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:

• 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.”