by Sophie Villasfer
29 November 2012
Discussed Text: Levinas, "There Is," Ethics and Infinity
One of the most common ethical concerns was raised in class: Is it okay to give to beggars? Or will giving only contribute to the social problem?
I believe that if I have something extra, whether food or money, it is usually better to go ahead and give. As mentioned in class, it is better to err on the side of caritas (which is Latin for charity or love). In other words, it is better to be wrong because I loved, rather than being always '"right", because I did nothing in the first place. The usual counterargument is that those in need must approach the DSWD or the NGOs instead of begging. Another argument is, why won't they look for work? I think that while these points are valid, when put into the situation of to give or not to give, I cannot help but think why am I not in this person's situation? Why am I not begging in the street? Why was I born to a family that can provide for me? Why me? And at that situation I realize that I do not have the right to blame the poor as to why they are poor, nor do I have the right to rationalize the many options they have for them to escape poverty instead of bothering me. I cannot judge that it is the poor's fault that they are in that situation, because I myself did not choose to be rich, or at least provided for. In the bigger picture, I was blessed to be "thrown" into existence through a family with some means. But why? The other side of this realization is the question, why was this person "thrown" into poverty? Why do opportunities evade him? These are the questions I do not have the answers to, and yet, by being aware that my situation in society is a gift, I feel the weight of responsibility. Perhaps whatever extra I have is for another. As it was my family's responsibility to take care of me, maybe for the moment, it is my responsibility to take care of this person that demands from me. There is this person that demands from me, calls me to give, yet I do not know him. But even if I do not know him, I feel that he is one of many that I should respond to. And with this feeling of responsibility (or gratefulness, or even guilt), also comes frustration. I feel that I want to give in a way that is more efficient, more sustainable. However, at the moment I am still a student with financial limitations. Maybe someday. But today, all I have is some change in my pocket, or maybe some bread. So at that moment on the street, when I have something extra, I decide to give. While it may not solve a long term problem, I may have helped another person live another day.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Ambition
by Dave Au
27 November 2012
Discussed Text: Levinas, "It Is There," Ethics and Infinity
Remember the time when we were kids and were asked what we wanted to be by the grown-ups, we answered them that we wanted to become either policemen/policewomen, firefighters, soldiers, doctors, engineers or even the long-shot dream of becoming a superhero? And as we wanted to save the day, make the world a better place and do a whole lot of good, we did so with wholehearted concern for the other, and as we were asked why, we said that it was the right thing to do.
When did it become so complicated?
During a class discussion led by Sir Earl, Dr. Garcia's teaching assistant, a question was thrown at us: What is it to live an authentic life? Answers came flying from various seats in the lecture hall. Although most of them varied and the class was creative in coming up with their own unique answers, a recurring trend seemed to pervade no matter how well thought out the answer was. All of their answers seemed to be solely focused on the self, the I, the ME, MINE.
Coming from the lectures and discussions held during the class, I pieced together the concept of Il y a in my own opinion as a lethargy, a form of contentment, the absence of willpower, the abstinence from struggle. Further explained, it is something that hampers, an obstruction. It is something that holds us back, an indecisiveness. It is something that we create, whether unintentionally or of our own volition.
I grew up as a kid watching the series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and not a week would go by without me watching a couple of episodes. I was enthralled with how the protagonists piece together a crime just solely on the evidence and testimony, and how they strive to bring justice to both victim and perpetrator. Although I knew that the show was merely a work of fiction, I couldn't help but feel that some part of me was being spurned on by the idea of bringing justice to those who are wronged, to those who are helpless. Before I knew it, I decided on the ambition that I was to study criminology and work on a career in forensics.
But not everything goes as planned.
When I was nearing graduation from high school I was confronted by my father about my choices. He said that I should pick a course that would bring food to the table, and that I shouldn't chase a childish ambition. We argued back and forth, but after a while I eventually conceded. I put my dreams aside to study Management Economics, one his chosen courses for me.
It seems that as we grow up we are eventually faced with the conundrum of giving up our idealized, righteous ambitions for the sake of enriching ourselves and ourselves only. As we grow older, we become content with meeting only our needs, instead of helping people. We start to focus on getting what we want instead of sharing what we have with the other. We learn to distance ourselves from those persons who need our care, and we teach ourselves to become afraid of reaching out to the other. Eventually we start living a selfish and inauthentic life with our hearts closed off from the world, Il y a-ing ourselves away.
This is why we don't feel the slightest bit disturbed when we hear about the murder of a man being reported in the news. We've become so entrenched in apathy that we become desensitized. Every tragedy just feels distant, so distant that we don't even give a single thought of reflection towards it. This is worlds apart from the poem that Dr. Garcia religiously prescribes to us at the start of every meeting, that every man is part of the mainland, and each of their death diminishes our being.
So what can we do to live authentically? For one we need to get off our high horse and realize that we are not the center of the universe. We need to push down the Il y a and stop just being content with putting our own desires first. We are called upon to transcend our boundaries, to go out of our comfort zone. We are called upon to meet the needs of the other, not just our own. One concept that I learned from one of my other classes, Theology 131, is that love is a circular process. In loving the other we learn to love ourselves, and we enrich both ourselves and the other. Thus, in doing so we destroy the constraints that we have made for ourselves, and we are liberated from the ll y a. This task may not seem easy for everyone to undertake, but struggling is a natural part of our humanity, and it is this very challenge that affirms our existence.
27 November 2012
Discussed Text: Levinas, "It Is There," Ethics and Infinity
Remember the time when we were kids and were asked what we wanted to be by the grown-ups, we answered them that we wanted to become either policemen/policewomen, firefighters, soldiers, doctors, engineers or even the long-shot dream of becoming a superhero? And as we wanted to save the day, make the world a better place and do a whole lot of good, we did so with wholehearted concern for the other, and as we were asked why, we said that it was the right thing to do.
When did it become so complicated?
During a class discussion led by Sir Earl, Dr. Garcia's teaching assistant, a question was thrown at us: What is it to live an authentic life? Answers came flying from various seats in the lecture hall. Although most of them varied and the class was creative in coming up with their own unique answers, a recurring trend seemed to pervade no matter how well thought out the answer was. All of their answers seemed to be solely focused on the self, the I, the ME, MINE.
Coming from the lectures and discussions held during the class, I pieced together the concept of Il y a in my own opinion as a lethargy, a form of contentment, the absence of willpower, the abstinence from struggle. Further explained, it is something that hampers, an obstruction. It is something that holds us back, an indecisiveness. It is something that we create, whether unintentionally or of our own volition.
I grew up as a kid watching the series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and not a week would go by without me watching a couple of episodes. I was enthralled with how the protagonists piece together a crime just solely on the evidence and testimony, and how they strive to bring justice to both victim and perpetrator. Although I knew that the show was merely a work of fiction, I couldn't help but feel that some part of me was being spurned on by the idea of bringing justice to those who are wronged, to those who are helpless. Before I knew it, I decided on the ambition that I was to study criminology and work on a career in forensics.
But not everything goes as planned.
When I was nearing graduation from high school I was confronted by my father about my choices. He said that I should pick a course that would bring food to the table, and that I shouldn't chase a childish ambition. We argued back and forth, but after a while I eventually conceded. I put my dreams aside to study Management Economics, one his chosen courses for me.
It seems that as we grow up we are eventually faced with the conundrum of giving up our idealized, righteous ambitions for the sake of enriching ourselves and ourselves only. As we grow older, we become content with meeting only our needs, instead of helping people. We start to focus on getting what we want instead of sharing what we have with the other. We learn to distance ourselves from those persons who need our care, and we teach ourselves to become afraid of reaching out to the other. Eventually we start living a selfish and inauthentic life with our hearts closed off from the world, Il y a-ing ourselves away.
This is why we don't feel the slightest bit disturbed when we hear about the murder of a man being reported in the news. We've become so entrenched in apathy that we become desensitized. Every tragedy just feels distant, so distant that we don't even give a single thought of reflection towards it. This is worlds apart from the poem that Dr. Garcia religiously prescribes to us at the start of every meeting, that every man is part of the mainland, and each of their death diminishes our being.
So what can we do to live authentically? For one we need to get off our high horse and realize that we are not the center of the universe. We need to push down the Il y a and stop just being content with putting our own desires first. We are called upon to transcend our boundaries, to go out of our comfort zone. We are called upon to meet the needs of the other, not just our own. One concept that I learned from one of my other classes, Theology 131, is that love is a circular process. In loving the other we learn to love ourselves, and we enrich both ourselves and the other. Thus, in doing so we destroy the constraints that we have made for ourselves, and we are liberated from the ll y a. This task may not seem easy for everyone to undertake, but struggling is a natural part of our humanity, and it is this very challenge that affirms our existence.
The Twist
by Jolo Villanueva
27 November 2012
Discussed text: Levinas, "It is There," Ethics and Infinity
What is being? What does it mean to be? These are the questions we've been tackling since the beginning of the school year. I somehow found myself content with Marcel's, Heidegger's, and Luijpen's takes on being. The essence of being from lived experience itself was appealing to me because it truly tackled what philosophy and rationality were all about: the human and his world;we make sense of the world by relying on direct experience and being IN the world rather than being OF the world.
Levinas, however, put a new twist into this. He argued that it is not enough "to be" in the Heideggerian sense. Affirming our existence through ourselves is not enough. This would merely lead to the generalization of the being of others. He argues that we must take into consideration the "uniqueness of the existence of each existent." An authentic life is a life focused outside oneself and towards the authenticity of others.
In my opinion, Levinas was merely formulating a more authentic and more open version of classic phenomenology. Since this view endorses lived experiences as sources for knowledge and reflection, isn't focusing on others a more open mode of experiencing? Going out of yourself and experiencing other people and their being is truly characteristic of phenomenology. Experiencing openly in relation to one's self is a good foundation in learning and appreciating the environment in a philosophical sense, but approaching others in their authenticity really gives a more authentic sense of being, because being IN the world entails every experience as open to learning and reflection, and realizing that others are also IN the world, rather than OF the world, makes experience richer and more phenomenological in the classical sense.
27 November 2012
Discussed text: Levinas, "It is There," Ethics and Infinity
What is being? What does it mean to be? These are the questions we've been tackling since the beginning of the school year. I somehow found myself content with Marcel's, Heidegger's, and Luijpen's takes on being. The essence of being from lived experience itself was appealing to me because it truly tackled what philosophy and rationality were all about: the human and his world;we make sense of the world by relying on direct experience and being IN the world rather than being OF the world.
Levinas, however, put a new twist into this. He argued that it is not enough "to be" in the Heideggerian sense. Affirming our existence through ourselves is not enough. This would merely lead to the generalization of the being of others. He argues that we must take into consideration the "uniqueness of the existence of each existent." An authentic life is a life focused outside oneself and towards the authenticity of others.
In my opinion, Levinas was merely formulating a more authentic and more open version of classic phenomenology. Since this view endorses lived experiences as sources for knowledge and reflection, isn't focusing on others a more open mode of experiencing? Going out of yourself and experiencing other people and their being is truly characteristic of phenomenology. Experiencing openly in relation to one's self is a good foundation in learning and appreciating the environment in a philosophical sense, but approaching others in their authenticity really gives a more authentic sense of being, because being IN the world entails every experience as open to learning and reflection, and realizing that others are also IN the world, rather than OF the world, makes experience richer and more phenomenological in the classical sense.
Grey
by Agassi Adre
Yes and No.
Funny words, those two; small, yet heavy. Simple, yet complex. Also, they are the easiest translatable words in the world. This linguistic quality is unique. Before I actually start, I'd like to develop on this linguistic quality, as it will be important later.
In linguistics, languages develop from a need to convey ideas, and differing languages show different interpretations of ideas. By extension, if an idea does not exist in a culture or it is not important, that culture does not develop a code or word for it, hence the lack of the word 'snow' in Tagalog or 'mamihlapinatapei*' in English. Which then leads linguists, writers, and wordsmiths to either attempt to translate or borrow words from other languages. But the words 'Yes' and 'No' exist throughout every culture, in every language. Hence, we can conclude that, to all human beings, 'yes' and 'no', as ideas, exist and are important.
And so, I begin formally.
