Omphaloskepsis

After ten thousand years, perhaps Filipinos will evolve into beings with eyes looking out from their belly buttons.

I don't know from whom I heard it first, but Filipinos have been characterized as a people who are perpetually looking inward and are somewhat obsessed with themselves.

The world goes by around them, along with what could have been opportunities to raise their status in life.

Two things have brought me to thinking about the Filipino Omphaloskepsis.

One is a conversation with Better Philippines about a theory that Philippine registered sites along with content about the Philippines don't garner as much attention from "google adsense clickers" as non-Philippine registered sites with non-Philippine content.  The barrier, as I refer to it, is that the Philippines doesn't have as many "clickers" mainly because of how our economy is set up and how our financial institutions (banks, credit companies, etcetera) haven't built up the mechanisms that would allow for completely online businesses.

A friend who does the back-end system for a number for financial institutions says that even betting on horses in the Philippines can't be done completely online.  You still have to print out a ticket which you have to bring over to a bank where you have to pay for it.

This is the same thing you find with small website based businesses where you can't complete a transaction the way one normally would in countries like the US.

Two is the fact that I've begun to write about things that aren't happening in the Philippines and how I've been told that the site I write for has an international following -- and its readers aren't THAT interested in topics about the Philippines.

So, here I am, trying to get my eyes off my navel.  I hope you do the same.