THEO131 ORAL EXAM NOTES (10 2012)
2) Everyone has big picture beliefs, whether consciously or not, whether accurate or misleading. A person’s BPB have intrinsic and dialectical relationship with one’s actions and behaviour. Thus, one needs to be critical about one’s value systems and practices, especially in sexuality.
BPB are not exclusive to religious people. Everyone has BPB whether they are conscious of it or not. You are actually contradicting yourself when you say you do not have a BPB because having no BPB is actually your BPB! The important question then is not whether or not we have BPB, but if our BPB are true.
A person’s BPB has a dialectic relationship with one’s actions. That is our behaviour shapes our BPB, and at the same time BPB shape our behaviour which leads us to the final goal. Take for instance Lucretius’ epicurean beliefs and the result of these beliefs. His BPB is that everything can be reduced to material things therefore there is no God, no soul and no afterlife. He believes that only the individual good matters and not the common good and also that there is nothing to fear in death. With these beliefs, his tendency will be to pursue pleasures without contemplation; even suicide might not be a problem for him. On the other hand, the BPB of Christians would be love. And with this BPB that love is the origin, the sustenance and the destiny of all creation especially humanity, the actions of Christians will always be in consideration of responding to God’s love. In his actions, he considers that God very personal and powerful and that even if humans tend to sin by not living out of love there is hope because God initiates a restoration of the right relationship.
This also has implications of human sexuality. For BPB that put individual pleasures at the forefront of existence, sex would not be out of love. Human beings would easily be enslaved by the desires of the body to respond to stimulus that lures them. As opposed to BPB that considers God’s love as the basis of the whole Christian story, sex will be as an expression of self-giving love that has an inclusion of God’s grace.
Also, BPB have intrinsic relationships with actions and the succeeding consequences. That is, the consequence naturally follows the behaviour and is not imposed by God. So for example, when one has the wrong BPB, he risks naturally losing himself; and if he has the right BPB then naturally, virtue is his reward.
However there is no one-to-one correspondence of BPB and behaviour. One act can correspond to different BPB and at the same time, one BPB can hold many right acts. Also, one’s actions might actually be inconsistent with his BPB. This is why we not only need to be critical in choosing our BPB; instead, we need to attend to both our BPB and our behaviours and practices.
5) Sin or badness (experienced by the person in relationship with God and others) is more than wrong behaviour; it is about failing to strive for the right behaviour out of love. We are not only called to avoid sin but to also bother to love; not to be content on only avoiding wrongdoing but by being moved to do what is right by love.
Sin is not limited to wrongdoing. Being sinful is when a person fails to strive to live rightly out of love. When a person does not strive to become better, then automatically he is not answering God’s call. It is not a matter of succeeding or not, but rather a matter of response. It is not only a matter of right or wrong actions nor is it only a matter of intentions, but ultimately of right motivations. Bad people can do right things but have the wrong motivations and at the same time good people can end up doing the wrong things but with good motivations. The bottom line is that we are called to bother to love, to be inconvenienced by it.
Furthermore, we should be concerned about doing right and not from being excused by our wrongdoings. Being good does not mean we are perfect. It simply means that we acknowledge when we do wrong and ask for God’s forgiveness and grace.
10) Some of the myths that culture promotes about sex are: that sex may be wholly separated from procreation; that decision for sex may be wholly separated from the decision to marry, which must wait for certainty; that sex must be separated from the ordinariness of marriage in order to be good; and that how we dress may be separated from who we are sexually
Today’s generation is subject to a sex-saturated culture. And this is not all bad because in order for Christians to learn how to talk about sex properly (theologically) he must not be repressed or deprived from such culture. What is harmful though is over-saturation; when sex becomes the most important thing in the lives of people, as seen in the term “sex-life”. This is an inaccurate and harmful way of facing the idea of sexuality.