We discussed the idea of 'yes' and 'no' and their value as an affirmation of our values and character, as well as an affirmation of our self, of our being and Being. It was well established, I suppose, that when posed the question of answering 'no' as being a bad thing, that the agreement is it is not. On the contrary, saying 'no' is another way of affirming ourselves, of our being and Being, even if the dictionaries define 'no' as a word to, in this context, denote denial. I took away from the lecture this notion that maybe the word 'no' maybe a stronger affirmation of being and Being than saying 'yes'.
We throw around those two words a lot in our lives that we tend to experience jamais vu** with them, where they lose their inherent value, and we forget that those small words are capable of defining and affirming who we are as a person. And I think we ought to remember that characteristic, even if it is not a conscious remembrance. Remembering that particular characteristic of those words can allow us, in my opinion, understand better who and what we are and who and what we are not.
This shared characteristic between those two words debunk the idea that 'yes' and 'no' are a dichotomy, two sides to a coin. On the contrary, and as was established in class, is that those words are rather like scissors; which we use to cut off other options, other choices. This shared characteristic also transcends cultures. Every culture, every human being, understands the idea behind the words 'yes' and 'no'. This means that there is a universal value to these words, and every culture holds importance to them, because beyond borders, beyond barriers, beyond languages, a need to affirm oneself and to mark a self-distinction from the il y a exists for all. We need those words to affirm ourselves, to distinguish ourselves, to mark us as unique.
In our quest to distinguish ourselves, we pick out the things that we are and cut off those that we are not. Prudence and discernment are needed, as we find out, the longer we are on this quest, the harder it is to see things as black and white, for all eventually become shades of grey.
*mamihlapinatapei or mamihlapinatapai – From the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego in southern Argentina, meaning 'a look shared by 2 people, each wishing that the other will offer something they both desire but are unwilling to offer or suggest themselves'. Think the state of mutual understanding between couples; a state after dating and before a steady relationship.
** jamais vu – French for 'never seen'. Considered to be the opposite of deja vu (already seen). It is the feeling of doing, saying, or experiencing something repeatedly that they lose meaning or value. Example: Say 'apple' repeatedly. After a while, if you don't become crazy, you suddenly have no idea what 'apple' means.
Yes and No.
Funny words, those two; small, yet heavy. Simple, yet complex. Also, they are the easiest translatable words in the world. This linguistic quality is unique. Before I actually start, I'd like to develop on this linguistic quality, as it will be important later.
In linguistics, languages develop from a need to convey ideas, and differing languages show different interpretations of ideas. By extension, if an idea does not exist in a culture or it is not important, that culture does not develop a code or word for it, hence the lack of the word 'snow' in Tagalog or 'mamihlapinatapei*' in English. Which then leads linguists, writers, and wordsmiths to either attempt to translate or borrow words from other languages. But the words 'Yes' and 'No' exist throughout every culture, in every language. Hence, we can conclude that, to all human beings, 'yes' and 'no', as ideas, exist and are important.
And so, I begin formally.
We discussed the idea of 'yes' and 'no' and their value as an affirmation of our values and character, as well as an affirmation of our self, of our being and Being. It was well established, I suppose, that when posed the question of answering 'no' as being a bad thing, that the agreement is it is not. On the contrary, saying 'no' is another way of affirming ourselves, of our being and Being, even if the dictionaries define 'no' as a word to, in this context, denote denial. I took away from the lecture this notion that maybe the word 'no' maybe a stronger affirmation of being and Being than saying 'yes'.
We throw around those two words a lot in our lives that we tend to experience jamais vu** with them, where they lose their inherent value, and we forget that those small words are capable of defining and affirming who we are as a person. And I think we ought to remember that characteristic, even if it is not a conscious remembrance. Remembering that particular characteristic of those words can allow us, in my opinion, understand better who and what we are and who and what we are not.
This shared characteristic between those two words debunk the idea that 'yes' and 'no' are a dichotomy, two sides to a coin. On the contrary, and as was established in class, is that those words are rather like scissors; which we use to cut off other options, other choices. This shared characteristic also transcends cultures. Every culture, every human being, understands the idea behind the words 'yes' and 'no'. This means that there is a universal value to these words, and every culture holds importance to them, because beyond borders, beyond barriers, beyond languages, a need to affirm oneself and to mark a self-distinction from the il y a exists for all. We need those words to affirm ourselves, to distinguish ourselves, to mark us as unique.
In our quest to distinguish ourselves, we pick out the things that we are and cut off those that we are not. Prudence and discernment are needed, as we find out, the longer we are on this quest, the harder it is to see things as black and white, for all eventually become shades of grey.
*mamihlapinatapei or mamihlapinatapai – From the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego in southern Argentina, meaning 'a look shared by 2 people, each wishing that the other will offer something they both desire but are unwilling to offer or suggest themselves'. Think the state of mutual understanding between couples; a state after dating and before a steady relationship.
** jamais vu – French for 'never seen'. Considered to be the opposite of deja vu (already seen). It is the feeling of doing, saying, or experiencing something repeatedly that they lose meaning or value. Example: Say 'apple' repeatedly. After a while, if you don't become crazy, you suddenly have no idea what 'apple' means.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Caught In The Middle
by Lica Lee
I’ll be completely honest and say that though philosophy is quite interesting, sometimes, I feel like it seems to hate me. I find a lot of things subjects in school pretty interesting, but none of them seems to dislike me the way philosophy does. For example, I find accounting a pretty interesting subject (yes, I find it quite interesting so sue me haha), so when I push myself to study, I seem to understand things eventually. But that is sadly not the case in philosophy. Though I push myself to keep reading, listening in class and studying, I still find it ridiculously challenging to grasp the concepts sometimes.
But there are certain concepts that seem more graspable. Last Thursday, we talked about il y a. Now this is something I found amazingly easier to grasp, easier to understand. If I am not mistaken, this seems to be the middle ground, that moment when you are “caught in the middle”, that moment when you ask, “should I or should I not?” or “is it or isn’t it?” Maybe I found this one easier to grasp simply because it is so easy to relate to. I realized that maybe I have been stuck in il y a for way too long. In this very moment that I am writing, I am actually trying to fight and overcome this state of il y a. Yes, I love to write, but I guess I never actually wrote anything for this class blog ever. Why not? It is probably out of fear. Will I get judged? Yeah, I probably will, but why should I still write anyway? Because it is my passion and I have something to say. Isn’t that enough of a reason? Simply because I can and I want to. And when I finish writing this, I have to overcome yet another state of il y a. Should I send it or is it enough that I have poured out what I need to say by typing this down? Well, if you happen to read this, then I guess I overcame this state of il y a as well. I defeated that fear.
But something in the back of my mind is still bothering me. Most examples I have heard in class, read on other blog posts and even the ones I gave here pretty much have the same idea. By choosing to just do it, in a way, we overcome this fear, we consider ourselves to have won the battle. But should this always be the case? What if in that state of il y a, we chose to stay silent? What if we chose to not do it? Does that mean we have lost against this fear that probably causes this state of il y a? How about in this example? Say, you have strong feelings for someone. You are sure, this is what they call love and you have found it. But there is just one problem. You know he/she has someone else. So you are in this state of il y a. You are caught in the middle. Should you tell him/her or not? If you do, you MIGHT just get your fairytale ending, but at the expense of someone else. If you don’t, does that mean you are not strong enough because you chose not to do it? (If you don’t understand the example I gave just now, listen to this song, which perfectly describes that story I just gave.)
With cases like these, is it always right to just do it then? Or is choosing not to do it the right thing to do sometimes?
I’ll be completely honest and say that though philosophy is quite interesting, sometimes, I feel like it seems to hate me. I find a lot of things subjects in school pretty interesting, but none of them seems to dislike me the way philosophy does. For example, I find accounting a pretty interesting subject (yes, I find it quite interesting so sue me haha), so when I push myself to study, I seem to understand things eventually. But that is sadly not the case in philosophy. Though I push myself to keep reading, listening in class and studying, I still find it ridiculously challenging to grasp the concepts sometimes.
But there are certain concepts that seem more graspable. Last Thursday, we talked about il y a. Now this is something I found amazingly easier to grasp, easier to understand. If I am not mistaken, this seems to be the middle ground, that moment when you are “caught in the middle”, that moment when you ask, “should I or should I not?” or “is it or isn’t it?” Maybe I found this one easier to grasp simply because it is so easy to relate to. I realized that maybe I have been stuck in il y a for way too long. In this very moment that I am writing, I am actually trying to fight and overcome this state of il y a. Yes, I love to write, but I guess I never actually wrote anything for this class blog ever. Why not? It is probably out of fear. Will I get judged? Yeah, I probably will, but why should I still write anyway? Because it is my passion and I have something to say. Isn’t that enough of a reason? Simply because I can and I want to. And when I finish writing this, I have to overcome yet another state of il y a. Should I send it or is it enough that I have poured out what I need to say by typing this down? Well, if you happen to read this, then I guess I overcame this state of il y a as well. I defeated that fear.
But something in the back of my mind is still bothering me. Most examples I have heard in class, read on other blog posts and even the ones I gave here pretty much have the same idea. By choosing to just do it, in a way, we overcome this fear, we consider ourselves to have won the battle. But should this always be the case? What if in that state of il y a, we chose to stay silent? What if we chose to not do it? Does that mean we have lost against this fear that probably causes this state of il y a? How about in this example? Say, you have strong feelings for someone. You are sure, this is what they call love and you have found it. But there is just one problem. You know he/she has someone else. So you are in this state of il y a. You are caught in the middle. Should you tell him/her or not? If you do, you MIGHT just get your fairytale ending, but at the expense of someone else. If you don’t, does that mean you are not strong enough because you chose not to do it? (If you don’t understand the example I gave just now, listen to this song, which perfectly describes that story I just gave.)
Friday, November 23, 2012
The Biological Advantage of Being Awestruck
This is a short clip shared by Sari Molintas of Section C, and this video tackles the ability to "marvel at our own existence alongside other things that exist." What do you think?
Routines
by Paul Amistoso
22 November 2012
Discussed text: Levinas, "There Is, Ethics and Infinity
You are woken up by your annoyingly effective alarm clock. You roll over to one side of the bed and reach for the snooze button. Five minutes later, you get up, brush your teeth, wash your face, and proceed to cooking breakfast. Once that’s done with, you take a shower, brush your teeth, and take a look at your face through the mirror. It looks the same as always. You go to school and come back home a few hours after. On some days, you go out with friends. On other days, you spend time with your girlfriend in your room. At the end of the day, you take a shower, brush your teeth, and take a look at your face through the mirror. It looks the same as always.
This may seem eerily familiar for some of you but for the longest time, this was how I lived, day in and day out, in my quiet apartment room. I’ve always been the type of person who prefers having a routine. After all, having a routine is safe and prevents you from having to go through burdensome things. I preferred simply drifting along, always trying not to disturb the flow of things. I was content.
Of course, a routine can only be maintained if all the elements that comprise it keep running. As soon as my relationship with one person ended, I got lost. A very big aspect of my everyday life had disappeared. In an effort to distract myself from how I was feeling, I decided to keep busy. I accepted work here and there. I took up projects here and there. I went to places I’ve never had the time to go to back then. I finally spent time with friends whose invitations I’ve always declined back then. In the past few weeks, I’ve met more people than I have ever had in the past year. Before I knew it, I was having so much fun that the reason I started doing all of those things no longer seemed relevant. I found one thing strange, however. With the way things are going right now, I am far from content. Every minute, I’m itching to do something new and to go places I have yet to see. I am discontented, I am dissatisfied, and yet, I am happy.
Surprisingly, I found my answer when Dr. Garcia started talking about il y a. As far as I could remember with my lousy attention span, he defined il y a as a lethargy, a lack of activity, and a lack of initiative. He described it as simply prodding along with no goal, no “star”, and no direction. Come to think of it, he used many words to paint what il y a is but the words that struck me the most were “lost” and “contentment”. How I felt finally made sense when he definitively said that contentment is not necessarily equal to happiness.
I was definitely content with how things were going back then. However, there was something at the back of my mind that bugged me from time to time. I had always brushed it off, ignoring it, and keeping it there, at the back of my head. Now, however, it all makes – I was unhappy. It’s ridiculous how it took me all this time to realize it. Perhaps, I may have already realized it long ago but was simply too afraid, simply too hesitant, and simply too comfortable. I was too comfortable with “il y a-ing” that I ignored my own unhappiness.
