3:1

by J.O. Pangilinan

In today’s lecture on Philosophy as a critique of conviction, Sir Garcia raised a point, the superabundance of meaning over the abundance of meaninglessness as explained by Paul Ricoeur. And what came to me was that advice of Ms. Jen Orlina, for every negativity you could think of that would affect your work in your organization, think of 3 positive reasons to counter the negativity. After this class, the advice finally made more sense, rather than simply digesting it literally.

The negativity, which normally seems to be meaningless to me, is over-ruled by the numerous positive reasons, as reasons full of meaning, to counter this negativity that would make me want to quit and give up. But then, this feeling of giving up, if in any case I do give in, prohibits me from encountering and participating in this world-with-others. How then am I to find myself if I do indeed deprive myself of such experiences? And eventually, if the mentality of simply giving up continues further, becoming some sort of natural behavior, wouldn’t I “cease” to exist? Wouldn’t life be pointless if so, and from a rational being becoming some form of object?

Yet despite this temptation of giving up, I must negate the negation and continue to exist – to participate, encounter and engage in this world-with-others. I, therefore, must experience the beauty this world manifests, and take part of the inter-subjective truth.


I then come into a realization, failures or any form of negativity, come our way to make us see that there are more opportunities out there, where we will find our worth. We must go on experience the beauty of life, as cliché it may get, rather than dwell on our short-comings, preventing us from experiencing life in search for our inner selves; then how are we supposed to get closer to that lighted place Marcel speaks of?