Some of the myths that culture promotes about sex are:
That sex may be wholly separated from procreation. This myth tells us that there is completely nothing wrong with contraception. The myth appeals because of the good effects it brings such as relief of anxiety and avoidance of unwanted pregnancy, however many problems surface from this such as most contraceptives have abortifacient features, furthermore, those who benefit aren’t usually the ones who really need it (health risks, abuse) but those who practice non-marital sex, so this myth somehow promotes sex outside marriage. This myth also harmful in that frequent use of contraception can lead to a contraceptive mentality (where there is determination against procreation but with least interruption of sexual practice). This is wrong because the Catholic position is that the unitive and procreative dimensions of sex must not be separated. The church actually does not prohibit not wanting pregnancy, but it sure is concerned about how to go about it. The church then encourages NFP instead of procreation because it fits our embodied nature better and it also gets rid of hierarchy of values.
The second myth is that sex can be wholly separated from the decision to marry. That is we should only marry if we are really sure about our partners. Problems that arise here would be that finding the perfect companion is impossible, and also we can’t completely ignore that we are also sexual creatures. When there is eagerness for sex, we should avoid 2 extremes, the first one which is going ahead and have sex and the second one which is marrying simply for sex. Of course there are more things we should consider before marrying other than just sex, such as maturity and stability. However we should also consider the fact that delaying marriage does not solve the problem of looking for the perfect mate, as this would be an absurd fantasy. Marriage is actually more than just ending up with the perfect companion, but is about children, homemaking, stability, and trusting in God to unfold the story he has written out for us.
The third myth would be that for sex to be good, it must be separate from the ordinariness of marriage. This is wrong because it undermines sex as it looks at sex as merely an escape from the anxieties of the reality of married life. Sex must instead be allowed to be ordinary and be part of the ordinary. It should also be a venue for couples to engage in their weaknesses and strengths like in other household practices. Married couples should instead have household sex rather than an escape route; sex should be embedded in and transformed by the daily activities of life.
The final myth would be that the way we dress can be separated from who we are sexually, or how we dress doesn’t really matter. We should not only consider our own implications on what we wear but also its meaning for the others who are around us. Along with how we cannot blame our sinful acts (fornication) to how others dress themselves, at the same time we should not be inconsiderate about the kind of message we send through our clothing. We should be mindful about not “leading others into temptation.” Furthermore, how we dress shapes how we carry ourselves, so we have to ask the question “how do I want to carry myself as a child of God?”
11) Some of the myths that the Church promotes about sex are: that non-marital sex is guaranteed to make one feel lousy; that women don’t really want to have sex; that bodies and sex are gross, dirty, or just plain unimportant; and that the focus on technique and pursuit of sexual pleasure is perfectly alright.
Many times, the church also implicitly promotes sexual myths.
The first myth would be that non-marital sex will definitely make one feel lousy. Insisting on this may result to a loss of credibility and authority because in reality this is not always true. People can actually feel good or better about themselves after marital sex. The problem here is that we cannot base our moral judgement mainly on our feelings as this would be emotivism. We must consider that although our feelings are honest, they can be confused because of non-moral influences(biology, relations, history) and therefore not completely reliable. Furthermore, sin tends to deceive the sinner therefore we cannot assume that we will feel bad when we sin. This is precisely why we need the guidance of the church and the Christian community. So, although we must consider our feelings, we should be careful not to completely base all our decisions in them.
The second myth is that women don’t really want to have sex. This is wrong in so many ways. It promotes false stereotypes that men do not have emotions and women do not have libidos. It also overlooks the fact that sexual desire fluctuates as result of circumstances (work, nursing children). Furthermore, it gives the wrong impression that men are nothing more than sexual creatures and it also neglects the need of women to be prepared to face their own desires properly.
The third myth is that sex is dirty, gross or just plain unimportant. This myth has traces of gnosticm wherein the spirit is considered to be good but the body to be bad. This promotes that virginity is better than marriage and that rejection of the needs of the body is good. This however contradicts the embodiment of the Christian story. The body and also sexuality is a gift from God and we should neither neglect nor repress it, nor should we give in to its every desire. Instead we should discipline it appropriately by putting it to good use (engage in activities such as sports).
The final myth would be that the pursuit for sexual pleasure is perfectly fine and we can get there by focusing on technique. The church is not really against using techniques such as foreplay or using toys as long as it ends with actually having engaging in sex. But the problem is deeper than this in that yearning for excitement in sexual activities kind of trivializes sexuality by reducing it to matters of technique and orgasm. There becomes a distorted notion of what sexual activities should ideally be. They become like theatrical productions and the real intention of sex which is to be an expression of self-giving love in the ordinary life is not anymore given importance.