This may be what Dr. Garcia has always meant when he prays with the class, “Disturb us, O Lord”. As he had said earlier, perhaps the biggest temptation of man is the desire to not be disturbed. Perhaps, great disturbances are actually opportunities for us to get out of il y a, to get out of our routines, to get out of our contentment.
With that, I leave you a song that basically sums up what getting out of il y a is all about.
22 November 2012
Discussed text: Levinas, "There Is, Ethics and Infinity
You are woken up by your annoyingly effective alarm clock. You roll over to one side of the bed and reach for the snooze button. Five minutes later, you get up, brush your teeth, wash your face, and proceed to cooking breakfast. Once that’s done with, you take a shower, brush your teeth, and take a look at your face through the mirror. It looks the same as always. You go to school and come back home a few hours after. On some days, you go out with friends. On other days, you spend time with your girlfriend in your room. At the end of the day, you take a shower, brush your teeth, and take a look at your face through the mirror. It looks the same as always.
This may seem eerily familiar for some of you but for the longest time, this was how I lived, day in and day out, in my quiet apartment room. I’ve always been the type of person who prefers having a routine. After all, having a routine is safe and prevents you from having to go through burdensome things. I preferred simply drifting along, always trying not to disturb the flow of things. I was content.
Of course, a routine can only be maintained if all the elements that comprise it keep running. As soon as my relationship with one person ended, I got lost. A very big aspect of my everyday life had disappeared. In an effort to distract myself from how I was feeling, I decided to keep busy. I accepted work here and there. I took up projects here and there. I went to places I’ve never had the time to go to back then. I finally spent time with friends whose invitations I’ve always declined back then. In the past few weeks, I’ve met more people than I have ever had in the past year. Before I knew it, I was having so much fun that the reason I started doing all of those things no longer seemed relevant. I found one thing strange, however. With the way things are going right now, I am far from content. Every minute, I’m itching to do something new and to go places I have yet to see. I am discontented, I am dissatisfied, and yet, I am happy.
Surprisingly, I found my answer when Dr. Garcia started talking about il y a. As far as I could remember with my lousy attention span, he defined il y a as a lethargy, a lack of activity, and a lack of initiative. He described it as simply prodding along with no goal, no “star”, and no direction. Come to think of it, he used many words to paint what il y a is but the words that struck me the most were “lost” and “contentment”. How I felt finally made sense when he definitively said that contentment is not necessarily equal to happiness.
I was definitely content with how things were going back then. However, there was something at the back of my mind that bugged me from time to time. I had always brushed it off, ignoring it, and keeping it there, at the back of my head. Now, however, it all makes – I was unhappy. It’s ridiculous how it took me all this time to realize it. Perhaps, I may have already realized it long ago but was simply too afraid, simply too hesitant, and simply too comfortable. I was too comfortable with “il y a-ing” that I ignored my own unhappiness.
This may be what Dr. Garcia has always meant when he prays with the class, “Disturb us, O Lord”. As he had said earlier, perhaps the biggest temptation of man is the desire to not be disturbed. Perhaps, great disturbances are actually opportunities for us to get out of il y a, to get out of our routines, to get out of our contentment.
With that, I leave you a song that basically sums up what getting out of il y a is all about.
There Is
by Avery Wong
22 November 2012
Discussed Text: Levinas, "There Is," Ethics and Infinity
I woke up this morning feeling extra lazy to go school. I was tempted to cut Philo today just because it is my only class. I could’ve spent my morning sleeping like a baby sloth comfortable in my own little bed, but no, I had to wake up early to attend Dr. Garcia’s class. If I had slept like that baby sloth though, I would have probably miss out on “Il y a” and enjoy the morning with the satisfaction of waking up late but later suffer at night just staring at an empty word file, “Il y a”-ing and blaming myself for not going to today’s lecture.
The first thing that came to my head when I heard “Il y a” was: “il-what?”.Levinas sounded like an African-American-Swedish rapper trying to compliment another man’s rap. “Your rap is ill,ya?” Jokes aside, to be honest, I’m not exactly sure what the “There Is” means. Levinas said that “Il y a” is not something nor is it nothing. So what is it then? After hearing all the examples in class, I’m lead to think that this tricky word, is closely related to, correct me if I’m wrong, a state/situation/position. It is not something nor is it nothingness.
It’s hard to explain it. All I can do with my limited understanding is to help give more examples to point towards “There Is”.
“There Is”is when there’s a restlessness to become more, but at the same time the dread to be a definite being. It is that middle ground, where you haven’t gone out, but another part of you wants to.Maybe most of you have this feeling of wanting to know someone but somehow you don’t want to.Maybe it’s a crush. Maybe more than 1. Or it could be that wanting to know someone just because you see that person every day. You know that feeling of seeing a person you know by face but don’t know very well, look right back feeling the same thing? Yup, “Il y a”. At that moment, you don’t know exactly what to do. A part of you wants to step out and know them or at least say “hi”, but another part of you will pull you back. That same thing happens to the other person and both of you just look away. Wondering what happened and the next moment shrug it off as if nothing did.
It could also be that moment when you have this vague image of a better self, a more creative self, but when opportunities arise, a part of you just pulls you back and you miss that opportunity. I had a lot of those Il y a moments, when I was (and still am) in a dread to perform for people, but deep inside I have this eagerness, this wanting to affect them in some way with my music.
It could also be that we try to be all but end up mastering nothing at all.That dread of not wanting to be because you might close other doors.Or even that dread of wanting to be. Half of you wants to be while the other half holds you down and reminds you that becoming entails the responsibilities that go with it. Take for example a friend asking his buddy: “Kayo na ba?..Not yet official, bakit?” when in fact that buddy of his is actually doing things not even traditional couples do that early in the relationship. You know what I mean.
All these things could be “Il y a”. Maybe some might simplify it as a “fear of”. It could be a fear of embarrassment, a fear of rejection, a fear of failure, or maybe a fear of commitment. But I think “Il y a” is more than fear or anxiety. Insomnia, according to Levinas, is an example of the “There Is” where no fear or anxiety is involved. One wants to sleep but cannot sleep. It is not the person’s own doing that he can’t sleep, nor is it not entirely his doing.There is something (but it is not really a thing nor is it nothing) that affects or is affected.
I stopped and thought to myself: “Would there even be a consideration of not wanting to be if there was no consideration of the reaction of the other?” One would most probably recite in class or talk to the teacher as if he/she is the only one in that class without others judging his answers if there were considerations of the other students. He/she would definitely BE reciting in class. So in short, I’m telling myself to not mind other people, but still, it’s hard not minding them.
The next thing to ask, I guess, is how to stand out and Exist and, not be a baby sloth (even if they’re so fuzzy and cute).So here are some of my thoughts, hope they helped or entertained you in some way.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Carpe Diem
by Abi Go
Before I begin, I have to warn you that I am currently driven by emotions and I am barely looking at the screen as I type. If you are the kind of person who cringes at another person’s display of emotions, then maybe it would be wise to close the window and I would not mind if you do so. I wouldn’t know anyway.
I rarely write, and I write only when I have to, or when I am utterly inspired and happy which is even rarer. So thank goodness because that is why I am writing right now. It is funny how emotions could be so fickle and how I could go from thinking that today would be as sad as yesterday to believing that today is so breathtakingly beautiful that I wonder why I thought otherwise.
In my case, not wanting to get out of bed is perfectly normal, but not wanting to go to school is … alarming. Nevertheless, that was exactly how I started my day. I was dragging my feet around and taking my time, and as a result, I left home later than usual. I thought for sure that I would be late, but for once, I could not find it in me to care. However, things do not always happen as you expect them to happen. I arrived ten minutes early.
And then we were talking about il y a, and we were plunged into darkness and brought out of it. Something in me was awakened, something I could not identify, but it is there, and there it is. My hand was shaking when I raised it, yet still I was unusually determined, so I kept it in the air and refused to retreat. Odd enough, I am not the type to recite, because every single time I do, my whole being shakes.
Maybe it wants to be free, but is afraid to be?
Today, I recited twice and I cannot explain how it happened. It just made sense. And like Nike, I just did it. When I began to think about it, I went from gradual realization to startling awareness … that I have been in il y a all along. That thing in me is wide-awake and eager to tear me into two and come out of me. It became a need for me to speak up. Stand out.
And exist.
So I did. And I felt free, happy, and more alive than yesterday. The experience was so very ordinary when taken at face value, but it had been extraordinarily humbling and rejuvenating for me. Maybe I am being overly dramatic, or maybe it is just coffee talking, but I could not care less.
Life is not to be postponed. Step out of yourself and stand out today.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Being Amidst Infinite Possibilities
by Tara Alberto
20 November 2012
Discussed Text: Levinas, "Heidegger," Ethics and Infinity
One of the things Dr. Garcia discussed in class earlier that especially caught my attention was how Heidegger claimed that we are ‘thrown’ into the world, that our Being-in-the-world is a ‘thrownness’. According to Heidegger, human beings were thrown into this world deprived of any other option or any prior knowledge. In a simple and at the same time fascinatingly intricate way, we are here in this world. We exist.
We are thrown into this world in the midst of our possibilities. Heidegger stresses that these possibilities are not merely in front of us, unlike things that we can decide on; they are not things that we have. It is not a question of having, but instead a question of actually being these very real possibilities.
Heidegger saw the human being as a project – a work-in-progress. We are thrown into the world and in Being-in-the-world, there is an experience of transcending – of going beyond. If we were to go beyond to embrace the capabilities within us and explore the multitude of our possibilities, we may be able to make a difference. That said, isn’t that among the few things truly important in life, making a positive difference?
In desiring to make a difference, we must be firm in our pursuit of the fundamental possibilities. Nowadays, people tend to forget the question of being and thus get involved with or fixated in other things like money, sex, or power, forcing them to be stuck on just the secondary possibilities, failing to be authentic. In failing to be authentic, these beings then become inauthentic, and that is where ‘fallenness’ comes in. ‘Fallenness’ is slipping away and the forgetfulness of being in the present society, in one’s fundamental situation. In order to move from inauthenticity back to authenticity, one needs to climb back up to being, feeling the urgency towards authenticity – to really live according to being as being instead of simply being entrenched in inauthenticity.
The ideas of ‘thrownness’ and the many possibilities of our being in this world reminded me of a particular move that I was required to watch for one of my classes during my sophomore year. The movie is aptly entitled “Life in a Day”. Basically, people from all over the world submitted snippets of a day in their life, hence the title.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Experience and Essence
by Rob Roa
15 November 2012
Discussed Text: Levinas, "Bible and Philosophy," Ethics and Infinity
Experience is a vague word. Sometimes you don’t have experience if all you’ve ever known is “true blue Ateneo”. Others will say you lack experience even if you’ve been around the world contracting business affairs. For some, one game in the UAAP is enough to call experience, where for others, a player needs four years to be called experienced.
Obviously it is true when we call experience “the world of more meanings”. Meaning is essence, and therefore experience is part of the world of more essence. Does this mean the more we experience, the more we discover the essence of the world? Or do we discover the essence of ourselves?
In experience, we cannot separate ourselves from the world, as we are experiencing it, so therefore the essence of the world, is a part of our own essence. What we have experienced of the world, each moment of action that we can be consciously aware of, makes up our own essence. Our own meaning.
At one point in my life, I was a server (a more fancy term for waiter) at an acceptably high class restaurant back home before I came to the Ateneo. In serving food, I was a server. I was being a server. I was experiencing the world of serving and working (almost full time), and because I was immersed in that world, I was discovering my essence, as a person being the server.
Or even more reflective; I came to the Philippines thinking it would be a “good experience for me” and it has turned out to be just that. So as I experienced the Philippines, I was discovering the essence of the Philippines, but at the same time I was discovering the essence of being Filipino. Now does this mean before I arrived in Manila, I wasn’t a Filipino? Not necessarily, but when you can finally experience the land of your parents birth, there is more essence to be conscious of.
There is just more to experience. Or more to the world of more meanings. More to the world of more essence. Experience is a never-ending chase to know everything, but of course we must pick and choose what we want to be part of our essence. We can’t have it all, nor do we want it all, but there is always an experience that calls us and is ready to become a part of us.
