Loving Design: A Reflection on Transcendence and Creativity

by Jechrist Ramos

This is a reflection after I’ve seen this video. I write about my personal experience as a struggling artist and a design student.

When I was filling out the forms to enter the Ateneo during my 4th year in high school, I was debating with myself what course to write down as my first choice; something in Management or something in Fine Arts. I’ve prepared for the entrance exams, but it seems like I did not prepare for the more important matter that would determine my life.

In the end, I was admitted to the school as a student of Information Design from the School of Humanities. It sounded so fancy, but for the first 2 years in the course, we didn’t do anything but take core subjects and theory classes. I was starting to doubt whether I made a right choice.

This line of thought led me to a time before college when people around my age thought that art courses were more or less useless. “Anyone can do that !@#$”, they would say. Even their description was harsh. Even my family kept asking and asking and asking me to rethink and rethink and rethink about my choice of taking BFA ID because it was not a practical choice. Were they right? 

Now that I’m a Junior, we’re already having studio classes where we have a “taste” of what designers really do. In addition, I’ve also started freelancing. After approximately 4 months of these, I can say to those people before, that “Anyone can do this !@#$... But with training and extreme mental effort”.

A designer’s task is to look at the obvious which, according to our philosophy class, is the invisible. Have you ever walked into a bookstore and wonder why a magazine suddenly snatches your attention? Have you ever wondered why it feels so engaging to just scroll down and read people’s posts in Facebook? Why is an apple used for the logo of Mac products? Are you merely looking but not really seeing? If you’ve thought of these questions and think designing is still easy, think again. There is no formula in designing. They give you principles, guides and Adobe Photoshop; but these are merely tools.

With the tools, we are free to create. The creative process is full of rough roads. I’m sure you’ve all experienced making a paper then suddenly stop. You forget what you want to say or you don’t know what ideas to add. In the arts, this is called a creative block. It is specific for the arts because blocks in (for example) the intellectual world work differently. In the sciences, when you’re stuck in an experiment, look up a book, or research more on the topic and you’ll somehow find a solution. You somehow have at least a vague idea where to go. In the arts, when you’re stuck after a well thought-of idea, you get so lost. The insight you have was yours through personal reflection. No one has thought of your idea but you because of your own personal reflection. So, the solution can only be found again in reflection.

A big part of the creative process focuses on reflection. You have to think and think and think before you can sketch or touch a computer. What is gained from this is insight (some people may call this inspiration) – the key to designing. It is a designer’s task to create a connection between an idea and a concept. The end result is that the audience can see a connection between a green, seductive siren and an aromatic, addictive coffee.

Now where does that spark come from? In the video, one of the poets that Elizabeth Gilbert interviewed described it as a hurling wind chasing her until she had grabbed and recorded it into a piece of paper. Elizabeth Gilbert calls it “genius” as it was named in Rome. It can also be God or Allah. Creativity is also something that we cannot fully grasp and understand. It just approaches you like that hurling wind which you do not know where it came from. All we can say is that it is some higher entity much bigger than ourselves. It makes us more humble.

Going back to my dilemma before college, okay, so I’ve already proven to myself that designing isn’t easy as most people think it is by experiencing it firsthand. But is it practical? According to the video, artists are normally the most mentally vulnerable. Society thinks that designing is a piece of cake and most are even clueless about the creative process. They tend to dismiss or sometimes even ignorant of the efforts and opinions of designers.

I’ve experienced taking lots of time researching, reflecting, making drafts and repeating these steps over and over again but still failed. It is depressing but I understand that it’s a part of the journey. But when I succeeded, I gained a new metaphysical unease. I started to fear like Elizabeth Gilbert. Is this going to be my best work ever? Will this be the end of my designing journey? It was one of those “I’m so happy that I start to fear losing it”.

The responsibility of designers for their works, that Elizabeth Gilbert describes, is too heavy for a human being’s psyche and ego. When I fail, what right does the world have to judge me for a failure when I’ve only done what the hurling wind or genius forced me to do? On the other hand, what right do I have to be so big-headed, when this higher entity helped me in doing my job? These experiences and thoughts have also plagued Van Gogh. The pressure caused extreme tension which made him cut off his own ear. Will all these hardships, including the probability of cutting off my own ear, be worth it? This is what I usually ask.
Maybe that question is wrongly asked. It is wrong because I can never know if it will be worth it or not. I cannot predict the future; nor can anyone else. I admit it isn’t the most practical profession because it will not produce that much money. I now rephrase the question. I knew BFA ID wouldn’t pay as much as BS ME in the long run. I knew it would also put a strain on my mentality. So why did I even consider it to be my first choice while I was looking at the admission forms of the Ateneo?

I guess my answer is love and passion for designing. This was the insight I’ve gained after watching the video of Elizabeth Gilbert. At the beginning, she mentioned writing being her love and passion.  At the end, she expounded it into writing as the job she does, whether it would be an international sensation or not, because it is her love and passion. Yes, her intention in writing is not to be there for other people, but her love and passion resulted in this wonderful piece that eventually reached people.

I end this with a flashback when I was creating a logo for a company. The client was awful. She gave a vague description of what she wants and doesn’t answer my questions. I had multiple creative blocks. It took a lot of time of researching, sketching and reflecting. But when I finally gained that spark, that inspiration, that insight, it felt very strange and different. I forgot the horrible client, the frustrations, and the creative blocks. I think what I felt was similar to the Spanish dancer, described by Elizabeth Gilbert, who became transcendent and looked nothing near human; almost something divine. I felt that entity which was bigger than me. After finishing that logo, it took a long time again before I’ve felt that uplifting. I persevered because I wanted to taste that moment of transcendence again while doing what I love.

