this story originally appeared in the philippine daily inquirer on January 1, 2000.
To us, young people, bidding farewell to the ’90s was a big deal. The ’90s was the decade we lived consciously through, and thus, the decade that shaped who we are. And it was, even without a valid point of comparison, a decade like no other. The ’90s was characterized by explosions more than anything else. There was the technological explosion which ushered in a culture of its own. There was the media explosion, with the full-blown invasion of TV of the modern lifestyle that began the intellectual deterioration of the youth. And then there was the explosion of oppressive social and financial abuses initiated by marketing and advertising that made business people join the ranks of the despicable.
The ’90s saw major regressions in many areas as well as progress in others. What probably characterizes the decade best was the occasionally annoying computer phenomenon and its rapid and unstoppable development. Now the computer seems to be the center of all existence, although mankind’s added sense of control over life and presumed triumph over nature crumbled as the Y2K problem surfaced. Now we are left with more questions than at any point in history. The children of the ’90s were reared by the media in a society that worships money. It was hard to accept, and much harder to rebel against. I went through a stage when I perceived everything modern to be sickening. Especially living in the Philippines, lost and unsure amid the clash between Western-influenced modernization and the preservation of our identity as a nation.
At some point in the ’90s, convinced everything was moving too fast and sensing that the world would one day be unable to stand any more progress, many yearned for a backward development, a return to what we had in the past, and thus rebelled against modernization. For a time, I turned backward to escape from all the confusion, but I gladly returned to the chaos of modern life, and it felt like coming home. What can I say, I’m a ’90s kid, whether I like it or not. And I realized, there was no other decade in which I’d have liked to live my childhood. Thus, 1999 marked my reconciliation with the Now. The Moment. The ’90s said quite a lot to me about embracing the present and what God has given us today. I’d like to best remember the ’90s by certain writers and artists who helped me make sense of this absurd, ultramodern, cruel but beautiful life.
To me those who really stood out were Douglas Coupland, a Canadian fiction writer, and Alanis Morissette, a Canadian singer/songwriter whose songs mirror a very recognizable aspect of the ’90s culture and the real issues of our existence and screwed-up lives. Then, there’s Jessica Zafra who alleviated the over seriousness of today’s citizens and opened our eyes to more absurd but sensible ways of looking at our world, and others, such as Conrado de Quiros, Matt Slocum, a wonderful economics teacher Bombit Largoza, and Charles Pridmore and Dave Pederson, former pastors both. These are my ’90s heroes. Most of them are still around to carry on their work and lead us into battle in the next century, the intellectual rebellion, the continuing war with ourselves, and everything and everyone, and our search for meaning. We all have our particular philosophies, themes, experiences and people that define the ’90s for us.
All our heroes personified the ’90s: philosophical, rebellious, intensely passionate, open-minded, wild, extremely liberated, careless. A person of the Now. Amid all the futuristic talk and historical analyses, the ’90s hero understands that Today is always the most important day. This is the hero we will be taking with us into the new decade. Today it is goodbye to the ’90s. But we are not saying goodbye to the things of the ’90s; we are just seeing the start of a new decade. The ’90s will no longer stand for ultramodern culture, but a culture that was ours. It’s quite sad that it has become something that was, but we will carry its spirit as we move on.