One last question: when we experience more essence, are we simply discovering it in ourselves? Or allowing some essence of the world to become part of what we are being? Or maybe do we just become aware, or conscious of something else in the world, which changes our own essence, or meaning.
Irreversible
by Nats Barretto
Books, texts, movies -- they are not just for entertainment. They are a means, a means of expressing the different possibilities in this world. That's one of the things I've learned so far in this second philosophy course. And today, I've seen that learning "put into action".
Irreversible. One word. Everything that has already happened is irreversible. Every possibility that has passed, every possibility that is happening -- they are irreversible. Time destroys all things.
Having had a three day weekend gave me a lot of opportunity to watch lots of tv shows and movies. And somehow, I happened to stumble upon this rated 21 and above movie from France. Out of curiosity, I watched it.
It was probably the...harshest movie I have seen in my 19 years of living. The movie contains 13 scenes, shown in reverse chronological order.
I won't tell the plot as some of you might want to watch it. But basically, the whole movie tackles a reality often dismissed by many film makers because of its negativity and harshness. Until now, I still can't get the images out of my head, and I doubt I ever will. It's irreversible. I thought, actually, why would someone make a film so...unnerving. Aren't films supposed to be entertaining? This movie is probably the opposite of entertaining!
But no, I guess entertainment's not the whole point of movies. Movies show possibilities, and harshness was simply the possibility shown by "Irreversible". Somewhere in other parts of the world, these things are actually happening. Probably more worse things than this are happening in some other parts of the world. And that's just the way the world goes.
This movie, is a noble movie. It tackles realities other movies are afraid of tackling. And it's noble in a way that it gives these realities exposure, more than what the nightly news shows you. Yes, it makes people horrified, but it also moves people to do something about these realities. Maybe, just maybe, the audience will be able to do something about these realities.
**Spoilers beyond this part.**
After more thinking, I've came to realize the things that made the movie so...horrifying.
1) Two people could have helped Alex in the tunnel scene: the transsexual Guillermo and the man who appeared on the other end during the rape scene. They both could have helped Alex, but they didn't. Sin of omission, yeah. It's scary, how people aren't brave enough sometimes to get out of their way and help people in need; how people are unresponsive to other's demands.
2) It's the same thing in the Rectum club scene, where Tenia was beating the hell out of Marcus' head with a fire extinguisher. All the other guys could have helped Marcus. But they just stood there, watching the man get himself beaten. It was one of the scariest images in the movie I couldn't keep out of my head.
3) The intensity. Several other movies also try to expose these kinds of things, but they don't make you feel the intensity the way "Irreversible" makes you feel it. A part of it is brought by the what the camera chooses to show--the penis of the rapist after the rape scene, the deformation of Alex and Marcus' face during and after the beatings, and several other things.
Watch only if you think you can handle it. It's not a movie for everyone, and I think I've already established that throughout the blog post.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Richard Dawkins On "Useless" Things
When me and my friends were in your age, the times when we were much younger (and full of hope), one of the people that we have read casually was Richard Dawkins, and this is one man from whom I believe we can learn a lot.
The video below is a comment on why humans do these "useless" things (part of which, I think, involves talking about other people talking about uselessness). What do you think?
The video below is a comment on why humans do these "useless" things (part of which, I think, involves talking about other people talking about uselessness). What do you think?
And for those who are more into any of the writings and ideas of Dawkins, here is another video (this is quite long) which features him in a dialogue with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who, mind you, is one of the greatest minds of this century, a brilliant philosopher and theologian who frequently engages in friendly intellectual discussions with also one of the greatest theologians of our time, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger or Pope Benedict XVI.
When Languages Fail Us
by Rucha Lim
Allow me to divert from my usual ranting on what has been identified to me as orthodox religion and the utter (and with great irony with reference to our lingua franca) banal state of the understanding of what I (perhaps wrongly) believe is an outdated concept of “God.”
As I write, I must acknowledge the source of the imagery, which I am to use.My favorite author, Haruki Murakami, entitled one of his novels, “Dance Dance Dance.” There is a part in the novel wherein the character, amidst all the strange things going on in his life says that he “does his best to just dance along.” Many of the things he encountered, he could not understand. The world continued to turn, just as surely as time flowed, and so all he could do was “dance” the best way he could to what life brought.
I am reluctant to use dancing as a metaphor for living as I have no terpsichorean ability whatsoever. I believe the metaphor however, to be quite effective in communicating what I wish to communicate. Dancing is useless in the sense that it does not necessarily assist in survival. Perhaps our ancient ancestors can attest to this if they could. Why then did it survive? Evolution (that applies not just to biology and genetics but also anthropology) would hold that practices which provide no benefit to survivability dies of their own accord. The laws of nature, in its parsimoniousness, would have what is unnecessary eventually eradicated. Why then, did dancing, from the most primitive times, flourish and even evolve into the wild shaking and gyrating that it is today?I can think of one possibility.
First, we must look at the original function of the dance. Though I am no anthropologist, I believe we can infer that the ancient dances were mimetic. Ancient dance moves were the same movements done in hunting, harvesting, washing, herding, and so on and so forth.Thisdirects us to their function, that they were instructive. Dances were signifiers that all too often also functioned as narratives. As we know, narratives can tell us about how a certain people viewed the world in their time. What we sometimes forget to ask however is what the narratives told them about themselves.
Think back to the fables told to most of us when we were children. They were clearly didactic. “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” taught us how lying can be bad. “The Tortoise and The Hare” taught us the folly of arrogance and the value of perseverance. What we give importance to is not the signifiers they used but rather the signified, the meanings they wished for us to convey. Such is the function that can be traced back to the fabliau. It’s much simpler to tell children stories and fables rather than having to explain to them the complexities of things.
So here we have a message, an understanding, which we wish to communicate. We wish to make our understanding intelligible and so we express.These expressions however need to be grounded on something.I could continue writing this essay in the form of dbfkjsnvvdhf andfdskj afhndskvjs aflndvsjafpoa sdnflsdknfslk and just hope that you completely understand what I want to say but that would be highly unlikely.
We need to establish a consensus on what things mean in order to efficiently communicate. When a person says “yes”, we want to be able to trust that “yes” refers to an affirmation and not a negation. These consensuses came to us in the form of languages. To quote Stephen Hawking, “Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible.” We learned to codify our understanding into texts for the purpose of communication.
Texts however have their limits. They communicate ideas in the languages available to authors in their creation. Recall however that components of languages are signifiers and not actually signified, in the same way that the word “cat” is not an actual cat. There is always a gap between signifier and signified, image and understanding. A problem arises however when this gap is no longer recognized, when signifier is equated to signified. This is what Roland Barthes called, the “myth.” In the words of Marshall McLuhan, “the medium is the message” in the sense that the medium has become the message.
The oldest epic known to humanity is the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. In this ancient work, we find themes that we are all too familiar with such as anxiety of death and the desire to be remembered. In the Bible, we find many didactic passages that hold true in our time despite it long preceding us. It becomes a great loss then, when we practice a fetishistic reverence of these texts, placing them on pedestals without actually tearing into the essence of what they wish to communicate.When their meanings are expressed, all too often, the image itself has become the basis and the process is disregarded.
It is difficult to distinguish then, the natural from the naturalized. Again, we must keep to mind that the naturalized stems from natural phenomena. We humans have naturalized ways of dealing with nature. We crafted weapons and developed techniques and methods in order to help us survive.They are our own creations and we also learned to give them significance.
To borrow from Sartre, to give signification is to deny everything else. To define is to separate. To say that I am me is also to say that I am not you or anybody else. To give significance to something is to give attention and meaning to something amidst everything else.It is therefore, a choice, one that can be conscious of. How easy it is, however, to default and look at things in over-simplified ways. To do so is no grave sin. We look at things simply because we want to acquire a sense of security. We want to make sense of the world in a way that we can easily handle.In the words of Voltaire, “Doubt is an unpleasant condition.”And so we rely on myths in order to easily get by.Myths act as the touchstones of our understanding of things.Voltaire continues however, that “Certainty,... is absurd.”
The ancient Romans believed, as per the writing of Ovid, that spring and summer, the seasons of life are when Persephone is with her mother Ceres and that autumn and winter, the seasons of death are when Persephone is with her husband Pluto. It was what they could default to, as the revolution of the Earth around its orbit was yet unknown to them. We may not view myths and legends as serious etiology these days however we are still captivated by them. We are not confined to their intended meanings. We hold them in wonder because they are testaments to humanity’s creativity. We have all our wonderful ways of putting a spin to things and we have given them names like love, hate, irony, passion, tragedy, comedy, and so on and so forth.One does not need to believe in order to appreciate. Why, the atheist Richard Dawkins’ favorite piece of music is Bach’s “The St. Matthew Passion.”
We do not necessarily need to “burn our idols” as one drunken friend once told me. Rather, in the words of Joseph Campbell in “The Hero With A Thousand Faces” what we must seek, in narratives across all cultures is not the differences of images used but rather, their similarities and what they speak of us all as the human race.They touch on the level of things ancient, sublime, the grand inner workings of the human condition.I need not know the technical complexities of music to be moved by Beethoven’s Sonata No. 8. These texts are timeless and classical in that they move us on a level so deep and in a manner so parsimonious that they easily evoke our consciousness into the realm of our abstract essence.
Our languages, myths, and symbols are simply our tools with which we are able to interact. They may be crude and inadequate at times but I am not condemning them. Rather, I believe it would be a challenge of creativity in how we would be able to use (and possibly improve) these tools given to us in spite of their crudeness. I just find that it is necessary to know that we are ultimately free from our own creations however influenced we are by the forces that drove us into making them.This freedom gives us the power to change the way we see and construct our worlds. Again quoting Stephen Hawking, “It [everything] doesn’t have to be like this [I like to think he speaks of what Marcel called “the broken world”]. We just have to make sure we keep talking.” And by talking he does not mean breaking down into verbal nihilism or being reducing all things into talking, what he means is we must just keep striving to communicate as communication is what “unleashed the power of our imagination” and perhaps in doing so, move into a purer level of experience.
And now I return you at last to my metaphor of the dance. Each dance move is an emotion, a feeling, a reaction to the sounds of life expressed within the limits of our human bodies.Each of us hears different aspects of the sounds, naming different things as music. And we dance to this music in different ways, some stiff and rapid, others slow and flexible, and so on and so forth. Sometimes we can choose to not dance at all but we miss out on a very important aspect of living – intimacy. There are not many expressions that express intimacy as much as the dance – when bodies move not only to the rhythm of life, but also to each other.We touch each other, fully appreciating the presence of the Other and offering ours in return. At times we step on each other’s toes, or accidentally hit each other in our wild movements. Our dancing can disturb, or provoke, disgust or arouse, create spite or happiness.We learn to slow down and adjust our pace for others. Sometimes we just get tired of dancing and stop. But we have to keep dancing. To dance is to find and interact with the Other. I like to believe that in our differences and inadequacies, we can strive for harmony with each other.
We are homo sapiens sapiens. What has allowed us to thrive is our ability to communicate and build societies. It should not be then that what has allowed us to survive will be what will cause our downfall. As they said in one of the lectures in RSA, “We need to rethink the human narrative.” We have all the material we need to revise it. Zeno’s paradox states that in between any two defined points is infinity. Between 0 and 1 is 0.5, and in between 0 and 0.5 is 0.25 and in between 0 and 0.25 is 0.125 ad infinitum. Reality, in its finiteness, holds infinity.And human knowledge of this finiteness continues to approach infinity. How many permutations of meaning can we potentially get as we arrange the finite holders of infinity in life?Why,∞!
Think about it, and let the music of Pink Floyd carry you.
A Reflection On A Reflection
by Rucha Lim
One slightly tipsy evening, I was struck with a thought. “I can never fully see myself.” What I see in the mirror is not me but rather, the light I am reflecting off into the mirror that bounces into my eyes. Optical nerves convert the light into electrical signals that travel into my brain, which encodes it into information, an image. Elementary science. Seeing my own physical appearance is simple enough. Science doesn’t really say anything more though. The guy I see in the mirror isn’t that bad looking, far from being an Adonis but decent enough. What I judge though is not myself but rather, a reflection of my self that I see. Any judgment is made on the basis of things outside my self.