Reflection, Take It Easy

by Kim Su-Ho

28 August 2012

Discussed Text: Gabriel Marcel, "Primary and Secondary Reflection," The Mystery of Being

There were two dilemmas in today's discussion on whether reflection is intimately related to life, rooted in life or that reflection kills life.

On a side note, there was also a small discussion on the thoughtless people. It's funny since i did not raise my hand when that question came up. I have until now thought of myself to be quite less thoughtful than the average people. I had no plan or whatsoever in my life considering I only took the ACET out of all the universities since I had no desire for better education. I just lived a hippy life, going with the flow, wasting away my time playing games, going out, watching TV and so on. It was whether I get rejected and I just go to a random university in Cebu (where I was living) or simply, I am accepted. Well, somehow I passed the ACET and I was accepted in Ateneo.

Now I'm in third year, at least a bit more mature than I was in high school. This whole blabber of my past is a reflection. I now ask myself, how I felt during this reflection. NOTHING but my awareness that I'm writing this blog. Here I suggest the third point to reflection, I do not object against what Marcel has suggested but I believe, reflection does not always have to have an end result. In reflection, there could sometimes be nothing to it. Sometimes during the span of our life, we have those moments when we are spaced out. With no idea, with no thoughts, with no care for the world, there are times when we just want to be. Or could this be only applicable to me because I am a thoughtless person as I mentioned earlier? I do not know. Similar to how Marcel describes truth, I see no need to complicate it further. Some may consider my words as thoughtless, some may criticize my words as being blatant and ignorant, some may be enlightened and some may not even read this post yet one thing I am sure is that this post in the end will be buried in oblivion. Reflection is a cyclical activity, more or less a continuous and unending process. We reflect one time, and one may feel something to his life or something that kills his life or simply nothing but sooner or later we forget. We watch dramas and movies, let's say the well known Korean drama "Boys over Flowers." Do we remember the feeling, the moral that we got from that drama? Of course we do since I just made you reflect with the question but just before then, the drama was completely out of our current minds.

Reflection, at least in my perspective, isn't something that can be done on one's will, on one's volition. Reflection just happens to be as how life happens to be, like how we happen to have been born. Like the kernel of popcorn without knowing when to "pop!", likewise we never know for reflection. I mean, seriously, do we write our reflection paper for any subjects on a planned basis? I think that would be too cruel to the already heavily routinized modern life of ours. We just feel it when we need to write, and when we have to reflect. So I say, take the reflection easy. Save your ultimate reflection before your breath dies out.

New Perspectives

by Jason Dacuyan

A few days ago, my gastritis had struck again and since the pain was unbearable, I really had to go out and buy medicine from the drugstore. Mercury Drug Katipunan wasn’t far since I live in the Ateneo university dormitory but it was still a challenge for me with my stomach all fiery and painful. So I mustered up my courage and took a “trike” (short for tricycle) going to Mercury Drug. And did I mention how much I dislike trikes? They drive so recklessly fast leaving me kind of nauseated every time I go down. To add to that, the brakes on their motorcycles sound like those annoying sounds one makes when scratching the chalk board. Okay, so I buy my medicine but before I’m able to leave the drugstore, heavy rain fell and just my luck, I forgot to bring an umbrella. After faring the heavy rains for a few minutes, I finally found a trike going home. And it was on this trike ride that David Foster Wallace’s speech entered my mind.

At that moment in time, I was really tired and frustrated not to mention the gas pains that were currently happening in my stomach. “This is Water”, I told myself. As I paid attention to the heavy rains, the cars on the road beside my trike, the people on the sidewalks in umbrellas, and even the trike driver himself —I finally began to understand. I am not the center of the universe. I thought how the cars around me could have more urgent problems than me wanting to go home or how the trike driver might not have had lunch yet or he might also be sick but he’s risking his health to earn money for his family. I thought of the people who have to walk home under the heavy rain—only then that I felt lucky to be riding on a trike. I can control how and what I think, that’s what I realized. And once I was aware that I was aware, everything seemed okay.

The rain didn’t frustrate me anymore. I began to see it merely as rain, not some external factor giving me discomfort. The screeching brakes of the trike didn’t seem to matter anymore. The trike driver must have spent a lot just to have those brakes work properly and maybe he couldn’t do anything about the screeching sound anymore without spending more money. This experience has surprised me in a lot of ways. It has allowed me to see the bigger picture—that I am part of a greater whole. This must be what Simon Critchley meant when he said that philosophers seem to be elsewhere. And I was elsewhere. I was at that moment the same Jason but my mind was on the things around me. The experience was a big surprise and I was amazed at the realization. Although I already knew about these things after reading the articles, it really is different if you experience the realization firsthand.

Because of this experience, I also remembered Heidegger’s article about being in Being. I never really quite understood what it meant but now I think I have gained some understanding. By looking at the bigger picture and being aware of the things around me, I was moved. I was moved by Being. This must be what Heidegger meant about Philein which he described as a kind of harmony that reveals to us what it means to love and be sensitive to the vibration of the other. I think for a moment there, I experienced Philein with the people around me. I thought to myself, “If I’m already bothered and frustrated with all this rain, how much more the trike driver. He’s soaked from the rain.” Also, during my ride home, one car even splashed some water on the trike I was riding as it sped past a rain puddle. Normally, I would’ve been pissed. But because of my awareness, I was able to let it go and remind myself that I am part of a greater whole. I usually don’t bother thinking about these kinds of things at all. But I did think of these things. And because of that, I finally realized what Heidegger said about “being gathered together in Being” meant. Me, the trike driver, the cars, the road, the passersby, the tees—we’re all connected. We’re all expressing our Being, the dynamic act of existence, in a singular way. It means that we are part of something greater. I am part of something greater, something beyond and outside myself.

