Despondent

Last night, I snapped. Again.

I had gone upstairs with my son to tuck him into bed. As was his usual evening ritual, we switched on the bedside lampshade and he browsed through some magazines and a book of his. Not really reading. He's only three. He can read the big bold letters and whispers them to himself. Then I turned off the light and told him to sleep. I pretended to sleep to encourage him to do the same. He occasionally stood up and stood by the doorway (probably waiting for mom), while I fell in and out of sleep. I awoke every time he stood up. He has loud feet like his mom. This went on for about two hours. When mom finally turned off the light, he started his tantrum. It was already twelve by then and no amount of hushing could make him stop.

His tantrums have been getting worse lately. Like last Saturday, we had to get his grandmother to the hospital for her severe back pain. While waiting for her turn in the x-ray room, my son wanted to ride in her wheelchair. When we told him he couldn't ride it with her, he started bawling wildly. That went on for about two and a half hours. No matter where we took him or how we tried to distract him, he still went on bawling loudly. It event turned a few policemen's heads when I tried to take it outside of the hospital.

Well, I did not want an encore at 12 midnight in my own home with all the neighbors sound asleep. I snapped. I put my hand over his mouth and repeatedly told him to stop shouting. He tried to pry my hand away with his own hands. It was the longest 5 minutes of my life. I couldn't hear my wife 's pleas to let go. I could only hear the spite in my heart. But then I suddenly realized how helpless my son was, clawing at my giant hand, wanting to be heard. I let go, and a sea of emotion just swept me.

All I could do was turn my back on them as my wife tried to console him. And I just sat there, on the floor near the bed's corner. I had my elbows resting on my knees that were bent upwards. I clasped both hands behind my nape and just sat there with the horrid feeling of remorse. I just sat there for a long time. When my wife's reassuring hand caressed my shoulder, I started to cry. I started feeling how utterly unfit I was to be a father. I prayed a silently hoping God would end it - either my life or the mental condition my son had. Either would have been acceptable to me at that moment. My wife kept whispering everything would be alright, but I could not stop the torrent of tears. When my nape started getting numb from the pressure from my clasped hands I started crawling back to bed. As the tears started to fade, so did my conscious thoughts. I drifted into restless sleep.

Dichotomy

A friend and I were talking about how there are purists in just about any group you can think about. That got me thinking. He was right. Even in the mainstream leftist movement of my student days, there were those who always thought they were above everybody else. Except to the higher ups, that is .

Well the open source movement is no exception, I guess. For the linux movement in particular, there are those who are in it for the code and those who are in it for the cause. Those who are technically adept use Linux because of the challenge that it presents. Altruistic, many are. Yet there are those that feel they should be held above the rest of the general populace because of their technical adeptness. There is within this group an equally tenacious group of thinkers that shun all that does not conform to their way of thinking, so called purists. They are only open to developments that conform to their mode of thought and nothing else.

Then there are those who use Linux because they believe in the cause of open source. They think this is the answer to bridging the digital divide and not the gazillion-dollar Gates Foundations of the world. They think open source will empower the poor to help themselves. They BELIEVE that the promise of this technology has the potential to solve some of this woeful country's problems. They BELIEVE it offers hope for this land mired in US$ 34-billion in foreign debt.

I am part of the latter. I believe in open source because of its promise and the freedom it represents. I am, to put it simply, not a coder. I don't tinker with kernels or apps or anything of that sort. What I do is use what is there. What I do is make open source software useful to me and in turn share my discoveries with the communities I belong to. What I lack in technical skill, I try and make up for through advocacy. Heck, before I used linux I did not even care about piracy. Now I use that issue to make a point. Illegal software is illegal software. Proprietary software is expensive. Open source is free, owned by communities that use it. As opposed to proprietary software whose buyers only buy a license to use it. They aren't buying the software, just a license to use it. Hence, they don't own it. The contrast being software should empower people and not enslave them to the big fat bottomlines of giant corporations. Software should benefit people paying for it, not just those who write it.

Why am I ranting, you might ask? Well, purists curb my enthusiasm. But as things stand now, they are necessary to any movement. They are the voice of caution and restraint, whether they are heeded or not. I guess I'll just post this rant and let it be done with. Get over it and move on, as a good friend of mine put it. So here goes - **click** purists, you have been iggyed.