The mirror speaks of my appearance- an objective reality. As we know, we are more than our objective realities. But how can I know what lies beneath my surface?
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, I will not talk to you because I haven’t lost my mind (yet?). I will not hope that through some hocus-pocus, the mirror will reveal to me whether I am good or bad. No, to find my inner self, I must go outside of myself. I must look at the Other. As I look around me, what can I say of the people around me? Are they happy? Do they despair? Have I a hand in their happiness or in their despair?It is perhaps through this type of questioning that I can find my self.
I know now that I exist. Here I am in the world, interacting with it, and being aware that I am in it. What luck!But now I must ask, how do I exist? Have I done good for the world or did I make the world good for me? I have an ideal identity of myself in mind but it is only through seeing how I interact with the world can I approximate how much I resonate to my ideal.
I think of one of the prayers Doctor Garcia recites before class.John Donne’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."
I am in the world. Everything I do has an effect. Everything that I do not do also has an effect. Many suffer unjustly. Many abuse power. Many die in vain. I am partly at fault because of my actions or lack thereof. Every second that I allow to pass where the Other suffers is an opportunity lost. I am part of the problem but I believe that awareness of my responsibility and accountability to humanity is the first step to my taking part in a solution. And in taking part in a solution, I believe that I move closer to my ideal identity. An identity that is good.
One slightly tipsy evening, I was struck with a thought. “I can never fully see myself.” What I see in the mirror is not me but rather, the light I am reflecting off into the mirror that bounces into my eyes. Optical nerves convert the light into electrical signals that travel into my brain, which encodes it into information, an image. Elementary science. Seeing my own physical appearance is simple enough. Science doesn’t really say anything more though. The guy I see in the mirror isn’t that bad looking, far from being an Adonis but decent enough. What I judge though is not myself but rather, a reflection of my self that I see. Any judgment is made on the basis of things outside my self.
The mirror speaks of my appearance- an objective reality. As we know, we are more than our objective realities. But how can I know what lies beneath my surface?
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, I will not talk to you because I haven’t lost my mind (yet?). I will not hope that through some hocus-pocus, the mirror will reveal to me whether I am good or bad. No, to find my inner self, I must go outside of myself. I must look at the Other. As I look around me, what can I say of the people around me? Are they happy? Do they despair? Have I a hand in their happiness or in their despair?It is perhaps through this type of questioning that I can find my self.
I know now that I exist. Here I am in the world, interacting with it, and being aware that I am in it. What luck!But now I must ask, how do I exist? Have I done good for the world or did I make the world good for me? I have an ideal identity of myself in mind but it is only through seeing how I interact with the world can I approximate how much I resonate to my ideal.
I think of one of the prayers Doctor Garcia recites before class.John Donne’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls”, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."
I am in the world. Everything I do has an effect. Everything that I do not do also has an effect. Many suffer unjustly. Many abuse power. Many die in vain. I am partly at fault because of my actions or lack thereof. Every second that I allow to pass where the Other suffers is an opportunity lost. I am part of the problem but I believe that awareness of my responsibility and accountability to humanity is the first step to my taking part in a solution. And in taking part in a solution, I believe that I move closer to my ideal identity. An identity that is good.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Being Your Way Into Being
by Dondee Alampay
13 November 2012
Discussed Text: Levinas, "Bible and Philosophy, Ethics and Infinity
Three lecture classes have gone by and so far, Emmanuel Levinas' take on the topics of experience, modalities of living, and Heidegger's Sein und Zeit has been molding in class a sense of practicality in realizing one's orientation towards consciousness, whether it be in the form of an ego check, self help/motivation, or something as normal as “ah!, that's nice to know”. College comes with many instances where an ambitious student could lose his or herself in a cascade of self-inflicted expectations and peer obligations, but the manner in which the lecture topics fall into place seem appropriate to prepare the student for exactly that, especially when dealing with the infamous third year burden.
Take for instance, last Thursday's lecture which tackled the dynamism of consciousness, and Being contrasted with being. Many a semester (well, back when I was still an engineering student) have I heard friends and peers relate their then current predicament with what they assumed their current position to be. For instance, the struggles of dealing with circuit analysis coupled with calculus every week, with no respite or safe haven with which to take a breather, and the sighs of disappointment and discouragement that ensued every time a long test would be returned imprinted on some (and to a certain extent myself) a very distorted transmutation of what they first considered a pursuit of knowledge, into a struggle to adhere to a certain standard, at a certain pace. It is at these times that the question “is this really for me?” is asked, and back then, I would be inclined to say that it made sense going along that particular direction of thought. Looking back however, and with last week's lecture topic in mind, the more appropriate questions would have been “what am I doing”, “what do I want” and “how am I to get there”. It is this delicate balance of self identification tied to one's actions and decisions that is most often confused with identification tied to one's accomplishments, although sadly this is what history seems to favor.
To realize who you are in this world is to realize that the hurdles and obstacles that bear down on you is to acknowledge that your existence is what gives those challenges the significance that they have. What you make yourself out to be entails that you have to “be” to be. Let each and every succeeding instant, opportunity, moment, and waking hour, remind of you of who you are. The famous question posed in Hamlet to be or not to be is only half the decision. Most of it is getting there once you decide to.
13 November 2012
Discussed Text: Levinas, "Bible and Philosophy, Ethics and Infinity
Three lecture classes have gone by and so far, Emmanuel Levinas' take on the topics of experience, modalities of living, and Heidegger's Sein und Zeit has been molding in class a sense of practicality in realizing one's orientation towards consciousness, whether it be in the form of an ego check, self help/motivation, or something as normal as “ah!, that's nice to know”. College comes with many instances where an ambitious student could lose his or herself in a cascade of self-inflicted expectations and peer obligations, but the manner in which the lecture topics fall into place seem appropriate to prepare the student for exactly that, especially when dealing with the infamous third year burden.
Take for instance, last Thursday's lecture which tackled the dynamism of consciousness, and Being contrasted with being. Many a semester (well, back when I was still an engineering student) have I heard friends and peers relate their then current predicament with what they assumed their current position to be. For instance, the struggles of dealing with circuit analysis coupled with calculus every week, with no respite or safe haven with which to take a breather, and the sighs of disappointment and discouragement that ensued every time a long test would be returned imprinted on some (and to a certain extent myself) a very distorted transmutation of what they first considered a pursuit of knowledge, into a struggle to adhere to a certain standard, at a certain pace. It is at these times that the question “is this really for me?” is asked, and back then, I would be inclined to say that it made sense going along that particular direction of thought. Looking back however, and with last week's lecture topic in mind, the more appropriate questions would have been “what am I doing”, “what do I want” and “how am I to get there”. It is this delicate balance of self identification tied to one's actions and decisions that is most often confused with identification tied to one's accomplishments, although sadly this is what history seems to favor.
To realize who you are in this world is to realize that the hurdles and obstacles that bear down on you is to acknowledge that your existence is what gives those challenges the significance that they have. What you make yourself out to be entails that you have to “be” to be. Let each and every succeeding instant, opportunity, moment, and waking hour, remind of you of who you are. The famous question posed in Hamlet to be or not to be is only half the decision. Most of it is getting there once you decide to.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Texts and Phenomenology
by Kris Kokseng
13 November 2012
Discussed Text: Levinas, "Bible and Philosophy" in Ethics and Infinity
Today Doc Garcia talked about two main topics, text and phenomenology. What exactly did I learn about these topics? Doc Garcia explained that philosophy should not begin with ideas in one's head; it should begin from lived experiences. Texts are important because one person can't experience everything. Texts are the experiences of other people written down, and when we think of philosophy we must not only use our own experiences but texts as well.
"La vraie vie est ailleurs(the true life is elsewhere)," said Rimbaud. Levinas states that this true life is no longer utopian because we find a place for it in our thoughts. We "de-center" ourselves and enter the world of what we are reading. As Flaubert said "Live in order to live!" This is why Levinas considers the Bible as one of the great books that he has encountered because not only does it give a possibility but it gives many possibilities of that true life.
Moving on to phenomenology, as we experience things we are living life however this is only the pre-reflective level of phenomenology. A reflection as defined in class is a gaze that goes outside and comes back. As we reflect on our experiences we enter into the reflective level which is living life outside of life.
I had an experience when I was driving a car. I was in the pre-reflective level when I was just driving on "auto-pilot" until a point where I almost hit somebody. That's when I became conscious of being conscious, and being conscious that what I do could really affect others. From reflecting I learned that I had to be more careful when driving. In a sense I was also conscious of others. And as we tackled being a person for others, I always wondered why did I even think or care about others during this experience. Maybe it is just hard-wired into us.
13 November 2012
Discussed Text: Levinas, "Bible and Philosophy" in Ethics and Infinity
Today Doc Garcia talked about two main topics, text and phenomenology. What exactly did I learn about these topics? Doc Garcia explained that philosophy should not begin with ideas in one's head; it should begin from lived experiences. Texts are important because one person can't experience everything. Texts are the experiences of other people written down, and when we think of philosophy we must not only use our own experiences but texts as well.
"La vraie vie est ailleurs(the true life is elsewhere)," said Rimbaud. Levinas states that this true life is no longer utopian because we find a place for it in our thoughts. We "de-center" ourselves and enter the world of what we are reading. As Flaubert said "Live in order to live!" This is why Levinas considers the Bible as one of the great books that he has encountered because not only does it give a possibility but it gives many possibilities of that true life.
Moving on to phenomenology, as we experience things we are living life however this is only the pre-reflective level of phenomenology. A reflection as defined in class is a gaze that goes outside and comes back. As we reflect on our experiences we enter into the reflective level which is living life outside of life.
I had an experience when I was driving a car. I was in the pre-reflective level when I was just driving on "auto-pilot" until a point where I almost hit somebody. That's when I became conscious of being conscious, and being conscious that what I do could really affect others. From reflecting I learned that I had to be more careful when driving. In a sense I was also conscious of others. And as we tackled being a person for others, I always wondered why did I even think or care about others during this experience. Maybe it is just hard-wired into us.
Nigger Horses
by Jango Agustin
13 November 2012
Discussed Text: Emmanuel Levinas, "Bible and Philosophy," in Ethics and Infinity
“Why do we have to see what the others see?” was the question stuck in my head after yesterday’s lecture. At the top of my head, my answer to this would be because I don’t want to be a nigger. The nigger here defined by Arthur Rimbaud as an unproductive man of society bent on making money and money only.
It seems that nowadays, there are a lot of people who become ignorant that there are others living in the world outside their selves. Too busy grinding on with their lives thinking of ways on how to get the biggest income, highest chances of winning bets, or thinking of ways to earn money fast by any means necessary. This can be happening because of the way the world’s system is built and these people are forced to live this way. Although it is sad to say that this way of living is like living the life of a kalesa horse.
Do you know what those eye patch looking flaps on the horses eyes are for?
They are for keeping the horse concentrated on its path and not get distracted by the cars and people passing on both sides.
The kalesa horse is forced by its master to walk whichever direction its master wills it to. It is guided by the reigns connected to its face and then it just moves straight towards that direction. Trained to ignore everything else around it.
This can be the same thing the system does to its people. This also why it is important to break away from time to time, to take a walk. Travel. See the world outside. As mentioned in the lecture, when you travel, you provide yourself with a possibility to recollect and comeback to oneself. This video might prove the point that if ever at some point in your life, you become Rimbaud’s definition of a nigger; you may find that there is a way of redeeming yourself through travelling.
If ever you don’t want to watch the video because the video is 58:47 minutes long. It is about Josh West, a colored man who is a bus driver in London. He visits Mang Rogelio, a jeepney driver here in the Philippines. Josh willingly lives with Mang Rogelio and his family for some time just to experience how it is to be a jeepney driver here in the Philippines. Josh now raises money to send Mang Rogelio’s grandchildren to school.
**There was no racism intended at all. It may come off as satire but if you think about it, the irony is striking and awesome.
13 November 2012
Discussed Text: Emmanuel Levinas, "Bible and Philosophy," in Ethics and Infinity
“Why do we have to see what the others see?” was the question stuck in my head after yesterday’s lecture. At the top of my head, my answer to this would be because I don’t want to be a nigger. The nigger here defined by Arthur Rimbaud as an unproductive man of society bent on making money and money only.
