Escape From Reality

Aven Piramide encounters two groups of people in the Philippines -- "guso" farmers and chess players. He thinks better of the former than the latter.

As I cared to listen to the real sentiments of the "guso" farmers, I came to grip with certain realities. I found out that they were a surprise mixture of professionals, fishermen and farmers who felt that this government had ceased to take any move for the peoples' welfare.

If life were a chess game, they were checked mate. They had somehow lost faith in the functional utility of government such that their only recourse was to bond together and work from dusk to dawn, hoping that by their enterprise they would have something to sustain their lives with.

The men who surrounded the chess players were not dissimilar to the "guso" group in so far as their estimation of our government was concerned although, their approach varied. Instead of addressing their worsening living condition, they, by playing chess, hoped that they could not notice the hours passing by. Tragically, those men chose to escape from reality.