12) Disciplined sex maintains the integrity of sexual relationships. It respects their public and private dimensions, fosters freedom and limitations, and learns from the wise and prudent in community. It may accommodate kissing but it critically avoids such practices as pornography, masturbation, and non-marital sex; all of which promote self-centeredness and removal of the notion of sex from the reality of relationships
For there to be disciplined sex, there must be some restraint in sexual practice that is carefully reflected upon. There must be freedom of limitations and not freedom from limitations. That is to say that we limit ourselves in order to keep us from harm and this in turn makes us freer. These limits should also be set beforehand so that we will not end up panicking and doing the wrong things when we are already facing the situation.
Where do we draw the line then of what is to be restrained and what is not? With this we should ask the questions whether we are being prudent and loving, and whether our actions protect the body and God’s created sexual intent for it? Furthermore we must consider that sexuality has both private and public aspects, and only in marriage do we have access to the private access. So as long as a couple is not married, they must consider the question of integrity of their relationship which is public. And since it has a public dimension, they must consider the community in that they must seek guidance from those with more wisdom, by this they also practice accountability and transparency to the community.
But concretely, what can be considered okay? Maybe a little kissing is fine, because even if this kind of dangerous since one thing can lead to another, we must also consider that we are creatures that have desires and to repress these desires can actually be harmful. So kissing avoids a total rejection of physical affection that is natural to us, but there must also be discernment in order for this embodied act not to go beyond the limits we have set beforehand considering the integrity of our public sexuality.
Disciplined sex critically avoids self-centred practices such as: pornography which objectifies persons and substitutes reality for a distorted ideal that teach us real persons are not good enough; masturbation which promotes sexual pleasure outside relationships. Masturbation teaches us that we don’t need a significant other to achieve sexual pleasure. However the whole idea of masturbation cannot be compartmentalized in that we cannot condemn everyone who practices it because there could be different reasons as to why people masturbate. Instead we should focus on the bigger picture and defocus sexuality from the genitals and focus more on tenderness and on the potential for growth.; also non-marital sex which tells us that sex must be exciting because of the drama (chase, instability). Instead we should foster such sexuality that is built in familiarity and security (comfort food-winner). We should always remember that sex and marriage must be rooted in love.
13) Real love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” It includes and can be significantly aided by a feeling of love, but it is not identified with it. It must not be confused with falling-in-love, dependency, mere cathexis, and self-sacrifice that does not intend spiritual growth.
Real love is driven by a purpose of nurturing one’s own and another’s spiritual growth. It includes the love of self because only so will we will be able to love others. Real love requires effort as it requires will and action. Even though It includes cathexis, it is different from it because mere cathexis is merely an attraction to the beloved and investment in that beloved wherein only the dependency of the beloved in nurtured and not the independency. Neither is love mere self-sacrifice, because self-sacrifice can easily be selfish also. Neither is it dependency because dependency is like parasitism, wherein one focuses his growth depending on what the partner can give him, so there is no intention for real spiritual growth but only hunger for affection. Neither is it merely falling-in-love because falling-in-love is merely a collapse of ego boundaries (escape) similar to those of experiences of children when they have this false sense of omnipotence, and is temporary. It is also not an act of choice or will which means it is effortless. Neither is it just a feeling of love because feeling is not action.
However real love does not exclude falling-in-love or feeling of love, because it is at the end of these feelings will true love be tested. This is not to say that in order for real love to happen, the feeling must be gone, rather it just focuses more on the volitional aspect of love where there is commitment and mature and thoughtful decisions pointed towards the spiritual growth of both oneself and the other.
BPB are not exclusive to religious people. Everyone has BPB whether they are conscious of it or not. You are actually contradicting yourself when you say you do not have a BPB because having no BPB is actually your BPB! The important question then is not whether or not we have BPB, but if our BPB are true.
A person’s BPB has a dialectic relationship with one’s actions. That is our behaviour shapes our BPB, and at the same time BPB shape our behaviour which leads us to the final goal. Take for instance Lucretius’ epicurean beliefs and the result of these beliefs. His BPB is that everything can be reduced to material things therefore there is no God, no soul and no afterlife. He believes that only the individual good matters and not the common good and also that there is nothing to fear in death. With these beliefs, his tendency will be to pursue pleasures without contemplation; even suicide might not be a problem for him. On the other hand, the BPB of Christians would be love. And with this BPB that love is the origin, the sustenance and the destiny of all creation especially humanity, the actions of Christians will always be in consideration of responding to God’s love. In his actions, he considers that God very personal and powerful and that even if humans tend to sin by not living out of love there is hope because God initiates a restoration of the right relationship.
This also has implications of human sexuality. For BPB that put individual pleasures at the forefront of existence, sex would not be out of love. Human beings would easily be enslaved by the desires of the body to respond to stimulus that lures them. As opposed to BPB that considers God’s love as the basis of the whole Christian story, sex will be as an expression of self-giving love that has an inclusion of God’s grace.
Also, BPB have intrinsic relationships with actions and the succeeding consequences. That is, the consequence naturally follows the behaviour and is not imposed by God. So for example, when one has the wrong BPB, he risks naturally losing himself; and if he has the right BPB then naturally, virtue is his reward.
However there is no one-to-one correspondence of BPB and behaviour. One act can correspond to different BPB and at the same time, one BPB can hold many right acts. Also, one’s actions might actually be inconsistent with his BPB. This is why we not only need to be critical in choosing our BPB; instead, we need to attend to both our BPB and our behaviours and practices.
5) Sin or badness (experienced by the person in relationship with God and others) is more than wrong behaviour; it is about failing to strive for the right behaviour out of love. We are not only called to avoid sin but to also bother to love; not to be content on only avoiding wrongdoing but by being moved to do what is right by love.
Sin is not limited to wrongdoing. Being sinful is when a person fails to strive to live rightly out of love. When a person does not strive to become better, then automatically he is not answering God’s call. It is not a matter of succeeding or not, but rather a matter of response. It is not only a matter of right or wrong actions nor is it only a matter of intentions, but ultimately of right motivations. Bad people can do right things but have the wrong motivations and at the same time good people can end up doing the wrong things but with good motivations. The bottom line is that we are called to bother to love, to be inconvenienced by it.
Furthermore, we should be concerned about doing right and not from being excused by our wrongdoings. Being good does not mean we are perfect. It simply means that we acknowledge when we do wrong and ask for God’s forgiveness and grace.
10) Some of the myths that culture promotes about sex are: that sex may be wholly separated from procreation; that decision for sex may be wholly separated from the decision to marry, which must wait for certainty; that sex must be separated from the ordinariness of marriage in order to be good; and that how we dress may be separated from who we are sexually
Today’s generation is subject to a sex-saturated culture. And this is not all bad because in order for Christians to learn how to talk about sex properly (theologically) he must not be repressed or deprived from such culture. What is harmful though is over-saturation; when sex becomes the most important thing in the lives of people, as seen in the term “sex-life”. This is an inaccurate and harmful way of facing the idea of sexuality.
Some of the myths that culture promotes about sex are:
That sex may be wholly separated from procreation. This myth tells us that there is completely nothing wrong with contraception. The myth appeals because of the good effects it brings such as relief of anxiety and avoidance of unwanted pregnancy, however many problems surface from this such as most contraceptives have abortifacient features, furthermore, those who benefit aren’t usually the ones who really need it (health risks, abuse) but those who practice non-marital sex, so this myth somehow promotes sex outside marriage. This myth also harmful in that frequent use of contraception can lead to a contraceptive mentality (where there is determination against procreation but with least interruption of sexual practice). This is wrong because the Catholic position is that the unitive and procreative dimensions of sex must not be separated. The church actually does not prohibit not wanting pregnancy, but it sure is concerned about how to go about it. The church then encourages NFP instead of procreation because it fits our embodied nature better and it also gets rid of hierarchy of values.
The second myth is that sex can be wholly separated from the decision to marry. That is we should only marry if we are really sure about our partners. Problems that arise here would be that finding the perfect companion is impossible, and also we can’t completely ignore that we are also sexual creatures. When there is eagerness for sex, we should avoid 2 extremes, the first one which is going ahead and have sex and the second one which is marrying simply for sex. Of course there are more things we should consider before marrying other than just sex, such as maturity and stability. However we should also consider the fact that delaying marriage does not solve the problem of looking for the perfect mate, as this would be an absurd fantasy. Marriage is actually more than just ending up with the perfect companion, but is about children, homemaking, stability, and trusting in God to unfold the story he has written out for us.