It seems that nowadays, there are a lot of people who become ignorant that there are others living in the world outside their selves. Too busy grinding on with their lives thinking of ways on how to get the biggest income, highest chances of winning bets, or thinking of ways to earn money fast by any means necessary. This can be happening because of the way the world’s system is built and these people are forced to live this way. Although it is sad to say that this way of living is like living the life of a kalesa horse.
Do you know what those eye patch looking flaps on the horses eyes are for?
They are for keeping the horse concentrated on its path and not get distracted by the cars and people passing on both sides.
The kalesa horse is forced by its master to walk whichever direction its master wills it to. It is guided by the reigns connected to its face and then it just moves straight towards that direction. Trained to ignore everything else around it.
This can be the same thing the system does to its people. This also why it is important to break away from time to time, to take a walk. Travel. See the world outside. As mentioned in the lecture, when you travel, you provide yourself with a possibility to recollect and comeback to oneself. This video might prove the point that if ever at some point in your life, you become Rimbaud’s definition of a nigger; you may find that there is a way of redeeming yourself through travelling.
**There was no racism intended at all. It may come off as satire but if you think about it, the irony is striking and awesome.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Completing The Circle
by Krista Agbayani
The first two discussions of the semester instantly reminded me of the film, Never Let Me Go, based from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel.
Never Let Me Go tells the story of three friends, Kathy, Ruth and Tommy, who study in a boarding school called Hailsham. In Hailsham, they are prepared for their ultimate purpose in life, which is to donate organs. Early on, they are taught to keep healthy and to accept their fate. After their 3rd or 4th donation, they are told that they will “complete” or to bluntly put it, die.
Like the three friends in the film, we spend most of our lives preparing ourselves for our future, only to end up serving other people. We often resign ourselves to that fate. We take care of ourselves, so we can be physically capable of finishing tasks. We study, so we can get jobs that pay well later on. We think we are doing it for ourselves. Or are we really?
We spend the first part of our lives searching for our identity, finding out what we really enjoy, only to doubt all that once we interact and live with others. The shift from “Who am I” to “What does the other demand from me?” is akin to the chicken or the egg problem (as someone mention during the previous discussion). Which came first? Which one is of greater importance? They are both equally important, that’s for sure. You can’t have one without the other.
We need others to help us look at life differently, and our active participation is needed to keep society going. But maybe we want to look in deeper, because we want to understand further. As human beings, we are always looking for solidity and validation. We seek and explore, before we can truly accept what lies ahead.
The first two discussions of the semester instantly reminded me of the film, Never Let Me Go, based from Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel.
Like the three friends in the film, we spend most of our lives preparing ourselves for our future, only to end up serving other people. We often resign ourselves to that fate. We take care of ourselves, so we can be physically capable of finishing tasks. We study, so we can get jobs that pay well later on. We think we are doing it for ourselves. Or are we really?
We spend the first part of our lives searching for our identity, finding out what we really enjoy, only to doubt all that once we interact and live with others. The shift from “Who am I” to “What does the other demand from me?” is akin to the chicken or the egg problem (as someone mention during the previous discussion). Which came first? Which one is of greater importance? They are both equally important, that’s for sure. You can’t have one without the other.
We need others to help us look at life differently, and our active participation is needed to keep society going. But maybe we want to look in deeper, because we want to understand further. As human beings, we are always looking for solidity and validation. We seek and explore, before we can truly accept what lies ahead.
The Human Experience and the JEEP Program
by JB Capinpin
*Disclaimer: If you’re also under Mr. Rochester and haven’t watched “The Human Experience,” do not read any further. This blog post will spoil the film.
Last Wednesday, I had to watch a movie, entitled, “The Human Experience”, for my Theology 131 class under Mr. Rochester. It was a movie about two brothers who decided to record a documentary about different human experiences. Instead of simply recording other people’s experiences and narrating it on film, they immersed themselves in other peoples’ experiences.
For this blog post, I will only focus on the challenge of living homeless in New York during winter season because this is very much similar to the JEEP program we will have this semester. The other two, interacting with children who were disabled and momentarily abandoned by their parents due to financial problems and interacting with lepers in a colony, are similar to the immersion programs I have experienced in high school and exposure trips in college. Hence, they didn’t really strike me as much as living the life of another person.
Below are some of the experiences they had:
More often that not, we succumb to our biases and judge other people. It is so easy because this is what we have experienced, have observed or have heard. We tend to believe that these experiences will repeat and thus act as a safeguard. In some way, our biases set the boundaries of our comfort zone. Anything beyond can spell trouble and make us unhappy. However, since our biases can be very personal or subjective, we can be mistaken. Therefore, our comfort zone can limit us. In this regard, there appears to be a trade-off between one’s safety and experience. It focuses on the “I,” which was the focus of the 1st semester. Towards the end of last semester, the “I” was defined as a being-in-the-world-with-and-for-others, although the “with-and-for-others” description was only briefly tackled.
This 2nd semester asks us to shift from thinking about the “I” and instead think about the “Other.” From the question, “what is being?” we now discuss, “what does the Other demand from me?” From ontology, we now focus on ethics. From philosophy’s definition as the love for wisdom, we define philosophy as the wisdom of love. With that in mind, instead of focusing on our own comfort zones, our own lives, we begin to consider Other’s feelings and Other’s life. In other words, this semester is a call for us to be more compassionate.
That is precisely what the two brothers in the film showcased. They tried to see New York in the eyes of a homeless person, to understand the life of the Other. I believe that this is one of the reasons why we are going through the JEEP program this semester. What the two brothers did is a preview of what we will be going through, but it definitely won’t be as extreme as living in the streets of Katipunan for a week. When we start living as sales people in a supermarket, photocopies in U.P. or street vendors along Katipunan, we must become more sensitive and more open and more compassionate to the Other. Perhaps, we find telling ourselves that we already know this. We have dealt with this over and over again in grade school and high school. We have been always reminded to always think of our neighbor, to do the good. But at this point, it would be helpful to pause and reflect if we really understood and follow this concept of doing the good? I guess we probably know the good, but we often fail to exercise it. This is perhaps the challenge to us in our times. As Lexie Coloma, C&PR Manager of The GUIDON, said in her column entitled, “The Epiphany of the Face”, “As Ateneans, we have always been taught the value of being men for others. We pride ourselves in having theology and philosophy classes but despite this, we still fail to go down the hill, where we are needed the most.” We have an idea of what to do, but then how come we don’t anything for the Other?
Through the JEEP program, we may hopefully find this humility to see the world in the Other’s shoe. This experience will somehow open our eyes to the reality of what the Other is experiencing and how we can respond to the demands of the Other.
For this semester, let us all try to leave our own selfish ways and constantly remind ourselves to think of the Other and how to be good to him/ her. I believe that if we carry disposition with us wherever we go, we are already bringing about change in society in our own ways. We can still fix our “broken world.”
*Disclaimer: If you’re also under Mr. Rochester and haven’t watched “The Human Experience,” do not read any further. This blog post will spoil the film.
Last Wednesday, I had to watch a movie, entitled, “The Human Experience”, for my Theology 131 class under Mr. Rochester. It was a movie about two brothers who decided to record a documentary about different human experiences. Instead of simply recording other people’s experiences and narrating it on film, they immersed themselves in other peoples’ experiences.
For this blog post, I will only focus on the challenge of living homeless in New York during winter season because this is very much similar to the JEEP program we will have this semester. The other two, interacting with children who were disabled and momentarily abandoned by their parents due to financial problems and interacting with lepers in a colony, are similar to the immersion programs I have experienced in high school and exposure trips in college. Hence, they didn’t really strike me as much as living the life of another person.
Below are some of the experiences they had:
- A number of scenes were taken at night to show how they survived the cold nights of New York (5° Celsius on night 1). They sought refuge outside the church and made use of a cardboard as a bed. This protected their backs from the freezing concrete floor, but they were still very much exposed to the harsh environment.
- During the day, they looked for a corner where they can sit down and ask for some loose coins or spare change to buy food. Sometimes, they didn’t collect enough so they had to approach the small food stalls along the streets and ask for any food that they have left.
- In an interview with a homeless lady, they mentioned that she felt excluded from society; she was simply ignored. She even mentioned an instance where a group of walkers-by helped this injured dog. She was also near the area, but she was simply looked over. She was puzzled that she had the similar features of a human being, yet the other citizens of New York don’t seem to see her that way.
- Luckily, a church had a feeding program for the homeless people. It was there that the two brothers really got to interact with other homeless people and share their experiences. The group praised the brothers for having the courage to step out of their comfort zone and live as homeless people.
More often that not, we succumb to our biases and judge other people. It is so easy because this is what we have experienced, have observed or have heard. We tend to believe that these experiences will repeat and thus act as a safeguard. In some way, our biases set the boundaries of our comfort zone. Anything beyond can spell trouble and make us unhappy. However, since our biases can be very personal or subjective, we can be mistaken. Therefore, our comfort zone can limit us. In this regard, there appears to be a trade-off between one’s safety and experience. It focuses on the “I,” which was the focus of the 1st semester. Towards the end of last semester, the “I” was defined as a being-in-the-world-with-and-for-others, although the “with-and-for-others” description was only briefly tackled.
This 2nd semester asks us to shift from thinking about the “I” and instead think about the “Other.” From the question, “what is being?” we now discuss, “what does the Other demand from me?” From ontology, we now focus on ethics. From philosophy’s definition as the love for wisdom, we define philosophy as the wisdom of love. With that in mind, instead of focusing on our own comfort zones, our own lives, we begin to consider Other’s feelings and Other’s life. In other words, this semester is a call for us to be more compassionate.
That is precisely what the two brothers in the film showcased. They tried to see New York in the eyes of a homeless person, to understand the life of the Other. I believe that this is one of the reasons why we are going through the JEEP program this semester. What the two brothers did is a preview of what we will be going through, but it definitely won’t be as extreme as living in the streets of Katipunan for a week. When we start living as sales people in a supermarket, photocopies in U.P. or street vendors along Katipunan, we must become more sensitive and more open and more compassionate to the Other. Perhaps, we find telling ourselves that we already know this. We have dealt with this over and over again in grade school and high school. We have been always reminded to always think of our neighbor, to do the good. But at this point, it would be helpful to pause and reflect if we really understood and follow this concept of doing the good? I guess we probably know the good, but we often fail to exercise it. This is perhaps the challenge to us in our times. As Lexie Coloma, C&PR Manager of The GUIDON, said in her column entitled, “The Epiphany of the Face”, “As Ateneans, we have always been taught the value of being men for others. We pride ourselves in having theology and philosophy classes but despite this, we still fail to go down the hill, where we are needed the most.” We have an idea of what to do, but then how come we don’t anything for the Other?
Through the JEEP program, we may hopefully find this humility to see the world in the Other’s shoe. This experience will somehow open our eyes to the reality of what the Other is experiencing and how we can respond to the demands of the Other.
For this semester, let us all try to leave our own selfish ways and constantly remind ourselves to think of the Other and how to be good to him/ her. I believe that if we carry disposition with us wherever we go, we are already bringing about change in society in our own ways. We can still fix our “broken world.”
Thursday, November 8, 2012
On Selflessness
by Alex Chua
The other day, I was hanging out with my block mates when one of them brought up a very interesting argument. She said that we are all selfish. At first, I was really offended because I think of myself as a pretty selfless guy (hehe). I immediately started thinking of ways to prove her wrong. After a while, when I calmed down, I decided to hear what she had to say. I have to admit that she had a valid point. According to her, we are all selfish in the sense that everything we do would somehow benefit us.
To give an example, let’s say you did something good; something society would call “selfless.” You donated all your money to a church. If there was an act that would be the complete opposite of selfish, that’s what it would be right? Not really. You still benefit from doing this. The benefit could be personal, emotional, or even spiritual. You feel good about yourself for doing it, or you felt happy when you did it, or your soul gets saved. You will always benefit from the act in some way. Even the most genuine, most selfless act would benefit the doer, and the doer can always, in a way, be considered as selfish.
A lot of people would probably disagree with this statement, just like I did. This is expected, given the negative connotation we place on this word. However, after thinking about it, I say that being selfish should not be a bad thing. In fact, it should be a good thing. We just have to change the way we define selfish, and, more specifically, the way we define the self.
