I was lucky enough to grow up in a high school that emphasized and encouraged helping other people through service. This is probably the reason why I always loved participating in social action events. So naturally, when I got to college, I made sure that I joined an organization in the sector-based cluster. But even after all those years of outreaches, it was only last year and in that organization that I concretely experienced the trauma that is The Face.
I am the worst when it comes to faces and names. I easily forget who a person is, what they look like or where I’ve met them. More often than not I resort to categorizing people in order to remember them. By course. By org. By interests. By the friends they hang out with.
During one of my org’s events, I had arrived late and the program was already halfway through. Kids and Ateneans alike were all over the place. Ashley was one of those kids. I had played with her just once or twice, months prior to that day. But the moment she saw me, she ran up to me, said my name and hugged me tightly. She had treated me not just as one of the Ates and Kuyas that fought for her attention, she had treated me like a friend. One that she hadn’t seen in so long. It was the most humbling of experiences. In that moment, I couldn’t generalize her anymore. I couldn’t just describe her as one of the kids with cancer. She was her own person. She was the eldest in a family of three. She was a girl who loved to sing. She was someone who smiled whenever I pretended she was an “artista.” She was just Ashley, different from all the rest. And I felt horrible for not thinking of her as that way before.
The word trauma sounds pretty harsh. It connotes much negativity, but I think Levinas got it right. Seeing The Face is traumatic. We experience it as a shock that brings us out into the world. It has the ability to change our entire perspective on things. It can even change how act in the world. The Face is invisible. We hide it behind characteristics and categories— simply because it is easier. We tend to totalize the other because it’s easier to understand them based on the meaning that we ourselves set. But the Face is not a characteristic or a an idea— it is an experience that we have to be continually conscious about.
The phenomenon of The Face is a traumatic but necessary experience, and I am grateful that it exists in the world.
I can really relate to your experience and I can too say that seeing the face is a traumatic experience. Like you, I am also an active member of different orgs in the sector-based cluster. For me, seeing the face is indeed traumatic because it shatters every human's fixed view of the world. When i see my kids in my different areas, their different faces open up a whole new world to me. They tell me that I cannot just be conscious about my whole world. They tell me that sometimes, someone may just come into my life and shock my whole fixed system. In my opinion, getting to know the other shocks my system because I cannot grasp them. Seeing the other's forces me to go out of myself and try to get to know the other's true self.
ReplyDeleteKass Sun
Ph102 (A)
I agree wholeheartedly with what you said. Just like you, I'm also an active member in a sector based organization and I'm not good with remembering people's names. I've also had experiences wherein my eyes were opened to the realities of the Face. All I can say is that these traumatic experiences are what really shakes us up and makes us question our current disposition in regards to seeing people merely as face value or as beings for the other as a whole.
ReplyDeleteTrixia Tan
ph102 C
Sometimes, there really are people who strike us at the moment because of how we experience. In usual times, we don't see the other because we blind ourselves from seeing them when we construct an idea of who they are. We the deprive ourselves of the opportunity to engage with them and see the nakdeness of their being. That's why i think moment like that when ashley needed to approach you and hug you are really important to remind us of opening ourselves to the subjectivity of the other and finally experiencing their being.
ReplyDeleteMar Tan - PH 102 A
For the experience of as Face to be traumatic, it would mean seeing the person in a whole different light than you ever saw him/her before. Was Ashley not warm and friendly even before you saw her again? Didn't she possess these qualities even before that moment? It's not really traumatic facing her like that when that's really who she was like towards you to begin with. When I think of experiencing the other as Face, it would be more like knowing a friend who I never thought could be pregnant at my age, or whom I never thought could back stab me. Experiences like that can redefine relationships and shake the very foundation of what we know about the other. I thought facing the other as face is seeing another side of their personality that was never seen before.
ReplyDeleteI think that facing the other as face is not necessarily seeing another side of their personality. Seeing other as face is simply acknowledging that each is different to its own, and that that difference is respected. It does not necessarily have to do with the personality they project or hide. I agree that Rexelle has seen this child as a face, for she has acknowledged her beyond being just a cancer kid. A shift has been made from totalization of those kids as cancer kids, and to a view that each one has their own story that will only unfold when you begin to relate to them. :)
ReplyDeleteKate Bonamy, Ph102 A
i love how Levinas gives us a different perspective on certain words. (ex. Trauma) Like you, Trauma always pertained to something negative for me. Relating it to the Face, as something that shakes you to your core and ignites something in you, reminds me how everything is a matter of perspective. We encounter different types of people everyday and part of the beauty of life is opening ourselves up to these people. I believe that we start to truly see the face when we the Other does something that humbles us. It's when they do something that we won't normally do and we start to see them for who they are and not who we want them to be.
ReplyDelete-Genica Lim (C)
A while back in one of my organizations, we regularly visited Payatas. We interacted with the kids we visited there, and it really meant a lot to me. I treasure the time I spent with them, as it helped me go beyond just my world. That is what the Other calls us to do, I think. We are called to do more, to be more, and this is a quest that will hopefully make us happy and others happy as well.
ReplyDeleteMiguel Co
PH102 A