Just Being

by Bits Penaranda

There are often times when I find myself spacing out because my mind decides on its own to go on auto-pilot and wander off by itself. It gets lost between the dimensions of what to do vs. what do I want to be in life. What I want to do concerns itself with my daily activities and decisions, or what I would be doing for the next couple of months. On the other hand, what I want to be is on a bigger scale that actually determines what will become of me in the future. What becomes of me will be the stories I share with my kids and it will dictate whether or not I find myself feeling fulfilled and content or regretting most parts of my life.

Most of our minds become preoccupied with the future that we act carefully as early as now to make sure we play it safe and achieve that desired goal in the end. I'm not saying that it is wrong to think this way, but aside from stopping to reflect on what we should do for our future, why not stop to appreciate our mere existence? Just like the first lessons we had in class about the silly philosopher who fell in the well because he was so busy with exploring the beyond that he failed to see what was right in front of him. It's like how we deal with life. It would be nice to think that we have plenty more years to live, but there is no certifying that. We need to appreciate  the fact that we are here now. We are breathing, we are thinking, but most especially, we can experience. Also just like the lesson we learned this past week about being beings. We all exist together as beings and what we become of ourselves is what truly sets us apart and is what highlights our special differences.

We should celebrate this collective existence. Not just be selfishly grateful for our own existence, but as well as for the existence of other beings. It is beautiful that we are alive and each day should be a celebration for living.

I would also like to share this excerpt I found in my planner that inspired me to write this in the first place. It is entitled the "Just Because Philosophy".


We often forget that thinking is a tool used to make us better, and not to burden us with justification for every little thing. We are here for a reason, but we do not understand completely and we accept that. Sometimes, our inner spirit knows that being is just as important and as complete as all the other more active pursuits in the world. Right here and now, we should celebrate our perfection, even though it may not be apparent even to ourselves. We just know it to be true, in our hearts, we are here, and that is great - it is enough. 

A View On My Side of the Coin

By Ina Pizzaro

4 July 2013
Discussed Text: Garcia, "The Promotion of Responsibility and Hope"

I give great importance to the things that dictate who I am as a person. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. My parents know who I date. I only party when I have my parents’ permission. I have never crossed the line. For most these things don’t matter, as they believe these are the stuff that comprise a teenage life well-lived. YOLO, right? Well, I disagree.

"Dude, drinking is part of growing up!"

What is there to growing up really? Isn't it ironic how most people claim drinking as part of something that’s actually a process of molding us into becoming better, into actually “growing up"?

My high school teacher assured me that I was going to learn to drink the moment I’d be in college, especially that he knew I was going to study in Manila, away from my parents. I told him not to generalize, because I was different. But he doubted it, shrugged his shoulders and said, “That’s what everyone said." I just smiled. I didn't want to argue about something I still couldn't fully defend myself from, as it is still something that is going to happen. I was certain in my heart that he was wrong but I kept my mouth shut. I knew only time could tell.

Isn't YOLO supposed to remind us that this is a one-way life? That there are no U-turn slots? That the world doesn't care if you took the wrong turn? YOLO. YOLO! YOLO? It is, I think, something that’s very much misunderstood. As I have learned in class, and as a Christian, “Freedom is not doing whatever you please, but doing whatever you ought." With that being said, I guess I don't have to sound so omniscient by dwelling on this matter. I just really know it means different from what most people think it is.

I was raised by a Dad who doesn’t smoke, who doesn’t drink for “fun" and whose only real contentment is a good conversation with the family at home. My Dad is very God-fearing and family-oriented. Whenever I open up to him, his final advice would always be to “talk to God about it" because he said He always listens. I guess it is why I have learned to always communicate with God, and to always believe that everything happens for His reason. I was raised by a Mum who told me not to believe that drinking is part of growing up, because she turned out more than okay without ever having to gulp a spoonful of champagne in her whole life even when everyone else was enjoying their mojitos and screwdrivers and flaming ferraris. From her I learned that it is indeed my choice whether to just freely go with the flow or to choose to brave the current.

I don’t want to be a person I’d end up regretting, because this is indeed a one way life. My idea of living the life is having a family whom I can totally be myself and have real conversations with. It is surrounding myself with things which, and people who, truly matter to me. FUN doesn’t have to involve alcohol or nicotine intake. When people tell me I don't have something to laugh at when I grow old for I haven't really done something crazy in my teenage life, I laugh at them. I guess I have come to a point in my life that, even when I'm only eighteen, I have already sincerely realized the things I can always choose to live without. What is there to a last-friday-night-was AWESOME moment that makes it worth remembering anyway? What’s so cool about allowing other teenagers dictate how life should be lived?

