The Musts

by Karl Rojas

31 January 2013
Discussed Text: Levinas, "The Face," Ethics and Infinity


While reading through earlier blog posts in order to write up my own reflection paper, I had an epiphany about myself: I am a sap for romance stories. I mean, I dive into my email, ready to write a full blown reflection paper, and the second blog post I see is a short video made by Wongfuproductions, and the next thing I know, I’m watching my all time favorite video about love called “Love Language”

This is a version made by an acquaintance of mine back in my hometown:


This is the original version:


If you haven’t already watched the video, the video is basically about two people, a girl and a boy. The girl is just sitting there on the bench, “listening” to her ipod, while the guy approaches her and asks for a simple pen. They meet up quite a few times after that, and the guy asks, “What song are you listening to?” to which the girl replies, “A special song”, and they engage in an exchange of sticky notes after that. At the end of the video, the girl asks if the guy would like to listen to her special song, and the guy complies. Then the guy writes “I’d like that” and the secret is spilled out. In their exchange of post-it notes, they had never communicated through voice and it turns out that the girl is deaf and mute. Regardless of this, the guy still writes “You’re still beautiful” to the girl.
I have learned two important things after watching this video: 
1) Keep a pack of post-it notes on me, at all times. 2) Improve my handwriting.
Why are they so important? Because, as Dr. Garcia said in our class yesterday, “There are things that you must do” and I’m pretty sure that this classifies as something that I must do.
All things aside, there is a particular reason why I shared this video (aside from spreading the good vibes), and that reason is fear. When we encounter the other, we put ourselves in a  temporary bout of shyness, or a situation where Il y a transfixes ourselves in order to make ourselves look presentable. But what we don’t usually notice is that the Other is also equally afraid and puts on a face, or a countenance in order to display themselves as favorable. But why do we want to display ourselves as favorable? Because each one of us has a vulnerability that we want to fix, and we choose not to show it to the Other so that we seem more favorable to them. The video I introduced to you guys is something along the lines of that. When the guy spoke to the girl, she never said anything, instead she just complied with his requests until they found a medium for communicating. This is an example of putting on a face in order to hide our vulnerabilities.
However, the face cannot be simplified as some sort of mask to hide behind, it is also something that represents our humanity. The simple mistake is that we look for meaning through the Other, but one cannot look for meaning through the Other if one does not understand his/herself first. I mean, we’re all responsible for the other right? How can we be responsible for the other if we’re not responsible for ourselves first? There are many others, but there is only one you. The you must be important enough to look down upon others, but at the same time it must contain enough humility to respect others, there has to be a balance in between, or else you’d probably be viewed as a negative person.
Anyways the A-fair is today, and we’ll be encountering a lot of new faces and others. We need to be responsible for the other, as you are responsible for yourself. Because, aside from us giving meaning to others and Others, Others give meaning to us. Have a fun long weekend guys! And remember: Post-it notes are awesome!