We should forget about the word “selfless.” Like, why is doing something for others even called “selfless” in the first place? Is it because you think less about yourself or lose a part of yourself? No. If we connect this to Heidegger’s essay, and follow his definition of the self, we acknowledge that the self does not refer solely to us as individuals, but rather, as a collective being, consisting of every human being in the world, helping others, becomes helping ourselves. Doing things for others connects us to the rest of the world, or to ourselves. It brings us closer to ourselves and makes us more human. In this sense, the more you do for others, the more selfish you are.
Being selfish can be a good thing if we simply change our definition of “self.” We should stop thinking about “me” and start thinking about the rest of the people around us. Let us stop viewing ourselves as individuals scattered around the Earth. Rather, as Heidegger put it, a “collective Self.” We should view our Self as human beings grouped together sharing a collective experience that is allowed by our existence and, as much as possible, everything we do should be geared toward the benefit of the group, not just the individual. We should strive to be “selfish.”
The other day, I was hanging out with my block mates when one of them brought up a very interesting argument. She said that we are all selfish. At first, I was really offended because I think of myself as a pretty selfless guy (hehe). I immediately started thinking of ways to prove her wrong. After a while, when I calmed down, I decided to hear what she had to say. I have to admit that she had a valid point. According to her, we are all selfish in the sense that everything we do would somehow benefit us.
To give an example, let’s say you did something good; something society would call “selfless.” You donated all your money to a church. If there was an act that would be the complete opposite of selfish, that’s what it would be right? Not really. You still benefit from doing this. The benefit could be personal, emotional, or even spiritual. You feel good about yourself for doing it, or you felt happy when you did it, or your soul gets saved. You will always benefit from the act in some way. Even the most genuine, most selfless act would benefit the doer, and the doer can always, in a way, be considered as selfish.
A lot of people would probably disagree with this statement, just like I did. This is expected, given the negative connotation we place on this word. However, after thinking about it, I say that being selfish should not be a bad thing. In fact, it should be a good thing. We just have to change the way we define selfish, and, more specifically, the way we define the self.
We should forget about the word “selfless.” Like, why is doing something for others even called “selfless” in the first place? Is it because you think less about yourself or lose a part of yourself? No. If we connect this to Heidegger’s essay, and follow his definition of the self, we acknowledge that the self does not refer solely to us as individuals, but rather, as a collective being, consisting of every human being in the world, helping others, becomes helping ourselves. Doing things for others connects us to the rest of the world, or to ourselves. It brings us closer to ourselves and makes us more human. In this sense, the more you do for others, the more selfish you are.
Being selfish can be a good thing if we simply change our definition of “self.” We should stop thinking about “me” and start thinking about the rest of the people around us. Let us stop viewing ourselves as individuals scattered around the Earth. Rather, as Heidegger put it, a “collective Self.” We should view our Self as human beings grouped together sharing a collective experience that is allowed by our existence and, as much as possible, everything we do should be geared toward the benefit of the group, not just the individual. We should strive to be “selfish.”
Time and Death
by Sophie Villasfer
"Time is movement," said Mr. Calasanz. It signifies change, growth, and development. It can be described objectively as chronos -- that is, through seconds, minutes, hours, days and so on. It can also be described subjectively as kairos. Kairos was described through an experience of waiting and spending time with the beloved. Waiting for 10 minutes for the beloved feels that time is so slow (almost like forever), but spending the same amount of 10 minutes with the beloved seems so fast. In terms of chronos, both were objectively 10 minutes, but not in the sense of kairos. In a way, kairos is felt time.
I would like to relate this to the question in the song "Seasons of Love": How do you measure, measure a year? Perhaps we speak of chronos when we belt out " Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes". And maybe we speak of kairos when we sing "In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee/ In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife." Time is not just described by the clock, it is also described by our experiences.
From describing time and the experience of it, Mr. Calasanz then describes the past, present, and future. Why is it that even when the past is done, it still feels real to us? Why is it that even when painful experiences happened many years ago, we still feel the hurt as if it happened just now? The past becomes present as we continue putting meaning to it. This meaning, whether the past has affected us positively or negatively, still contributes to who we are now. For this reason, Mr. Calasanz suggested that the right attitude regarding the past is one of gratitude. No matter what happened in the past, pleasant or painful, it helped in the creation of the person we are today.
Reflecting on this, I think this implies that we have the choice of how we give meaning to our past. We have the power to give meaning to our experiences, to the things that happened to us. We can use our experiences, whether they are positive or negative, to give meaning to our growth. There is some truth in the saying "It is not what happens to us, but how we react to it". In this context, maybe we can say that although what happens to us are important, overtime what is more important is how we interpret the experience in such a way that we learn from it. The lesson can be as simple as life does not end with failure. There is value in learning that one can still continue with life despite disaster.
Mr. Calasanz then describes the future. The future is full of surprises. With the word "surprise", it can be divided to "sur" meaning out and "prise" meaning control. Hence being surprised, is being out of control. And many people do not like that. Hence they plan out their future even for the next five to ten years. Through planning, through imagining what would happen in the future, the future then becomes past. This is because what has objectively not happened yet has already been laid out in one's head. For the person, it has already happened. Hence, the capability to foresee, or predict. However, in reality, we cannot really see the future all the time. In fact, there will be instances wherein a person is faced with a disaster and he or she exclaims "I have no future!". However, it is when we do not have any grasp of what to expect, when our hands are completely empty, that we are free to receive everything. For this reason, the future can be viewed with hope. The future can be seen as a gift yet to be given, yet to be unwrapped.
Then I thought, maybe if we view the future with hope, we become less anxious, less worried. If we view the future as a gift, we see it in a better light instead of seeing it with despair. How about when dreadful things do happen despite our hope? H.G. Wells gives a good answer: "While there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as though he were sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness is not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful."
Mr. Calasanz then asked, "If we view the past with gratitude and the future with hope, how about the present?" He then describes the present as a commitment. It is constantly keeping one's word, and it is an ongoing decision. This ongoing decision can be related to the future. In the hope of our future, we take actions that lead us there. For example, a college student decides to take pre-med subjects in the hope of entering medical school and being a doctor. All three attitudes: to see the past with gratitude, to see the future with hope, and the present as a commitment -- all these make the person solid and whole.
I wondered, is it a coincidence that many things were related to the idea of a gift? Both the past and the future are seen as gifts that has been given to us, or will be given to us. Perhaps commitment enters the picture when we commit to view all aspects of life as a gift. To have an attitude of gratitude is a commitment; it is not easy all the time.
Mr. Calasanz then proceeded to talking about death. According to Heidegger, people have an inauthentic view regarding death. People see it as far from them, as unreal. However, he explained that it is not our own death that is most painful. Marcel said that it is the death of the beloved other that hurts us. When people we love die, we will be left alone. We are the ones left in pain. Later on Mr. Calasanz describes death as the radical other, the perfect stranger that we know nothing of, and we do not want to know of it. Finally, he ends with an assignment: Imagine if you were to die tonight. Who would we talk to before we die? Perhaps that beloved person is the perfect stranger.
I was confused by his last line. How could the phrase "perfect stranger" from being ascribed to death, suddenly be used to describe the beloved? Is it because that we usually live our lives ignoring the important people in our lives, that they become strangers to us? Is it because when put in the context of death, we suddenly see these people and realize that we have not fully experienced them, and them to us? If this is the case, then thinking of death is not purely morbid thinking, but maybe, putting some things in perspective. The important things in life suddenly come into focus.
Given all of this, we go back to the question of Sir Earl in class: "How are we to live knowing that everything passes? Is there still value in living when nothing really lasts?" Perhaps the value in life lies in the bigger picture. The value is in seeing the whole life as a gift. The movement of every experience embedded in time is a gift. To exist in itself is a gift, because we experience the rich abundance of life. Some say that the secret is to appreciate everything, but not to hold on to them. It is true that when we are committed to this attitude of appreciation, we are busy experiencing -- going out of ourselves. Andrew Matthews phrases it well when he said that abundance lies not in the accumulation of what we have, but in what is circulating in our lives. When we are busy going out of ourselves, in the sense of the giving of our ourselves through loving others, we forget about grieving over things lost because our focus is not anymore in taking in, but in giving out. We are to live in view of the transcendent, of what goes beyond ourselves. The value in living is being loved, and the experience of having loved. What is the proof of this? Usually, people are afraid of death because they realize they have not loved enough. On the other hand, those who have loved are less afraid because they are secure that their lives have been worthwhile. As mentioned before, having an attitude of gratitude is a commitment. When this gratitude is directed towards others, when we are grateful of the people in our lives, it becomes easier to love, to live, and even to die.
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
"Time is movement," said Mr. Calasanz. It signifies change, growth, and development. It can be described objectively as chronos -- that is, through seconds, minutes, hours, days and so on. It can also be described subjectively as kairos. Kairos was described through an experience of waiting and spending time with the beloved. Waiting for 10 minutes for the beloved feels that time is so slow (almost like forever), but spending the same amount of 10 minutes with the beloved seems so fast. In terms of chronos, both were objectively 10 minutes, but not in the sense of kairos. In a way, kairos is felt time.
I would like to relate this to the question in the song "Seasons of Love": How do you measure, measure a year? Perhaps we speak of chronos when we belt out " Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes". And maybe we speak of kairos when we sing "In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee/ In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife." Time is not just described by the clock, it is also described by our experiences.
From describing time and the experience of it, Mr. Calasanz then describes the past, present, and future. Why is it that even when the past is done, it still feels real to us? Why is it that even when painful experiences happened many years ago, we still feel the hurt as if it happened just now? The past becomes present as we continue putting meaning to it. This meaning, whether the past has affected us positively or negatively, still contributes to who we are now. For this reason, Mr. Calasanz suggested that the right attitude regarding the past is one of gratitude. No matter what happened in the past, pleasant or painful, it helped in the creation of the person we are today.
Reflecting on this, I think this implies that we have the choice of how we give meaning to our past. We have the power to give meaning to our experiences, to the things that happened to us. We can use our experiences, whether they are positive or negative, to give meaning to our growth. There is some truth in the saying "It is not what happens to us, but how we react to it". In this context, maybe we can say that although what happens to us are important, overtime what is more important is how we interpret the experience in such a way that we learn from it. The lesson can be as simple as life does not end with failure. There is value in learning that one can still continue with life despite disaster.
Mr. Calasanz then describes the future. The future is full of surprises. With the word "surprise", it can be divided to "sur" meaning out and "prise" meaning control. Hence being surprised, is being out of control. And many people do not like that. Hence they plan out their future even for the next five to ten years. Through planning, through imagining what would happen in the future, the future then becomes past. This is because what has objectively not happened yet has already been laid out in one's head. For the person, it has already happened. Hence, the capability to foresee, or predict. However, in reality, we cannot really see the future all the time. In fact, there will be instances wherein a person is faced with a disaster and he or she exclaims "I have no future!". However, it is when we do not have any grasp of what to expect, when our hands are completely empty, that we are free to receive everything. For this reason, the future can be viewed with hope. The future can be seen as a gift yet to be given, yet to be unwrapped.
Then I thought, maybe if we view the future with hope, we become less anxious, less worried. If we view the future as a gift, we see it in a better light instead of seeing it with despair. How about when dreadful things do happen despite our hope? H.G. Wells gives a good answer: "While there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as though he were sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness is not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful."
Mr. Calasanz then asked, "If we view the past with gratitude and the future with hope, how about the present?" He then describes the present as a commitment. It is constantly keeping one's word, and it is an ongoing decision. This ongoing decision can be related to the future. In the hope of our future, we take actions that lead us there. For example, a college student decides to take pre-med subjects in the hope of entering medical school and being a doctor. All three attitudes: to see the past with gratitude, to see the future with hope, and the present as a commitment -- all these make the person solid and whole.
I wondered, is it a coincidence that many things were related to the idea of a gift? Both the past and the future are seen as gifts that has been given to us, or will be given to us. Perhaps commitment enters the picture when we commit to view all aspects of life as a gift. To have an attitude of gratitude is a commitment; it is not easy all the time.