I am no saint. I make mistakes, and, like you, I constantly sin. But I’m most willing to put my life on the line every time people try to judge me about my principles. NOT EVERYONE is the same, even our fingerprints can prove that. I’m not saying that what everyone else is doing is wrong, because who am I to say really?

My point is this: in this generation, even when most just laugh at people who choose to live like I do (some might even already be judging me now at the back of their heads), we can still always choose to stand firm by our principles and be strong enough to go against the status quo. Because really, in the end, what matters are the things I can bring with me to heaven, and who I have grown to become the moment I face my God. I was blessed with the freedom and the will to choose my own path and to make my own life. This way, I don’t just exist—I actually live. And this is who I choose to be. This is the life I want.

The Ateneo vs. La Salle

by Pax Aranas

4 July 2013
Discussed Text: Garcia, "The Promotion of Responsibility and Hope"

With just a few more days until the ultimate rivalry in collegiate basketball, it is not surprising that there would be uproar of news and tweets from both perspectives from the day they start selling tickets to a few days after the match day itself, and I would not veer away from this as well. What makes this on court rivalry so interesting is that it deals with people coming from different backgrounds per se.

Comparing the teaching styles of both schools might prove the point regarding the different backgrounds. Looking at the "Green and white" side of things we see a school structured in a way that it encompasses all their subjects within the 3 year, trimester schedule of it all. In the "Blue and white" side of the coin we then see the Ateneo education structured in such a way that it is made to be finished within 4 years, in which some may feel like a trimester due to required summer classes, but more often than not a semestral curriculum.
What then is the difference? Some people would argue that a La Sallian education brings about what is more necessary for the course. It puts emphasis on teaching the majors early on and while doing so incorporating the ideas and structures of the real world at an earlier stage. While on the fields of Ateneo, we are told that we should learn more in a “holistic” way. We take up multiple classes in the different social sciences classes that for some may be too much. Putting it into the context of Philosophy, we are like the open fan, we cover up a lot of things that deal with the social sciences and other sciences as well, we "spread our wings" into different aspects and perspectives. I am not saying that a LaSallian education would not do so, but it will give a brief overview of these subjects given the number of units given per subject. Both schools have open Fans; the width of the fan though might have some differences.

Let me clear things out, I am not in any way saying that the curriculum of one is better than the other, or that one school is better than the other. Both schools are of good stature in terms of ranking, consistently making the top 3 rank of best schools in the country alongside UP is not a small task. Both schools are good at what they do. Both excel in the fields they take on. Both schools have graduates of grand standings. The question though is, do these graduates take on the concept of being after college? Do La Salle Graduates end up becoming true La Sallians in the future, or do Ateneo Grads end up being Ateneans in the future? The question of being must be asked because it is in this way that we see whether or not a school has impacted a person enough. An Ateneo graduate may move on with his/her life forgetting the values of the school, forgetting what it is to be an Atenean. A LaSalle graduate might also just move on after college bringing about a new perspective and loosing the LaSallian in him/her. It all boils down to this, as we see ourselves in the bleachers and stands of whatever coliseum or gym it might be, wearing the blue or the green, do we see ourselves as the Ateneans or the LaSallians, or do we just wear a colour and stand and cheer for a school we once were in? It’s a question of being, and a question of faith in our traditions of both Ateneo and LaSalle.

On The Level of Everyday Life

by Fuze Andrey

2 July 2013
Discussed Text: Garcia, "The Promotion of Responsibility and Hope"

Primum vivere deinde philosophari. We must first live and experience life before we can philosophize. It requires us to be knowledgeable of the things around us before we can actually explore and question them further. Just like the saying “don’t judge a book by its cover,” we should not judge that person/thing by what our eyes can perceive for we don’t know them/it fully. Also, when we argue about a certain topic, we don’t just say things that are irrelevant to the topic because we should be able to know something about it in order for us to defend our side.

Moreover, the connection between philosophical reflection and our everyday experience is somewhat the same. It’s impossible for us to reflect on something without experiencing it first. For example, we can’t learn from our mistakes without committing the mistake first. It’s just as simple as that. I think this is the reason why philosophers tend to live and experience life everyday as if it’s their last because it will give them more chance to reflect if they have more experiences.

Going to the topic about a person’s true happiness, in order for us to achieve that, we should narrow the gap between ourselves and the person we truly desire to be. But first, we should know who we really are. I don’t actually know how to know one’s self because according to my theo131 professor, knowing one’s self is the hardest thing to do. So an alternative way for acquiring our true happiness is to do our best to be the person we truly desire to be. We can do this by changing our outlook in life. We should learn how to care for others even if they don’t feel the same way. In addition, we should learn by heart to think about others as well and not just our own for we are sent in this world to serve and not to be served. Following the example of Jesus Christ, we should completely dedicate our life in helping and influencing others to do good to one another. By doing this, we are able to achieve our goal to be the person we truly desire to be by being men and women for others.

The goal that philosophy can offer to the present society, to will that all persons form one humanity and to will that each person realizes his/her unique humanity is very interesting and rather hard to do. Firstly, the idea that all persons should form one humanity is very difficult to do because we speak different languages, we have different customs and traditions, we have a different lifestyle and we all have our own way of living life. So in my opinion, this first goal of philosophy is almost impossible to achieve. The second goal of philosophy on the other hand, is more realistic and more feasible than the first one. Many of us now already realized his/her unique humanity. It is just like what I have said earlier, knowing one’s self. By knowing one’s self, you have already realized that you are unique and unlike any other.

To wrap things up, we should always make the most of our day because everything that we experienced in that day can help us to become the person we truly desire to be. By being that person that we desired to be, we can already attain true happiness.

Identifying With the User-Friendly

by Andrew Panopio

2 July 2013
Discussed Text: Garcia, "The Promotion of Responsibility and Hope"

One of the characteristics of a philosophical person is his or her ability to assess what they want in life. To illustrate, they say that a philosopher is stuck staring at the stars too much only to fall into a well. People may ostracize these thinkers for their absurdity in a rational modern context, but it’s refreshing to learn that the philosopher is exactly where he or she wants to be. Philosophical people, if they had gone through this assessment critically, could find themselves in the most socially different and unacceptable places or standpoints and be pleased with that understanding.

It is to live more intensely and to break up certain immediacies, as Dr. Garcia had put it, that Philosophy is experienced. These immediacies come in the form of the material things that most of us deem as important. In reality though, they are purely desires of power and maybe even desires fed by our own selfishness.
Ricoeur identifies that people around us are constantly prospective.

That speaks for itself because I think we can all identify with that. We try to control what we want in life by assessing mostly everything if they are of value to us. In a more unethical level, we assess our benefits within other people and we sometimes manipulate them. There’s a colloquial term that we Filipinos call such manipulative people; User-friendly.

For example, given a group of friends, another person happens to start hanging out with them more. Given enough time, they soon find out that this person is unusually wealthy. When this newbie friend leaves, they start pointing that out and they get excited whenever they get to go to the newbie friend’s house. In doing so, they see the person beyond who he is but what his worth is to them. This is just one of the many scenarios that happen in our society and it hinders us to develop as more critical people.

The philosophical wanderer has a lesson to teach us. Philosophy has taught us not to just be aware of our outside surroundings, which we can separate from, but it has also taught us about being aware of ourselves. Assessing ourselves is important to make sure that we keep to our morals and we are the proper person who we want to be and not the kind of person which selfishness and our hunger for power dictates us to become. We can find this ideal self when we are aware of our placement in a world that needs ethics and selfless individuals. We have to be aware that there are things happening graver than our smaller problems in life. Once we respond to that, I believe that philosophy would serve a meaningful purpose in our lives.

Stating The Obvious

by Justine Dinglasan

Think about others.

It’s not always about you.

Decentralize.

To be honest, philosophy and I didn’t get off on the right foot. Yes, David Foster Wallace made sense. Yes, his address spoke to me. Perhaps this is water, but surely, I’ve heard that before.

In a single well-constructed speech, he had summed up values from kindergarten (and a certain purple dinosaur), insights from Sunday homilies, sermons from my parents, and everyday experiences. All of which comprise what I consider basic knowledge; to some extent even, simple common sense.

These life lessons aren’t at all inaccessible. I mean, Amir eventually stood up for Hassan in The Kite Runner because he realized the world doesn’t revolve around him. Harry Potter didn’t exploit his prestige as “the chosen one”. Instead he risked his life inexorably for the betterment of wizardkind. If fictional characters grasp life’s value and choose to live it out for others, shouldn’t we be able to?

Deep down aren’t we all aware of this capability?

Almost suddenly, it became clear to me. Philosophy, a kind of light, had finally penetrated my arrogance.
Yes, we are aware of this choice. However, more often than not, our awareness is deep down. It is hidden, obscured by thoughts we deem more significant. This consciousness is an untapped resource—invaluable but untouched.

“Philosophy is an explicitation of the obvious” because the obvious is what we don’t see. David Foster Wallace and Dr. Garcia are right. We’re too preoccupied with trivial concerns that we often overlook values we picked up in pre-school or moments of revelation in our own experiences. Choosing to be aware makes all the difference. Philosophy opens our minds to this choice. Reflection permits us to look deep into our most disappointing experiences to draw out what is always salvageable, ourselves.

Philosophy and I may have had a rough start. Now however, I’d like to believe that we’ve become good friends.