Everything seemed to connect —from Critchley, to Wallace, to Heidegger, and finally to Ferriols’ insight—seeing what something actually means as it exists. Who knew a mere tricycle ride could help me philosophize, gain some insight about the world and change my perspective. I choose what I think about. I get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. I am part of a greater whole.

Truth: The Light that Never Goes Out

by Denise Arandia

23 August 2012

Discussed Text: Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being

Truth is basically becoming in accordance with reality, something that each and every person has the right to know no matter how bad it may hurt. In last Thursday’s class, I learned that truth is seen as a light, which can be interpreted in ways more than one.

Someone may see the truth as enlightening, illuminating, something beautiful, or something that will set oneself free. Without the truth, one might feel like he/she is tied up in chains or maybe there’s something that’s missing. Either way, knowing the truth or at least the need to know it, is innate to every single human being. However, since the truth is seen as a light, one may recognize it as being bright, too bright - sometimes bright enough for one to be blinded. Due to this, one may decide to not look directly at the light because it hurts one’s eyes and eventually, oneself.

We have to admit that most of the time, the truth does hurt. We have this tendency to build illusions that makes us deny the truth in order for us to be happy. For instance, a couple who are in a relationship that doesn’t seem to work out anymore. Both sides may feel that the “spark” is no longer there but since they have been through a lot together and they fear that they may never find a love as strong as what the had before, they end up just denying the problem and continue living in grief. Furthermore, this denial doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to only love - it can be a denial of opportunities in the future. For example, a very skillful engineer working in a very big and prestigious company is promoted to become the manager of the engineering department. The engineer denies that he is suitable to become the manager and eventually denies the job offer. Because of his denial, he ends up losing an opportunity that might have helped him a lot in the future.

There are also times when you know the truth about someone but refuse to tell him/her because you fear that he/she would get hurt. Sure, at first, this may work since in a way, you are protecting the that person from pain. In the end, you might realize that no matter how great you are in hiding the truth, it will catch up. When that someone finally finds out about the truth, it may hurt him/her a lot more than to begin with.

Honestly though, would you rather live life being blinded by the truth or just facing it head on? The truth, no matter how painful it may be, must be accepted by not only you but everyone else. The light may be too blinding for you but that’s just the way it is. I guess in the end, we just have to find the beauty in the light and the truth.

For some reason, the whole lecture reminded me of the song “There is a Light that Never Goes Out” by The Smiths. I guess this song can be related to this whole entry.

“To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.”

Seeing something beautiful in something as terrifying as death is somewhat similar to accepting the truth. Accepting and making the best out of the truth and what is currently happening should be the way to go - no matter how sad and painful it may be.

Wherever we are, whatever we do, the truth is unavoidable - a light that never goes out.

Truth and the RH Bill

by Jerico Halaguena

23 August 2012

Discussed text: Gabriel Marcel, "The Mystery of Being"

There are two sides or two stands on the RH Bil: Pro or Anti. These are two truths that our fellow country men see. For some of us, we may not have seen these truths or we may have even avoid looking. Why? Maybe because these truths are not really truths for us. The RH Bill is said to be pro-poor, pro-women and even pro-poor women. It is also pro-education. On the other hand, it is also said to be anti-life with the use of contraceptives. For me, it is hard to call these as truths when the bill hasn't taken action. They are not yet facts. These are, I believe, possible truths. In class, I learned that we should not confuse "what I like the thing to be" and "what it is". I think that is really what is going on right now. We do not know what it is exactly or how it will play in our country exactly. Is it a real solution or do we just think it's a solution. For some, we would like it to be a solution. Truth is given meaning or value if it is connected to the subject who is in the community of researchers. Have the pro and the anti given their sides true value? For this issue I believe that the pros and the antis are the researchers, the subjects, who have looked at the RH bill and have seen some truths but, in my opinion, may not be in a community with one another. I have seen both sides argue. What I have not seen, is a pro and an anti looking for a compromise or proposing an alternative, together. The RH bill is there because of other truths in this country that all of us have seen: Poverty, abuse and death. Some of us do not want to see this truth but they should, they must. One must be open to the light, the truth. And maybe, we should take action to make this truth no more. If the bill is passed, let's all hope that a new truth would shine. A truth that is and also what we would like it to be. Peace. Happiness.

The Exigency of Transcendence

by Mikka Aquino

23 August 2012

Discussed Text: Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being

There are certain events in our lives that are out of our control. These range from small moments to big moments that could instantly change the way we live our lives. They could come in the form of small realizations that urge the person to make a sudden judgment or action, or big events that are turning points that jar a person awake and into a kind of reality that they must face. In these moments, we may come to realize our own incompleteness – the lack in ourselves. We don’t even need to look too far away for us to discover things; if we look deeper into our own being, we’ll find something new, something we have overlooked or taken for granted.

This sudden realization of the flaws will stir unease and dissatisfaction within us, creating a yearning for completion, for the attainment of that one true Desire. In such moments, we are no longer simple people. We become aware of ourselves being aware, and in so doing, we may hopefully go beyond what is there, reaching forth and yearning to be what we would deem ‘perfect.’

Such is the exigency of transcendence.

Personally, I have come across certain tragedies that at some point in my life, I perceived them to be far greater than myself. They’re one of those moments that will forever leave you feeling amiss, or just put you into this state of perpetual questioning and wonder, perhaps even fear. I may even say that such experiences have left their holes in me. Whether they can be fully healed or simply covered beneath a patch, I am unsure. These are permanent, life changing events and I would be foolish to think that these could be brushed aside, as if I was left unchanged and unaffected. I will not stipulate what these are – suffice to say that these are losses- but these big things and even small things have helped shape who I am now. It was not by circumstance alone that I was shaped, but by the decisions I made as a response to that circumstance.

This response I had was something that I gave out of the need to be something else, something more than what I used to be. Regressing or even remaining the same after such tragic events would only serve to ruin me, to lead me further down and away into decrepitude. Obviously, I will not be doing myself any good. I will not be doing anyone any good, if I let myself waste away. And this desire to become more is not something that I could copy off of other people. It’s something that only I was capable of conceiving, for in the end, it’ll only be me who is accountable for the deeds I’ve done and for the person I’ve become. No one could have taught me what to do about such experiences, much as I would have liked someone to have told me how I could have survived better. Alas, life is not meant to be a how-to process. If that were the case, then there would be no point to life, for one would have just lived someone else's experiences.

Although this is a personal experience, it does not mean that it is a selfish one. For me, I wanted to move on, be stronger, be a better me because I wanted to, I needed to and I knew there were others who needed me to be stronger. It’ll never be just a personal experience for me, or for anyone. It will always be an experience that is tied to others. I’d like to think of it in this way: We can affirm, through other people, that we have changed, that we have done something good and that we have become more. We won’t see it for ourselves, not initially. It’s only when we see how our actions and how we as persons have affected people that we know who we are or what we’ve actually done.

That’s why we can’t be alone. It’s through other people that we exist, that we know that we exist. And it is through us that others come to be as well.

I think that these are things that we cannot force upon ourselves. It’s a demand, yes but it is a demand that comes from some unexpected occurrence. I think we need to be caught off guard for us to realize that there are holes in ourselves that we need to fill up. Moments like these humble us for it is when we become vulnerable to the elements, to circumstance, and to other people and even to our own scrutiny.

And I think it is a beautiful thing to realize that you’re incomplete, to realize that you’re flawed or ill-equipped to face a certain situation. It’s only when you see the bad side of things that you can fully appreciate what is good and beautiful about it, about you. It is only within that moment of weakness that we can find ourselves learning to be strong. Again, whatever we realize, whatever epiphany we have about ourselves, it’ll never be far removed from what is there within us or from what we have experienced. That being said, I think we shouldn’t be afraid to accept what horrors lurk beneath our skins, or what pockmarks we find upon our surfaces; we shouldn’t be afraid to question and to know ourselves more. It’s like mining – if you dig deep enough, you would have eventually struck gold.

The Joy of Quiet by Pico Ayer

This is the article of Pico Ayer found in NYTimes.com, which can be found here.

The Joy of Quiet
by Pico Ayer

"ABOUT a year ago, I flew to Singapore to join the writer Malcolm Gladwell, the fashion designer Marc Ecko and the graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister in addressing a group of advertising people on “Marketing to the Child of Tomorrow.” Soon after I arrived, the chief executive of the agency that had invited us took me aside. What he was most interested in, he began — I braced myself for mention of some next-generation stealth campaign — was stillness.

A few months later, I read an interview with the perennially cutting-edge designer Philippe Starck. What allowed him to remain so consistently ahead of the curve? “I never read any magazines or watch TV,” he said, perhaps a little hyperbolically. “Nor do I go to cocktail parties, dinners or anything like that.” He lived outside conventional ideas, he implied, because “I live alone mostly, in the middle of nowhere.”

Around the same time, I noticed that those who part with $2,285 a night to stay in a cliff-top room at the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur pay partly for the privilege of not having a TV in their rooms; the future of travel, I’m reliably told, lies in “black-hole resorts,” which charge high prices precisely because you can’t get online in their rooms.

Has it really come to this?

In barely one generation we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them — often in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug. Like teenagers, we appear to have gone from knowing nothing about the world to knowing too much all but overnight.

Internet rescue camps in South Korea and China try to save kids addicted to the screen.

Writer friends of mine pay good money to get the Freedom software that enables them to disable (for up to eight hours) the very Internet connections that seemed so emancipating not long ago. Even Intel (of all companies) experimented in 2007 with conferring four uninterrupted hours of quiet time every Tuesday morning on 300 engineers and managers. (The average office worker today, researchers have found, enjoys no more than three minutes at a time at his or her desk without interruption.) During this period the workers were not allowed to use the phone or send e-mail, but simply had the chance to clear their heads and to hear themselves think. A majority of Intel’s trial group recommended that the policy be extended to others.

THE average American spends at least eight and a half hours a day in front of a screen, Nicholas Carr notes in his eye-opening book “The Shallows,” in part because the number of hours American adults spent online doubled between 2005 and 2009 (and the number of hours spent in front of a TV screen, often simultaneously, is also steadily increasing).

The average American teenager sends or receives 75 text messages a day, though one girl in Sacramento managed to handle an average of 10,000 every 24 hours for a month. Since luxury, as any economist will tell you, is a function of scarcity, the children of tomorrow, I heard myself tell the marketers in Singapore, will crave nothing more than freedom, if only for a short while, from all the blinking machines, streaming videos and scrolling headlines that leave them feeling empty and too full all at once.

The urgency of slowing down — to find the time and space to think — is nothing new, of course, and wiser souls have always reminded us that the more attention we pay to the moment, the less time and energy we have to place it in some larger context. “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries,” the French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in the 17th century, “and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.” He also famously remarked that all of man’s problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

When telegraphs and trains brought in the idea that convenience was more important than content — and speedier means could make up for unimproved ends — Henry David Thoreau reminded us that “the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages.” Even half a century ago, Marshall McLuhan, who came closer than most to seeing what was coming, warned, “When things come at you very fast, naturally you lose touch with yourself.” Thomas Merton struck a chord with millions, by not just noting that “Man was made for the highest activity, which is, in fact, his rest,” but by also acting on it, and stepping out of the rat race and into a Cistercian cloister.

