RAMOS, Czarina Francine M.

October 5, 2020
12-STEM 7

Pig Lovers and Pig Haters

People—they have a reason why they hate or love something. Always. For some,
their reason might seem sensible. However, not everyone will think the same way. Some of them
might view it otherwise, they might think that their logic is ludicrous. Well, whether we like it or
not, it’s like that all the time. That’s how life goes for each one of us.

As for the people from Middle East, specifically the Jews and Muslims, number of
them hate pig but if we will further look and give it some consideration, some of them don’t
actually hate the pigs. It’s just that consumption of pigs is prohibited by their religion. Of course,
their god has a reason. One reason why they hate pigs is due to the fact that pigs are unclean
since they are thermodynamically ill-adapted to the hot, dry climate of the Middle East. The
rationale behind what makes the pig unclean is that they dampen its skin for external moisture to
compensate for its lack of protective hair and its inability to sweat. They prefer to do this by
wallowing themselves in a fresh clean mud; and if not available, they cover their skin with their
own urine and feces. The higher the temperature, the dirtier they become. Another reason is that
their god believes that the greater the temptation, the greater the need for divine intervention.
Since pigs became ecological and economical luxuries as a consequence of extensive
deforestation which accompanied increase in human population resulted on permanent damage
caused by large herds of sheep and goats. The greater the scarce in pork, the more they craved
for consuming it. Them, being human, are having time to fight off the temptation. On the other
side of the coin, the Chinese and Euro-American loves the pig. Pig love is associated with
honoring one’s dead father, stuffing cold belly fat into brother-in-law’s mouth to make him loyal
and happy, and a great pig feast to satisfy ancestor’s cravings for pork.

Human beings find it hard to resist the temptation of their own. As a fellow
human being, I myself know how it feels. It would be a lie if I will say to everyone that I have
never gotten tempted at least once in my life. And maybe, it will be already a sin if I will tell
everyone that I have never ever succumb into these temptations, not even once. Being caught up
as well as actually giving in into these temptations does not make us less of a person. In
factuality, this further proves that we are mere humans who are flawed and are capable of doing
a mistake. Just like how some of Muslims are tempted to eat pork, we—people even from other
religions knows well what the feeling of temptation is. Just like them, we experience it in our
daily existence. The wealthy ones, they are tempted to reach more riches. They are tempted to
get more to the extent of them resorting to evil things. Same goes for the unfortunate ones, since
they don’t have—or they have, it’s not enough—the capabilities of getting luxurious things.
Their temptations increase too high to the extent of them resorting into something evil just for
them to be able to satiate their temptations. However, these are not the case all the time. Most of
the people who are in midst of resisting a temptation, let their good nature reign. Therefore, they
don’t resort in doing evil things. Contrarily, they work hard for them to be able to attain the
things they are wishing for. Through these, I realized how different we all are compared to each
other. We take things differently. We handle and overcome temptations, struggles, or challenges
on our own way. And for me this is what makes life beautiful. We suffer; we cry; then we laugh
afterwards. We strive hard. We fall; we stand up. We get tempted; we succumb, but all is alright.
It’s not all about the good; it’s not all about the bad rather. Life is seeing the good amidst all the
bad things happening.

Regarding the Maring women’s love for pig—how they nurture and take good
care of the pigs even though it only adds up to their responsibilities at home, I am skeptical of it.
Before anything else, I must emphasize the fact that we all have different opinions and out views
in life. So as for my case, I don’t think that it’s the pig which they love. I think that the one that
they love is their ancestors. The only reason I perceive why they nurture these pigs is because
they want to satisfy the needs of their ancestors. It is similar to what actually happens in our day-
to-day life. Believe it or not, be it consciously or not, there are indeed times when we settle for
something even if we don’t really love it. There are these times when we’d do something just for
the sake of pleasing someone. We don’t feel like doing it but because the person/s around us are
expecting us to actually do it, then we’ll still push ourselves and choose to suffer silently. I think
this is because we want acceptance. We want to feel welcomed. We want to feel appreciated. We
want to feel enough. That’s why we settle for this thing. There is nothing wrong in trying to do
something we don’t love in the hope for it to become something that we will eventually learn to
love in the process. However, the wrong thing is trying to please everyone. We will never be able
to please everyone no matter how hard we try. Doing this will only exhaust us to death. There
will be always a one or two or even more who will just make things hard for us. Knowing that,
we must focus and put all our attention on the things and people that we truly love—those that
actually worth our time. Also, another point I want to focus on is the pig love as a festival.
During the festival, pigs are being killed. In my point of view, I cannot bear to witness something
I love getting killed. If I truly love something, why would I put an end into it? This when I
realize that each one of us has our own interpretation of what love is. Each of us has our own
ways of expressing it. Well as for their case, their expression of their love involves slaughter of
the pigs. Maybe for me, loving someone means trying my best to keep him/her from getting hurt.
For you, it will be different as well. This opened my mind on how distinct each people are. We
have different ways on expressing ourselves. Some knows very well what they are doing. Some
are do not even know how they’d be able to do so.

From my own point of view, there is nothing wrong with the love and hate of the
pig. I see this as something that proves the pig lovers and pig haters that they are just a human—
a mere human who is capable of loving and hating something. As fellow humans, all left for us
to do is to respect them and their decision. If they have decided to hate on pigs, let them. Well, if
they have decided to love pigs, let them as well. Their logic may not be same as ours but we
must always bear in our mind that we are no different from them. Deep in our own selves lies the
beliefs, values, likes, dislikes, fettish, and petpeeves of our own. With that, we must know in
ourselves the feeling of wanting to be respected of these things. If we want that, we must show it
to others first beforehand. We might share the same beliefs, values, or customs to other but still
we must bear in our mind that we are all distinct to each other. In spite of these differences, let us
all maintain an open mind. For with this, we’ll be able to connect and become one.