Am I Doing This Right?

by Adrian Bautista

25 September 2012

Discussed text: Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being


Here I am, sitting in front of my laptop, silently watching the cursor blink as if it was made to entertain me, while taking glances at the window filled with city lights that flicker about, illuminating the night sky. Then I wonder, how am I supposed to start this blog post?

To be clear though; obligation is not my motive as to why I am here. Such feelings of worry and hesitation embrace me as I think of what to write here. I worry that what I think might not be the thoughts relevant and appropriate enough for this site, and this is the reason of my hesitation. Questions of anxiety fill my thoughts. What if I don't understand anything at all? What if the way I understood readings isn't the way it is supposed to be done? What if I fail to gather my thoughts and express them accordingly, making this post a clutter of words no one will be able to understand?

These feelings of distress, I know that I am not the only one who feels the same way, especially every time we ought to start or experience something new. We tend to question the certainty of such events, as to whether we should do it or not, and what are the ways we can be successful, coming across these instances. Think of the nights you lay in bed during summer vacation or semestral break, waiting for sleep to visit you, wherein your thoughts were about the upcoming semester. There maybe are times where you are at unease, thinking what should you do with these core subjects that are irrelevant to your course, or hoping that this class you signed up for has a mentor with the kindness of a thousand angels, enough to give you a grade that will make your parents increase your allowance. What is essentially being stated is that there are times where, in a way, detach ourselves from the experience and try to see it in another way besides actually experiencing it.

As I go back to my dilemma of how to write this post, maybe it is time that I go tell myself, "Why don't you just write it?" The same goes whenever we have these feelings of doubt regarding experiences in our lives, and probably things will just happen before we know it, like how this post reached its length. Instead of looking at another way to "experience experience", maybe this is what Marcel means (or as how I understand) to set aside the questions and bring about the immediacy of the situation itself, and how it affects us; what meaning does/will this experience bring to our lives. And as I take a sip of coffee and stare at the city streets of Marikina through my window, writing this post, I set aside all those questions of worry and hesitation, and feel the warmth of the coffee as it goes down my throat and as the lights of the houses and buildings enlighten my view, I say: here I am.