Yet few of those voices can be heard these days, precisely because “breaking news” is coming through (perpetually) on CNN and Debbie is just posting images of her summer vacation and the phone is ringing. We barely have enough time to see how little time we have (most Web pages, researchers find, are visited for 10 seconds or less). And the more that floods in on us (the Kardashians, Obamacare, “Dancing with the Stars”), the less of ourselves we have to give to every snippet. All we notice is that the distinctions that used to guide and steady us — between Sunday and Monday, public and private, here and there — are gone.

We have more and more ways to communicate, as Thoreau noted, but less and less to say. Partly because we’re so busy communicating. And — as he might also have said — we’re rushing to meet so many deadlines that we hardly register that what we need most are lifelines.

So what to do? The central paradox of the machines that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make the best use of them; the information revolution came without an instruction manual. All the data in the world cannot teach us how to sift through data; images don’t show us how to process images. The only way to do justice to our onscreen lives is by summoning exactly the emotional and moral clarity that can’t be found on any screen.

MAYBE that’s why more and more people I know, even if they have no religious commitment, seem to be turning to yoga, or meditation, or tai chi; these aren’t New Age fads so much as ways to connect with what could be called the wisdom of old age. Two journalist friends of mine observe an “Internet sabbath” every week, turning off their online connections from Friday night to Monday morning, so as to try to revive those ancient customs known as family meals and conversation. Finding myself at breakfast with a group of lawyers in Oxford four months ago, I noticed that all their talk was of sailing — or riding or bridge: anything that would allow them to get out of radio contact for a few hours.

Other friends try to go on long walks every Sunday, or to “forget” their cellphones at home. A series of tests in recent years has shown, Mr. Carr points out, that after spending time in quiet rural settings, subjects “exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger memory and generally improved cognition. Their brains become both calmer and sharper.” More than that, empathy, as well as deep thought, depends (as neuroscientists like Antonio Damasio have found) on neural processes that are “inherently slow.” The very ones our high-speed lives have little time for.

In my own case, I turn to eccentric and often extreme measures to try to keep my sanity and ensure that I have time to do nothing at all (which is the only time when I can see what I should be doing the rest of the time). I’ve yet to use a cellphone and I’ve never Tweeted or entered Facebook. I try not to go online till my day’s writing is finished, and I moved from Manhattan to rural Japan in part so I could more easily survive for long stretches entirely on foot, and every trip to the movies would be an event.

None of this is a matter of principle or asceticism; it’s just pure selfishness. Nothing makes me feel better — calmer, clearer and happier — than being in one place, absorbed in a book, a conversation, a piece of music. It’s actually something deeper than mere happiness: it’s joy, which the monk David Steindl-Rast describes as “that kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.”

It’s vital, of course, to stay in touch with the world, and to know what’s going on; I took pains this past year to make separate trips to Jerusalem and Hyderabad and Oman and St. Petersburg, to rural Arkansas and Thailand and the stricken nuclear plant in Fukushima and Dubai. But it’s only by having some distance from the world that you can see it whole, and understand what you should be doing with it.

For more than 20 years, therefore, I’ve been going several times a year — often for no longer than three days — to a Benedictine hermitage, 40 minutes down the road, as it happens, from the Post Ranch Inn. I don’t attend services when I’m there, and I’ve never meditated, there or anywhere; I just take walks and read and lose myself in the stillness, recalling that it’s only by stepping briefly away from my wife and bosses and friends that I’ll have anything useful to bring to them. The last time I was in the hermitage, three months ago, I happened to pass, on the monastery road, a youngish-looking man with a 3-year-old around his shoulders.

“You’re Pico, aren’t you?” the man said, and introduced himself as Larry; we’d met, I gathered, 19 years before, when he’d been living in the cloister as an assistant to one of the monks.

“What are you doing now?” I asked.

“I work for MTV. Down in L.A.”

We smiled. No words were necessary.

“I try to bring my kids here as often as I can,” he went on, as he looked out at the great blue expanse of the Pacific on one side of us, the high, brown hills of the Central Coast on the other. “My oldest son” — he pointed at a 7-year-old running along the deserted, radiant mountain road in front of his mother — “this is his third time.”

The child of tomorrow, I realized, may actually be ahead of us, in terms of sensing not what’s new, but what’s essential."

Divide and Combine

by Alex Fong

16 August 2012

Discussed Text: Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being

In recent comings this assemblage headed by Dr. Garcia has had to anagrammatize, decipher, prognosticate, literary works of those considered astute on the topic of Philosophy. Since I am only a simple student, confronted only to simple thought, I will relieve my readers of this task; the task of deciphering works in order to understand thoughts, and I will put my points in Layman's terms (so their noses will be bloodless).

"So where do I stand on Marcel's ideas?" I might think to ask myself. Honestly, it is not a matter of either agreeing or not agreeing, which many would suppose a question like this is to be answered. Rather, I will hear out these ideas, and later think to utilize this thought in my life or not. The same can go for the entire course even. Will I believe that truth is either a "thing" or a "place," or will I carry on thinking that "truth" is truth, and although others want me to understand differently, truth is still going to be truth to me. At the end of the day, my "reality," the way I perceive, is going to still be very different from the place at which I stage philosophical thought. In the same right, the philosopher inside me, the one that comes out from 10:30-12:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, is still going to be separated from the business minded management student that walks the campus every other day.

See, there is a contradiction on what I think and what I am taught to think. I don't want to believe, and Marcel points out, that human beings are just objects, especially in the corporate environment. But after all isn't that why we are all in the Ateneo, to show that we are more useful, more capable, than others and should therefore be more deserving of a successful career? I study in the Ateneo, therefore my value is greater. Just like an object, we are purchased for our value. But we are more than that, we are individuals with opinions/views beyond those of the organization. When you get right down to it, I believe there is a divide, and there is a combine.

As a manager, I will hire the objects that can give me the most for my money. And as a philosopher, I will remember that those objects are more than just that. They can be mothers/fathers, husbands/wives, sons, brothers, and everything in between. If you would recall what I said earlier (in the second paragraph) "I will hear out these ideas, and later think to utilize this thought in my life or not." I think, there will always be somewhat of a division from the philosopher and average man. "a fool sees not the same tree as a wise man sees." But we, are most likely on track to fall somewhere in between. With a combining of the views of the two, we are privileged to see both the tree that the wise man sees and the one that the fool sees. With well roundedness, I think we may have both.

Behind the "I"

by Sophie Villasfer

14 August 2012

Discussed Text: Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being

Right after children learn writing isolated letters, they learn to write their names. From there, sentence structures usually revolve around the self as encouraged by the teachers. "I am (insert full name here). I live in (insert full address here). I am (age) years old. I (insert hobby)..." And so on and so forth. From there, we are taught more challenging topics -- those that go more and more beyond ourselves. We start writing about our families, friends, events, and even the imaginary. However, most of the time, this progress is just limited to scholastic write-ups. Many become adults but are still stuck with the basic sentences that begin with "I", strung one after another. These are not literal essays of course, but more like scripted identities carried around (almost like resumes at hand, prepared for those who might be interested).

During the lecture last Tuesday, I agree that "it is a dangerous attitude to think of yourself as a totally self-made person." Society is littered with accolades and articles for the "successful", and descriptions as to how they became the way they are. Some of these have the rags-to-riches theme that credit success to some formula. Some have the more Disney-like themes wherein people are born to these certain families and instantly it is seen how their lives will surely end happily ever after. One does not need to look far, just grab a magazine or look at the featured stories in the Yahoo homepage. Disclaimer: I am not against these people, okay? However, I am against how writers oversimplify their subjects.

In the book of Malcolm Gladwell entitled "Outliers", he describes how successful people like Bill Gates or the Beatles were not successful overnight; they did only after practicing their trade for 10,000 hours. While this principle of hard work makes sense, Gladwell also describes how other than hard work, these people were born of a certain time that favors their interests. These people were born to a time of opportunity. Or it could be something more subtle, like how entering school or Little League (American Baseball) at a certain age can give someone an edge. On the other hand, someone can have all the talent and the genes, but no opportunity.

In other words, the "I" that was born into the world can have many different fates, but why that particular historical era, family, or environment? Thinking about this, I realized that such questions does not end during birth. Fortunes and misfortunes add up, but most of the time when life is observed in retrospect, there is this arc of grace. It can be as small as studying only partially for a test, but the test was either cancelled or for some reason, only the things you studied appeared. Or better, it can be as beautiful as falling in love with a particular person who also falls in love with you. When we are honest with ourselves, our lives are more than what we made it to be. Most of the time what we do is so small compared to how life is unfolding in front of us. It is difficult to comprehend, difficult to articulate, difficult to see. But it is still a concrete reality; if we had enough motivation, maybe we can even do the math and prove how reality is greater than the sum of its parts.

Behind the "I" are people along the way who shaped him mostly by helping him either materially (or financially) and even spiritually. These can be sincere friends who are also good influences, or that aunt who lent (or gave) you money even when you did not ask. Behind the "I" are many circumstances, that seem to be connected that sometimes one suspects, is there Somebody orchestrating all of this? Behind the "I" that is present, is a wealth of opportunity and resources. Behind the "I" is a long list of answered prayers, and surprising blessings. And also, behind the "I" is someone is vulnerable enough to be hurt by others or by events. But behind that same "I" is at least one other person who understands.

Pardon me if this essay is not as fluid as it should be. The main point I really want to make is that there should be a certain wariness to oversimplifying how we look at other people, but more than that, there should be a certain wariness as to how we look at ourselves. Maybe it helps to start looking at the self in the proper context, in order to hopefully avoid the delusion that "the world revolves around me". Because the world does not revolve around you, or me, or him, or her. The world revolves as it does, and we are all together in it.

Volunteerism and Sustainability

by Angela Sy

As mentioned by other students, the impact of Habagat towards the Philippines was absolutely devastating. And Filipinos were quick to respond. It was inspiring to see Filipinos young and old helping those most affected. I myself was moved to donate, and spent an entire afternoon packing relief goods at the Ateneo Covered Courts. Social media sites Facebook and Twitter were used to spread awareness and organize rescue operations. Our efforts were not only effective, but also creative. Ayala Museum, for instance, called people to submit inspirational artwork using the slogan "The Filipino Spirit Is Waterproof". Working towards a greater cause is very satisfying, not just as Filipinos but even just as human beings.

And yet, my general notion of volunteering is mixed because several issues remain unresolved after natural disasters pass. I agree that disposing the plastic used for relief goods has its drawbacks. And it's true that some people help only to brag about it. While I felt terrible for the informal settlers who died and whose houses and other belongings were destroyed, they must have been informed at some point that residing too close to bodies of water posed serious threats. Their refusal to relocate then and now doesn't help.

But what bothers me most about volunteerism is its sustainability. True volunteerism is rooted out of compassion. Many people help out; their compassion is enough to take time off of their daily lives . I've observed that many work to help, only to abandon the kind of work once the storms have passed. Must it always take a great calamity to make us more human and aware of others? Wouldn't it be better humanitarianism could be sustained on a more regular basis, so much that volunteering becomes second nature, more permanent, and extended not to just calamities but to other socio-economic causes?

Or is asking such questions asking too much?

