CHAPTER 1:

Points of interest:
The steamboat is given particular attention to as it is likened to the current state of the philippine government.

The ship is divided into the upper deck ad the lower deck. The upper deck for the rich and lower deck for the poor.

Characters:
Don Custodio
Ben-Zayb
Dona Victorina
Padre Salvi
Padre Sibyla
Padre Irene
padre Camorra

Scene:
Dona Victorina is hurling invectives at the filipinos.
Three friars are present with the youngest arguing with Ben-Zayb.
Don Custodio is sleeping.
Simoun is observing all of them.

Simoun joins the argument between Ben-Zayb and the friar and encourages them to overwork the Filipinos. Don Custodio disagrees with Simoun, to which simoun answers that the Filipinos would never rebel.

Once Simoun leaves Don Custodio a stupid plan.

          Collaboration is the process of two or more people or organisations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. It can even be said that collaboration is the embodiment of human principles, as it is through collaboration that civilisation as it is known today was born.

          I believe that the true capability of a person is shown through their ability to collaborate with others. The desire to collaborate with others is a nearly primal urge dating back to the archaic eras, and yet some dislike collaboration despite it being wedged in our very being. I believe that this is because even though we love to collaborate, we equally love to destroy.

          There is a spirit of destruction living inside all sapient creatures formed from the selfishness that comes with being self-aware. This spirit of destruction embodies many aspects of our lives from anti-social behavior to self-aggrandisement. The key to minimising this desire to destroy is to collaborate, to socialise, to live a life that is full.

       

          To commit to something is to have the willingness to give your time and energy to something you believe in. It is my personal belief that those who willingly give their time and energy into that one act disregarding anything else and putting their all to do what they love is the noblest of all. I am not so noble.

          I find it difficult to commit to acts that others may find simple and straightforward. This lack of initiative may be due to my childhood which was an unmitigated mess of bad decisions. When I was young, I was diagnosed with ADHD the severity of which i am unsure to this day. Although I am confident to say it was mild if I was told otherwise I would not have a shred of doubt. My childhood was a mess of nettlesome jokes and any other word that is opposite of orderly. To say that i was committed to anything at all during my childhood would be nothing less than a farfetched joke.

          The result of such a childhood left me as I am now, a frankenstein yearning for affection. As such I adore indulging myself in such careless fantasies such as *omitted*. Commitment is a difficult hurdle for me to climb as it firmly opposes the way I have lived my life for the last 16 years. I abhor commitment, yet I yearn for change.

          Compassion motivates people to go out of their way to help the physical, mental, or emotional pains of another and themselves. Seldom do I feel compassionate towards someone lest he be a friend or an acquaintance. Perhaps I have become too numb towards those who may be deemed pitiful and too callous towards the vagabonds of the world. Suffering exists around me and I know it ,yet I have no desire to help cease its effects. Instead I brush of compassionate words as mere phrases to laud oneself in front of others.

          I am not a compassionate person. I cannot sympathise with those who have experienced the tragedies of life. Perhaps it was due to my upbringing that such facets of life are foreign to me. I do not know of the feelings of someone who must martyr themselves for others as the thought of giving ones life up for someone else fills me with such eldritch horror .

          Perhaps I am callous only because this is a phase in adulthood. Perhaps I am callous because it is in my nature to be callous. Whatever the reason may be, I know compassion is a noble act and I am not noble.

          A vital aspect of human civilisation is communication. The ability to share information with one another as efficiently as possible has been somewhat of an arms race between mankind’s many nationalities. The current frontier of the communication arms race is the internet.

          The internet has led to the rise of many new terms used in our vocabulary. “Browser”, “Webpages”, “Google”, “Apps”, “Blogs”, “Email”, “Firewall”, “Social media”, “Spam”, “Wiki”, “Download”, and many more words have come to exist since the birth of the internet. The internet has also paved the way to instant messaging, the apex of human communication.

           Instant messaging has changed human society. What used to take countless hours can be sent and received with a flick of a button. This has drastically altered the way we view social interaction. Is it alright to completely remove face to face interaction in favor of online interaction?
I do not know the answer, but hat i do know is that instant messaging has changed the world.

          Competency is the start of a fulfilling life. Without competency one becomes seen as a vagabond or a useless excuse for a human being. To be competent is the starting point of a mature life, as competency is required in all facets of modern society.

           The term “ant colony” refers to the collections of workers, reproductive individuals, and brood that live together, cooperate, and treat one another non-aggressively. Human society functions similarly to ants as each person has a job they need to tend to. In a perfect society , one will work to maintain ones health and the common good. However there exists a part of the brain that prevents this utopia from occurring. That part of the brain is named as competence.

            People are born with different levels of competence, because of this there exists a divide between the competent and the incompetent, the virtuous and the vagabonds. This difference in competence may be the source of all conflict in human history as the degree of competence a modern man has may only be observed through his actions. Someday human society will find a way to circumvent the problem of incompetence, but for now the existence of a utopia is a dream, an ephemeral being as intangible as the wind. 

            

          Consistency is important. The act of constantly accomplishing goals is a fundamental need in order to value our existence. The lives of human beings are fleeting like the wind, thus we as a species thrive by identifying values that may help us toward our journey of self-discovery.

          Due to the primal desires of the modern man, we desire a lifestyle that is calm and unchanging yet also fantastical and mutable. This paradox requires within us a constant force of will that manifests itself in our being. This is consistency, this is life.

          Consistency manifests itself in many aspects of our daily reality. The very consistence of waking and resting is a comfort to the modern man, as this is the reality by which we live. The reality of seeking comfort. The modern man seeks consistence as our ancestors viewed consistency as the most reliable and comfortable way to ensure the survival of our species. 

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton