23 July 2013
Discussed Articles: David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water” and Gabriel Marcel’s “Introduction”
“I thought I was going to die,” I said the first time I rode a train.
“She’s so annoying,” I say every time someone do things I do not like.
“I don’t deserve this,” I say when bad things happen.
But the worst one is when I ask, “Why me?”
As you can see, I am a spoiled brat to the core. Well, I used to be.
A few months ago, my dad started becoming really sick (I do not want to specify it, since it’s too personal). Of course, I was initially concerned with his conditions, but as few weeks pass by, I realized that I was more concerned with mine. One night, I just kept on asking God why he would do this to me.
I was so affected, but I kept (and still keeping) it from my family since I do not want to add to their worries. The whole time, I was so scared that my dad would leave me behind. But, what I failed to realize was that it was not only me who was affected by his sickness, my whole family was too. I was just too selfish and I distanced myself from them thinking that I did not deserve it, but it was a stupid idea. And I was stupid.
I guess, DFW’s article really hit me when he mentioned that I have to become aware of the essential things in life, and that I am part of a greater whole. All is being in Being. I had to start maturing, because there is more to life than, well, me.
So, I started the ultimate plan of getting my life back together. My checklist included becoming best friends with my sister, going home a lot, and just basically becoming less selfish. Because I realized that in the end, they are the people who matter, who I should give attention too.
But plans never really work out as they do. I wanted the end result of becoming happy, but the process was tedious. Like a semester in the Ateneo, there were hell weeks in this plan. But something kept me going all throughout, and I guess that is where Marcel’s concept of metaphysical unease comes in. There was just this undeniable desire that kept on making me endure all the pain of becoming unselfish (because it is truly easier to just give up). It was like; I knew that something greater was in store for me.
And there was.
After months of hard work, I feel that I am more satisfied with my life right now. It was like a long road, as Marcel again said―the end result was important, but the journey towards it is equally as much. Through the times of backing out in fights with my siblings, making time to meet up with my high school best friends, and spending more time with my family, I experienced some sort of transcendence in a sense that I was able to do things I normally would not have done in my previous default setting. I was able to grow.
I was able to become more than what I am; I was, I think, able to become a better person.
I guess the key to living out my life satisfactorily is what philosophy is. It is becoming aware of what makes me happy as DFW said and it is being able to experience transcendence in the quest of a philosophical life that Marcel reiterated.
Sometimes the most important of things are the ones we take for granted :( but reflection is what precisely helps us realize and recognize that this world is not about us, it is about all of us in it. Just like how DFW pointed out in "This is Water" we need to veer away from the idea that the world is about our problems and that our problems is greater than that of others when in reality, they are all of equal importance. We need to stop thinking that the world revolves around us because it truly does not. We need to recognize that maybe as we are experiencing these hard times and problems, other people are experiencing them as well maybe even in a more graver sense. We have to also recognize that we are not alone, it will never just be a "me against the world" kind of thing. If you have problems, communicate it because this is what we human beings do, we are "relating beings".
ReplyDeleteFrenchi Baluyot (A)