Living In A Broken World

by Bea Antonio

14 August 2012

Discussed text: Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being

Having returned from the week-long hibernation that we all just experienced, I was not in any way prepared for anything academic. My brain wasn’t going to cooperate with me and I was sure of it, which is why I tensed up when I suddenly remembered that I was the next one assigned to write this blog entry. Oh, boy.

Dr. Garcia started his discussion by asking about how everyone was and there was, as usual, a unified silence. Everyone else in the room has not yet recovered from the week that was- the sleep-induced, “watch-all-the-episodes-of-Suits-just-because-and-not-take-a-bath-because-it’s-really-cold” week that managed to bring out the maturity in all of us by finally allowing us to stop asking for any more rains to come. However, when Dr. Garcia mentioned that we were living in a broken world, I found myself let go of the reminiscing and snapping back into attention. A broken world, it just sounded so familiar.

“Living in a broken world? Yes, broken like a broken watch. Just to look at it, nothing has changed. Everything is in place. But put the watch to your ear, and you don’t hear any ticking…it seems to me that it must have had a heart one time, but today you would say that the heart had stopped beating”

The world has gotten to a point where we think that everything can be manipulated, everything can be controlled and everything would go our way. The world has become materialistic and narcissistic, which became evident to me during the past few days. The monsoon was something that we all did not see coming. We were not prepared for it. It was the first time we were experiencing it. But what caused it? We did. We were all so busy with ourselves that we forgot how to take care of everything else around us. We forgot that there were things around us that we were not capable of fixing or changing.

Most of us might think that we do care about some things that are not just ourselves, but is that enough? We forgot the duties that we have for each other. For the world. This is sad, but I believe that the heart still resides there somewhere.

The Place of Light

by Marianne Aquino

14 August 2012

Discussed Text: Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being

It is a natural tendency nowadays for people to misconceptualize truth. It is often conceived as something that is universally valid or something that is akin to a mathematical formula, an architectural blueprint or a scientific methodology. Truth is deemed transmissible through the presupposition of a technique, which can be taught or passed down to anyone and can be reproduced anytime, anywhere. In the text, Gabriel Marcel asserts otherwise. According to him, there must be a dissociation between truth and universal validity. But throughout history, with the emergence of intellectual or knowledge-based transcendence, the notion of truth has been transformed to just a mere result that of which can be attained by dint of technical activity.

Humans are now obsessed with techniques. They use these sets of procedures to achieve concrete and often materialistic results. This is for the reason that they've been made to believe or fooled even that more possessions correlates highly with happiness, pleasure, and satisfaction. Who has never heard of stories of men who are disgustingly rich with great deal of money but never really completely satisfied and never really truly happy? They've become too absorbed in the manipulation of both mental and physical objects that they lose track of what is really important. They are in dire need of reevaluating priorities.

In turn, this reinforcement of the humans' will to dominate all things that are external to the thinking mind leads to a "broken world" where no real relations exist and therefore, no real unity as well. The relations that persist today have no sense of brotherhood in that there is a reduction of the individual into just agents with his or her own "identity card" consequently making each one substitutable. This is a manifestation of one important malady of society. That is its susceptibility to ignore "exigencies of reflection". The call to spiritual values, creative and productive imagination, and reflection have been all been debunked. For Marcel, the only cure to society's tenuous grasp at truth is reflection by placing ourselves in that place of light and at the same time throwing all processes and techniques into the shade.

Calm (After and) Before The Storm

Perhaps nothing new can be said about what happened during the past few days, as well as our response to this event. For us who have gone through typhoon Ondoy and are experiencing torrential rains and monsoons almost every year, albeit not as grave as this, we as a nation, to a certain extent, are prepared with automatic responses to such occurrences: when the Marikina River rises, evacuate, when people are affected, we plan and execute relief operations, and when all of this is done, then we give ourselves a collective pat on our collective backs and hope that it will never happen again.

But, as we have said, experiences are never duplicates of each other, and there is always something new even though it seems like it has been the same, and every experiences bring new insights, realizations, and lessons to teach us. With that, allow me to at least let these recent events speak to us and gain insight not just on the reality of our own selves, but also of others that most of us do not encounter on a daily basis.

The strong monsoon rains which not only suspended our regular classes and routines for the day but also puts the city in a suspended state, in a sense that many places have submerged and lives have been endangered, constitutes a break that hopefully allowed us to rethink, to see our own worlds and ways of living with new perspectives. Whether our homes have been affected by the floods or not, we are invited by this event to reflect on how we think of life and live it, day in and day out, especially in times when our studies have become a burden and we wished nature would intervene in order for us to get that free day we hope for. We are invited to think of those who go beyond the boundaries of our homes and schools, seeing that those who live in places that we barely call home, exposed at the risk of forcefully evicted because of natural disasters like these. We are invited think how we ourselves are related to those unfortunate others, who have the same right to a good life like us, but clearly are deprived of it. Finally, we are invited to think  what this event means for us as a nation, what can be done in such situations, and what needs to be changed not just to improve our ways of living in the city, but also to uplift those who have repeatedly subject to suffering and dehumanization

Photo courtesy of the Guidon's Facebook page.

Thankfully, as men and women for others, most of us whose lives and homes were not endangered by the floods helped out in the relief operations in more ways than one. I am quite amazed with the fact that we have immediately responded to the need of our brothers and sisters whose lives were devastated by the monsoon rains. It is a comforting fact that we have been distressed by what happened in our country and decided to set aside our present concerns (our students and immediate plans) in order to use our time and resources to actually help in more ways than one. I hope that such actions are not brought about by the desire to just be seen in action or peer pressure, but a genuine desire that springs forth from within, telling us that our lives are lived not just for ourselves, but for others, and this is what is demanded of us in this present moment.

