frenetic buying in malls and the proliferation of new cars. In fact, it is a sign only of horrendous inequality, a tiny few being able to satisfy wants and a teeming many unable to meet needs. Those malls, for those who have the eyes to see it—and being inured to pain makes for blindness—coexist with makeshift dwelling places along sidewalks, which have sprouted of late, prey to the next howling of the wind, rising of the water, and descent of the men with badges, in rising order of predation.

In fact, I find nothing more incongruous, if not obscene, than the sight of slimming centers advertising themselves aggressively (though not unpleasantly with scantily clad wonders of creation endorsing them) and that of emaciated street children begging for alms, advertising themselves as victims of the recent calamities. Enough to make you rethink your sense of deprivation at not having the most recent 55” LED TV.

On a still broader plane, I’m glad the slump has happened because it forces us to wonder about the things that matter in life. It’s not just a question of settling for less, or even doing more with less, it’s also a question of doing better with other things. If the slump makes us a little less material girls or boys, if it makes us a little more spiritual travelers or seekers, then it’s worth its weight in, well, gold.

Call it sour grapes, but not being able to reach the grapes is not a bad position from which to ponder things. And the grapes may truly be sour. As consumerist values, they often are. It gets so that having becomes more important than what is gotten. You just have to have the latest Mac, the fastest car, the biggest television set. Pretty soon you get tired of them and want more. The satisfaction is fleeting, the need permanent.

Who knows? Maybe in this hour of need, we may discover books. They’re fairly cheap (you can always beg, steal, or borrow, not least from libraries) and they satisfy more deeply than the latest “9 in 1” from Quiapo. Maybe in this hour of need, we may discover the joys of laughter and conversation. They’re free, and they lessen high blood pressure more effectively than medicine. Maybe in this hour of need, we may discover those in direr need than we. It’s a gift of sight, which has a way of descending upon us as a people, like tongues on fire, during disasters.

Maybe in this hour of want, we may discover abundance.