Mr. Calasanz then proceeded to talking about death. According to Heidegger, people have an inauthentic view regarding death. People see it as far from them, as unreal. However, he explained that it is not our own death that is most painful. Marcel said that it is the death of the beloved other that hurts us. When people we love die, we will be left alone. We are the ones left in pain. Later on Mr. Calasanz describes death as the radical other, the perfect stranger that we know nothing of, and we do not want to know of it. Finally, he ends with an assignment: Imagine if you were to die tonight. Who would we talk to before we die? Perhaps that beloved person is the perfect stranger.
I was confused by his last line. How could the phrase "perfect stranger" from being ascribed to death, suddenly be used to describe the beloved? Is it because that we usually live our lives ignoring the important people in our lives, that they become strangers to us? Is it because when put in the context of death, we suddenly see these people and realize that we have not fully experienced them, and them to us? If this is the case, then thinking of death is not purely morbid thinking, but maybe, putting some things in perspective. The important things in life suddenly come into focus.
Given all of this, we go back to the question of Sir Earl in class: "How are we to live knowing that everything passes? Is there still value in living when nothing really lasts?" Perhaps the value in life lies in the bigger picture. The value is in seeing the whole life as a gift. The movement of every experience embedded in time is a gift. To exist in itself is a gift, because we experience the rich abundance of life. Some say that the secret is to appreciate everything, but not to hold on to them. It is true that when we are committed to this attitude of appreciation, we are busy experiencing -- going out of ourselves. Andrew Matthews phrases it well when he said that abundance lies not in the accumulation of what we have, but in what is circulating in our lives. When we are busy going out of ourselves, in the sense of the giving of our ourselves through loving others, we forget about grieving over things lost because our focus is not anymore in taking in, but in giving out. We are to live in view of the transcendent, of what goes beyond ourselves. The value in living is being loved, and the experience of having loved. What is the proof of this? Usually, people are afraid of death because they realize they have not loved enough. On the other hand, those who have loved are less afraid because they are secure that their lives have been worthwhile. As mentioned before, having an attitude of gratitude is a commitment. When this gratitude is directed towards others, when we are grateful of the people in our lives, it becomes easier to love, to live, and even to die.
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
- 1 John 4:18
Creating In A Broken World
by Sari Molintas
"The nostalgia of writing: the ache for a home to which one cannot return."
Trafficking in Nostalgia, Exie Abola
As an outro of sorts – an exit from my first semester of formal philosophical education – I would like to revisit here the concept that has resounded in me the most since it was first introduced in class: Gabriel Marcel and his idea of our broken world.
The world being broken isn’t something that is new to any of us, as impossible to deny as it is. We all bear witness to its many forms every single day: injustice, discrimination, poverty, the examples are endless. It isn’t a question of the brokenness, but a question of what we choose to do about that brokenness – how we react to that reality. Ultimately, this is what makes us different from one another.
Many would decide to, in the well-worn sense of the phrase, “do something about it.” They would join organizations that address social concerns, or donate what they can to foundations whose efforts are directed to “making the world a better place.” Some would choose to see it as “ganyan talaga,” a situation out of their control or influence. They believe that they are born into a world where it simply is the way it is, and they will die in a world with little to no changes. And there were others still would find ways to escape the brokenness, to elude the inescapable.
Until very recently, I used to think of myself as an escapist. I never denied that the world was broken, but I wanted to distance and distract myself from that knowledge. And it was easy to divert my attention. Contemporary society has done much to keep our broken the world the way it is, by devising countless means for us to get lost in our own tiny little spaces.
I used to believe that I constructed and maintained my space through writing. After all, writing helped me create my personal refuge where I could make sense of all the things that were happening in my life, my secret haven where all the things I longed for could suddenly exist. When I wrote, I disappeared into my sanctuary of words, where the endings that could only be vividly imagined – and never truly experienced – could temporarily be real to me.
I began to consider writing as escape in its most total, all-consuming form.
But now I’m beginning to realize that I was wrong.
* * *
Maybe that’s what it really meant, I thought to myself. Maybe the exigency for transcendence is like a longing to return home, and maybe what home really means is a world that is less broken.
It made perfect sense to me in that moment, although now the idea seems to be a bit difficult to put into words. Perhaps the best way for me to describe it is that I realized that no matter what the original intention, in the essence of creation – be it the creation of a painting, a song, an essay – what we are really doing is slowly bridging the gaps of our broken world. Not only because any creation has the potential to bring people together, but because we give ourselves to our creations. And when we put our creations out into the world, we are breaking out of our tiny spaces.
While our individual efforts may seem small, perhaps even insignificant in totality, they are meaningful, because every step we take out of our own space and towards others is a step that makes our world less disconnected. And while we may not end up achieving what it is we hoped to do – since, after all it is a home “to which one cannot return” – but we can at least be comforted by the knowledge that we tried to do something to leave the world less broken than it already was.
The Purpose of Life
by Cara Garcia
I have never thought that Philosophy would provide me the answer of the one question I’ve always asked myself since high school - what is the purpose of life? Because everyday, we do the same routine and as students, we go to school in hopes of landing a great job and creating a successful career for our future. But all of that, in truth, is short term. After the whole staying up all night to write papers, and studying, and more studying, we finally reach that point where we are where we wanted to be. But what’s next after that? Say, after making a name for ourselves, we decided to settle down, get married, etc., and then we make another whole set of goals for us to do the same thing all over again – work hard to achieve that goal. So I thought to myself, is this what life is all about? Set goals. Work hard. Achieve them. Then do the cycle again and again... until we die?
I wondered if there’s some point to that. If there’s a purpose why we do it. If in the end, something great or miraculous will happen that we always work our butts off over momentary things that one day might slip away from our fingers. I’ve always been so curious if really, there’s a basis for this, an end goal into which we live the whole of our life to reach.
And I wanted to know the answer. I wanted to know if there’s some concrete, specific explanation or reason as to why we are here.
We have, in our bookshelf, a book entitled The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren and I decided to read it during high school, but after a few passeges, I gave up. It didn’t give me the kind of answer I was looking for.
And yet, during a usual Thursday session in Philo class, I was enlightened. In a span of a five to ten-minute sharing by my classmates, my eyes opened and an epiphany dawned to me. I’ve finally found the answer.. and it was during a time that I wasn’t looking for it. It suddenly came to me, just like that. In Philo class. I realized what the purpose of life is.
When Sir threw the question, “Is there something to make life out of if things are passing and we are destined to die?”, I honestly couldn’t think of any response. But when my classmates shared their insights about this, it occurred to me that they’re right. And I was so overwhelmed with the fact that these people, my classmates, eighteen to twenty-year-old people would know what the purpose of life is. And here are the answers they’ve given (credits to those who shared these ideas. I do not own them. I may have revised the words though):
It’s about investing yourself with the things you love -- immersing yourself with the people, things and experiences that make you happy.
You should enjoy them for the moment and not be too attached so that when time comes to let them go, it won’t be difficult.
It’s about what you leave behind for the future generations – making an impact, leaving a mark in the world of what you’ve achieved. Because when you die, it’s what you’ve done that will let the people remember you.
What it means to you – the experiences, people, and things you’ve come across have their own significance. It’s about being able to appreciate the things you got yourself into. Some people may not see it as important, but what matters is how you value them.
There will always be new experiences and opportunities.
Relationships are important because it’s always about experiencing people. To be engaged with them. To share a moment with them. To feel what they feel.
Life is about the joy of experiencing material things because through them, we learn. And through learning, we realize the superabundance of life - that there’s always more. There’s so many things that life can offer us and we will never have enough of them.
Because of these insights, I realized the purpose of life. It’s not some concrete, clear-cut goal we achieve in the future. It’s not something that awaits us in the end.
It’s the here. The now. And the everyday.
The purpose of life is living it everyday – to surprise ourselves, experience the wonder and appreciating every moment that encompasses us. So if we’re all destined to die, why not make the most of what we have? What we have now…
I read a quote once, and it says, “Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we’re here, we should dance.”
And it’s fitting. Since things don’t always go our way – it might not be the best music, we might not enjoy the people we’re with -- it’s best that we make the most and enjoy what’s there in front of us instead of wasting time looking for things that aren’t present in the moment.
Maybe this entry doesn’t explicitly talk about Marcel or Descartes, but to engage and practice in a kind of philosophical thinking, I believe, is what matters.
I must say that Philosophy affects us no matter what. I entered the Ateneo, taking a degree in Management in hopes of becoming a businesswoman and achieving that goal, that purpose of being successful in life. But after experiencing Philosophy, I’d probably remember this realization in Philo class than actually doing company studies or making financial statements.
I have never thought that Philosophy would provide me the answer of the one question I’ve always asked myself since high school - what is the purpose of life? Because everyday, we do the same routine and as students, we go to school in hopes of landing a great job and creating a successful career for our future. But all of that, in truth, is short term. After the whole staying up all night to write papers, and studying, and more studying, we finally reach that point where we are where we wanted to be. But what’s next after that? Say, after making a name for ourselves, we decided to settle down, get married, etc., and then we make another whole set of goals for us to do the same thing all over again – work hard to achieve that goal. So I thought to myself, is this what life is all about? Set goals. Work hard. Achieve them. Then do the cycle again and again... until we die?
I wondered if there’s some point to that. If there’s a purpose why we do it. If in the end, something great or miraculous will happen that we always work our butts off over momentary things that one day might slip away from our fingers. I’ve always been so curious if really, there’s a basis for this, an end goal into which we live the whole of our life to reach.
And I wanted to know the answer. I wanted to know if there’s some concrete, specific explanation or reason as to why we are here.
We have, in our bookshelf, a book entitled The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren and I decided to read it during high school, but after a few passeges, I gave up. It didn’t give me the kind of answer I was looking for.
And yet, during a usual Thursday session in Philo class, I was enlightened. In a span of a five to ten-minute sharing by my classmates, my eyes opened and an epiphany dawned to me. I’ve finally found the answer.. and it was during a time that I wasn’t looking for it. It suddenly came to me, just like that. In Philo class. I realized what the purpose of life is.
When Sir threw the question, “Is there something to make life out of if things are passing and we are destined to die?”, I honestly couldn’t think of any response. But when my classmates shared their insights about this, it occurred to me that they’re right. And I was so overwhelmed with the fact that these people, my classmates, eighteen to twenty-year-old people would know what the purpose of life is. And here are the answers they’ve given (credits to those who shared these ideas. I do not own them. I may have revised the words though):
It’s about investing yourself with the things you love -- immersing yourself with the people, things and experiences that make you happy.
You should enjoy them for the moment and not be too attached so that when time comes to let them go, it won’t be difficult.
It’s about what you leave behind for the future generations – making an impact, leaving a mark in the world of what you’ve achieved. Because when you die, it’s what you’ve done that will let the people remember you.
What it means to you – the experiences, people, and things you’ve come across have their own significance. It’s about being able to appreciate the things you got yourself into. Some people may not see it as important, but what matters is how you value them.
There will always be new experiences and opportunities.
Relationships are important because it’s always about experiencing people. To be engaged with them. To share a moment with them. To feel what they feel.
Life is about the joy of experiencing material things because through them, we learn. And through learning, we realize the superabundance of life - that there’s always more. There’s so many things that life can offer us and we will never have enough of them.
Because of these insights, I realized the purpose of life. It’s not some concrete, clear-cut goal we achieve in the future. It’s not something that awaits us in the end.
It’s the here. The now. And the everyday.
The purpose of life is living it everyday – to surprise ourselves, experience the wonder and appreciating every moment that encompasses us. So if we’re all destined to die, why not make the most of what we have? What we have now…
I read a quote once, and it says, “Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we’re here, we should dance.”
And it’s fitting. Since things don’t always go our way – it might not be the best music, we might not enjoy the people we’re with -- it’s best that we make the most and enjoy what’s there in front of us instead of wasting time looking for things that aren’t present in the moment.
Maybe this entry doesn’t explicitly talk about Marcel or Descartes, but to engage and practice in a kind of philosophical thinking, I believe, is what matters.
I must say that Philosophy affects us no matter what. I entered the Ateneo, taking a degree in Management in hopes of becoming a businesswoman and achieving that goal, that purpose of being successful in life. But after experiencing Philosophy, I’d probably remember this realization in Philo class than actually doing company studies or making financial statements.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)