But this is nowhere near the real storm that we all have to face, the floods that we need to endure, the operations that we need to execute. This calls us to look forward, think of ways and procedures that will lead us to actually assure everyone that whatever happened today and in 2009 will never happen again. Our generation will be the one to inherit the problems brought forth by our predecessors, and we cannot just be satisfied with relief operations.

The challenge now, for us, as future leaders, game changers, and movers of the country, is to go beyond than what is demanded of us and actually think of the future of our city, the Filipino people, and our nation. We are called, as Paul Ricoeur said, towards responsibility and hope

Maybe we could start with this simple one, right?

Feelin' It

by Tricia Allado


2 August 2012


Discussed text: Gabriel Marcel, "Introduction, The Mystery of Being

One of the things that really hit me while listening to Dr. Garcia was that he was so passionate about what he was saying. You could tell by how he never needed notes to quote from the most random philosophers or how he just spouted these French or German philosophical phrases off the top of his head. Sometimes, I will admit, I do space off randomly but whenever he says something philosophically poetic, I just snap back to attention.

An example of this instance was last Thursday, we had all been hoping for a suspension and were silently disgruntled when (yet again) no suspension occurred. I was sitting in my chair in the front row, lamenting the fact that my shoes were soaked, when Dr. Garcia mentioned the silence in the appreciation of works of art and a coinciding silence in the human person. This phrase just snapped me back into attention. I imagined that it was the act of silently spending an hour or so in front of a painting that just intrigued you or reading a poem and feeling it resonate somewhere in you or watching a performance and tearing up because—just because.

This, he explained, was the difference between grasping and being grasped. Sure, I can memorize mathematics (barely) or science until I feel like I’ve retained enough information until a test and then, afterwards, forget everything. That is cold and practical. That is a nuisance to me. That is me grasping for a good grade to get a good job.

But this. This is being grasped by something that is completely useless. This is what my quiet moments are for. This is what I do at the end of the day when I am silent in my room and I can be myself. I appreciate and revel in the pointless. This is not something that will help you make money; you cannot sell something like this. This is not something that will help you survive in the real world. But this is what keeps you going. This is what being a human is all about. This is pointless and impractical, but it is also beautiful.

Being grasped by something is “experiencing something you cannot put your finger on.” You cannot measure it. You cannot quantify it. You cannot count it. You cannot bottle it and sell it. But you can feel it and that makes all the difference.

Going Beyond The Unknown

by Chessy Luna


2 August 2012


Discussed text: Gabriel Marcel, "Introduction," The Mystery of Being


“To gain insight, we must be there to know more and face the experience or what is unknown.”

An important aspect of gaining insight through experience is thinking. In philosophy, thinking is important in order to understand, rationalize, and appreciate situations we experience daily. In the discussions of Dr. Garcia, two types of thinking were analyzed. The first type talks about subjectivity or personal thinking. This type of thinking varies and depends on a person’s values, beliefs, attitudes, feelings, and the like. It is private and can be experienced by any subject. On the other hand, the second type of thinking discusses objectivity or abstract thinking. Unlike the first one, this way of thinking is universal. It is universal in a scientific way, tackling arguments on history, biology, chemistry, and the like. This approach is more general and seeks to describe mind-independent realities.

Philosophy cannot be generalized into just a single way of thinking but rather, is a combination of both ideologies. There exists an intermediary way of thinking between the two types. It is subjective and at the same time universal. Three levels make up this way of thinking: Art, Religion, and Politics, respectively. In understanding the connection of subjectivity and objectivity better, the first level of intermediary thinking will be discussed.

Art is a form of experience that does not only occur in an individual sense but also universally. Human beings can have varying perceptions on different artworks, yet still maintain the universal insight the artist intended for it to encompass. The experiences we go through when appreciating and viewing art are usually not quantifiable and verifiable but are very real.

A recent experience I had in relation to the ideologies discussed occurred when Dr. Garcia asked us to visit The Ateneo Art Gallery. I visited the gallery before but it was the first time I really took the time to analyze and reflect on the paintings and structures displayed. A particular painting that caught my attention was a creation by Marciano Galang. From a far, it looked like a chaotic and cluttered piece of art. But as I approached the piece, I saw the intricate and realistic details plastered on the canvas. I was a bit disturbed because I did not expect to see the things before me. What seemed like burnt objects, such as shoes, a wallet, a can, and the like, were strategically displayed on the canvas. I read the description beside the artwork and saw that the painting was entitled “Cavite.” Different theories started formulating in my mind on what might have occurred in the production of the artwork. The personal insights and observations I had could be classified as subjectivism, a personal way of thinking. On the other hand, the objectivism or abstract thinking in this situation was the fact that the artist had his own perception or background on why and how he created this piece. A universal truth is preserved by accepting the fact that the artist has his own voice as well as inspiration for creating such an intricate piece of artwork.

Experiences we go through can be categorized into two kinds: grasping and being grasped/gripped. Grasping is a metaphor used in techniques. Techniques talk about a group of procedures that are capable of being taught and reproduced to achieve a concrete goal by manipulating physical and mental factors. We view knowledge as way of grasping – a manipulative approach which has a series of steps or instructions. On the other hand, being grasped is an experience of something gripping us from outside which we cannot put into numbers but is real. It is an experience of metaphysical unease, a discomfort at a more spiritual level. It asks fundamental questions that go beyond us: “Is there something before me?” or “What is life?”

In experiencing something, one must not only settle on grasping alone but also on being grasped. It is not enough that we just focus on the technical or practical aspects of life. We must also take the time to allow ourselves to be grasped or gripped. After all, it is through being grasped that we grow as human beings and go beyond ourselves. Not all of human reality is quantifiable. There exists an inner intellectual need that we must undergo in order to experience a greater reality that awaits us.