By Cliff Potts, CSO & Editor-in-Chief, WPS.News

Where I Landed Is Not the Point

I didn’t come here angry at America. I didn’t come here chasing a fantasy either. I came here because life took a turn, love took root, and then loss knocked the air out of the room. What I found afterward wasn’t a culture shock so much as a systems shock. And that matters, because culture is a convenient scapegoat for behavior that shows up everywhere once you strip away the flags and the food.

This is not an essay about Filipinos. It’s not an essay about Americans. It’s an essay about people, systems, and what happens when responsibility gets blurry and adulthood gets optional.

I’m a Midwest Yankee living in a Filipino barangay. That makes me an observer by default. Sometimes it also makes me the only adult in the room.

The Comforting Myth of “It’s Just Culture”

Anytime something doesn’t make sense, the word “culture” gets deployed like a universal solvent. Late? Culture. Avoidant? Culture. Silent when accountability is needed? Culture. But here’s the thing: culture explains customs. It doesn’t excuse conduct.

When systems reward avoidance, people learn avoidance. When systems punish honesty, people learn silence. When systems allow obligations to drift until someone else absorbs them, people learn to drift. That isn’t Filipino. That’s human.

I’ve seen it in Chicago boardrooms and Midwestern church basements. I’ve seen it in tech companies and family kitchens. Different accents, same patterns.

Transactional Care Is Still Transactional

One of the hardest adjustments hasn’t been language or food or weather. It’s been the realization that care can become purely transactional without anyone naming it out loud.

At the beginning of the month, when money is available, everything is smooth. Smiles come easily. Needs are anticipated. Toward the end of the month, when resources thin, so does patience. The mood changes. The warmth cools. No one says it directly, but the message is clear: stability is conditional.

That’s not culture. That’s economics mixed with immaturity. And it’s exhausting to live inside if you don’t call it what it is.

Silence Is Not Neutral

Silence is often framed as politeness. In reality, silence is frequently a tactic. It delays decisions. It avoids conflict. It pushes responsibility onto the person who cares the most.

When messages go unread. When questions aren’t answered. When problems linger because no one wants to be the one to say “no” or “this isn’t my job,” silence becomes a system feature.

In those moments, the person who insists on clarity becomes the problem—not because they’re wrong, but because they disrupt the illusion that nothing is happening.

Grief Exposes Weak Systems Fast

Grief has a way of stripping life down to essentials. When someone dies, the systems around you either step up or quietly step away.

What surprised me wasn’t that people struggled to help. It was how quickly attention returned only when money or convenience entered the picture. Emotional absence paired with financial expectation is a brutal combination. It tells you exactly where you stand.

This isn’t cruelty. It’s immaturity backed by habit. But understanding that doesn’t make it easier to live with.

High School Never Really Ends

There’s a comforting lie we tell ourselves: that adulthood arrives automatically with age. It doesn’t. Many people simply carry high school dynamics into larger rooms with higher stakes.

Embarrassment matters more than truth. Face matters more than repair. Optics matter more than outcomes. If a problem can be hidden instead of solved, hidden wins.

That mindset scales beautifully—and destructively. It works in families, neighborhoods, corporations, and governments alike.

Survival Is Not Cynicism

At some point, I stopped trying to fix anything. Not out of bitterness, but out of realism. You cannot repair systems that do not want to be repaired. You can only decide how much of yourself you are willing to lose inside them.

That’s when the rule clarified itself:

I don’t need to fix this system. I just need to survive it.

Survival doesn’t mean cruelty. It means boundaries. It means clarity. It means deciding where your responsibility ends and refusing to apologize for it.

Distance Is a Skill

Americans are very good at distance. We live next to people for years and know nothing about them beyond a nod and a hello. That can be isolating—but it can also be protective.

When closeness becomes a one-way obligation, distance becomes self-defense. That’s not running away. That’s choosing not to bleed unnecessarily.

Distance is not the opposite of compassion. Sometimes it’s the only way compassion survives.

The Universal Explanation Nobody Likes

There’s an old line that explains more human behavior than most theories ever will: everyone falls short. No exceptions. The moment someone insists they don’t, check your wallet.

People everywhere are capable of generosity and pettiness, courage and cowardice, kindness and indifference. Systems decide which traits get rewarded.

This isn’t about moral superiority. It’s about pattern recognition.

Why I’m Writing This Down

I’m documenting this not to accuse, but to remember. Systems thrive when experiences stay isolated and unnamed. Writing turns isolation into record.

Maybe someone else will read this and feel less alone. Maybe they’ll recognize the pattern in a different country, a different job, a different family. Or maybe this just becomes a marker I can point to later and say, “That’s when I stopped trying to explain myself.”

Either way, the work is the same: observe honestly, survive cleanly, and move on when the time comes.

Final Notes from the Barangay

Living here has taught me something valuable. Not about the Philippines, but about humanity.

Change the geography and the costumes. Keep the incentives the same. You’ll get the same behavior.

I’m still here. I’m still paying attention. And I’m still writing.

For further social commentary, please see Occupy 2.5 at
https://Occupy25.com

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