THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF

Photo from PABLO's IG

 Most of us heard the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, a story that taught us that lying will never do us any good, but Pablo gave a different meaning to the phrase. Listening to the song numerous times since its release, I realized an important lesson that he wanted to share with his listeners.

We think we know someone, but the truth is that we don't.

When we meet people, it is easy to have that first 'impression', a quick judgment based on what we've observed in that short encounter. Often, that first impression lingers, making it impossible for us to open ourselves to getting to know the person better. All of us are guilty of this sin, a judge and jury according to what little we know of the people around us. In every movie, TV series, and tale, the wolf is always bad. Every story has a villain and we always hate the villains without understanding why they became that way.

The Joker movie starring Joaquin Phoenix showed a different perspective about a villain's story. Understanding the bad guy is not something we normally do, but his portrayal of Joker taught that us there's always another side of the story. Another example is The Vampire Diaries and The Originals when they introduced Niklaus Mikaelson as the evil and powerful supernatural being who wants to be another kind of monster, one of its kind. His goal was to break his hybrid curse, a curse placed upon him by his own mother to lock away an important part of him. You see, Niklaus was born out of adultery when his mother found love with another man, a werewolf alpha.

When their mother turned them into the first vampires this world had ever seen, his mother's dark secret was revealed, turning his already resentful father against him. For a thousand years, he killed countless people for revenge, to protect his family, for fun, and for boredom. His first scenes in The Vampire Diaries revolved around him being the man who was about to kill the most loved young woman in Mystic Falls. Everybody saw him as the big bad wolf after he successfully broke his curse, but when The Originals came out, we finally saw who Klaus was as a man and a brother. He may have done a lot of terrible and unforgivable things throughout his long life, but he did them for reasons that only a few would understand. He was never bad, he had to be so everyone would be afraid of him. In that way, he could be safe and protect his family at the same time.

Pablo's new song, The Boy Who Cried Wolf leaned on this truth. He, too, is a misunderstood man. Many people, even A'tin, see him as a strict, sassy, straightforward, perfectionist, and scary leader. Yes, many fans love him as he is, but still. In this new song, he expressed his raw and unfiltered emotion, maybe what he felt in the past or how he still feels right now. Whatever it is, we all felt it. We all felt him.

Everybody telling that the wolf is bad

Ain't nobody telling when the wolf is sad

And because of that the wolf is going mad

'Cause there's nobody willing to understand

Maybe I should be more like the sheep instead

Maybe they will listen, if inside, I'm dead

Maybe all these maybes just because I'm scared

'Cause the truth is ugly and I'm not prepared

We've all been in this situation once or twice in our lives. People will listen to stories they hear about us, mostly from those who hate us, and they'll believe everything. Just a few bad words uttered and we will be the big bad wolf in everybody's story. The saddest part is that no one would even dare to dig deeper and try to understand the things we've done. Nobody would even see the pain we're suffering silently and alone. There comes a time when we start asking ourselves whether it's better to simply succumb to whatever the world demands from us. Although there's a voice in our heads that would tell us everything will be okay, we're just scared of the truth.

To face myself and find that, I'm

The biggest lie, I'm tryin' to hide

Can we say that we've never been this person? Somebody who is telling lies to ourselves? I bet we can't because we've all been there, and probably still are right now. We surround ourselves with so many lies that eventually we believe them ourselves. We're happy, we're okay, we've moved on, we're not hurting, we're not affected by the things happening in our lives that we turn numb from the pain.

This is getting out of hand

Ang aking mga paa nama'y nanginginig

'La man lang nagtangkang kumilala sa'king tinig

Halos maputulan na nga 'ko ng litid

Kahit pilit ko pang isara ang mga mata'y

Tumatagas pa rin aking damdamin

At sa may baybayin umaapaw na

Once people have a bad perception of us, it's hard to change it. They will hang on to it even after all our efforts to show them that we are not who they think we are. Even if we prove them wrong, they wouldn't care anymore. It's as if no matter how loud we scream, they would never listen. It's easy to say that we should not care about other people's opinions of us, but in reality, that's almost impossible. We could drink or smoke ourselves away until we die, but no matter how strong we are, we will be affected by the negativities one way or another.

Ang aking galit sa mundo

Pagsamo ko'y pakinggan niyo

I personally have been in this situation more times than I'd like to admit, and I am certain that so do many of you. It's hard not to feel the anger when all the world has ever done is try and beat you down. At first, we will try to survive on our own, telling ourselves that we will be okay, that we are strong enough, but eventually, we would hope for somebody, anybody to help us.

Patawarin mo naman ako

'Di ko naman inasahan 'to

Wala naman akong ibang gusto

Alam mo 'yan kahit walang ideya ang mundo

At sa kabila ng mga pangyayari

Wala naman akong iba pang masisisi

Kung 'di ang sarili, piniling isantabi

Marahil nga itinakda na ako'y masawi

We keep looking for someone to blame but the truth is, there's no one to blame but ourselves. No matter how much we try to make ourselves believe that we're all victims of the world's cruelty, we will only become a victim if we allow ourselves to be. There's no one else who could write our story but us, and we have the power to create something beautiful. This song is not just a story of a person severely misunderstood by the world, but a story of someone who struggles to understand and accept one's self. Each of us has been or is still going through this, and perhaps we blame ourselves or others because we don't understand anything.

At malayo lang sa mundo

Ang tupang sakripisyo

We are all sacrificial lambs of this world in one way or another. We are meant to either sacrifice our happiness for our goals or sacrifice other people for our benefit, it's just a matter of who and what we are willing to sacrifice.

Sabi ko naman sa'yo

'Di lang ikaw ang talo

'Di ba nga dalawa na tayo?

Dalawa na tayo

'Wag mong solohin ang mundo

Lagi lang akong nandito

'Di ba nga dalawa na tayo?

Dalawa na tayo

This is the perfect ending to a very emotional song. The validation that whatever we're going through, we're not alone. We are not the only people in this world, and everyone experiences struggles and heartaches, some even worse than us. We are all fighting the same battles, and we all have battle scars to prove it. How we turn out as a person is the effect of what we've been through. Nobody can blame us for being who we are now, and we never should apologize for it, because in the end, we all have to do everything to survive. Yet we always have our choices, and we can choose to be better than who we are yesterday.