The third myth would be that for sex to be good, it must be separate from the ordinariness of marriage. This is wrong because it undermines sex as it looks at sex as merely an escape from the anxieties of the reality of married life. Sex must instead be allowed to be ordinary and be part of the ordinary. It should also be a venue for couples to engage in their weaknesses and strengths like in other household practices. Married couples should instead have household sex rather than an escape route; sex should be embedded in and transformed by the daily activities of life.
The final myth would be that the way we dress can be separated from who we are sexually, or how we dress doesn’t really matter. We should not only consider our own implications on what we wear but also its meaning for the others who are around us. Along with how we cannot blame our sinful acts (fornication) to how others dress themselves, at the same time we should not be inconsiderate about the kind of message we send through our clothing. We should be mindful about not “leading others into temptation.” Furthermore, how we dress shapes how we carry ourselves, so we have to ask the question “how do I want to carry myself as a child of God?”
11) Some of the myths that the Church promotes about sex are: that non-marital sex is guaranteed to make one feel lousy; that women don’t really want to have sex; that bodies and sex are gross, dirty, or just plain unimportant; and that the focus on technique and pursuit of sexual pleasure is perfectly alright.
Many times, the church also implicitly promotes sexual myths.
The first myth would be that non-marital sex will definitely make one feel lousy. Insisting on this may result to a loss of credibility and authority because in reality this is not always true. People can actually feel good or better about themselves after marital sex. The problem here is that we cannot base our moral judgement mainly on our feelings as this would be emotivism. We must consider that although our feelings are honest, they can be confused because of non-moral influences(biology, relations, history) and therefore not completely reliable. Furthermore, sin tends to deceive the sinner therefore we cannot assume that we will feel bad when we sin. This is precisely why we need the guidance of the church and the Christian community. So, although we must consider our feelings, we should be careful not to completely base all our decisions in them.
The second myth is that women don’t really want to have sex. This is wrong in so many ways. It promotes false stereotypes that men do not have emotions and women do not have libidos. It also overlooks the fact that sexual desire fluctuates as result of circumstances (work, nursing children). Furthermore, it gives the wrong impression that men are nothing more than sexual creatures and it also neglects the need of women to be prepared to face their own desires properly.
The third myth is that sex is dirty, gross or just plain unimportant. This myth has traces of gnosticm wherein the spirit is considered to be good but the body to be bad. This promotes that virginity is better than marriage and that rejection of the needs of the body is good. This however contradicts the embodiment of the Christian story. The body and also sexuality is a gift from God and we should neither neglect nor repress it, nor should we give in to its every desire. Instead we should discipline it appropriately by putting it to good use (engage in activities such as sports).
The final myth would be that the pursuit for sexual pleasure is perfectly fine and we can get there by focusing on technique. The church is not really against using techniques such as foreplay or using toys as long as it ends with actually having engaging in sex. But the problem is deeper than this in that yearning for excitement in sexual activities kind of trivializes sexuality by reducing it to matters of technique and orgasm. There becomes a distorted notion of what sexual activities should ideally be. They become like theatrical productions and the real intention of sex which is to be an expression of self-giving love in the ordinary life is not anymore given importance.
12) Disciplined sex maintains the integrity of sexual relationships. It respects their public and private dimensions, fosters freedom and limitations, and learns from the wise and prudent in community. It may accommodate kissing but it critically avoids such practices as pornography, masturbation, and non-marital sex; all of which promote self-centeredness and removal of the notion of sex from the reality of relationships
For there to be disciplined sex, there must be some restraint in sexual practice that is carefully reflected upon. There must be freedom of limitations and not freedom from limitations. That is to say that we limit ourselves in order to keep us from harm and this in turn makes us freer. These limits should also be set beforehand so that we will not end up panicking and doing the wrong things when we are already facing the situation.
Where do we draw the line then of what is to be restrained and what is not? With this we should ask the questions whether we are being prudent and loving, and whether our actions protect the body and God’s created sexual intent for it? Furthermore we must consider that sexuality has both private and public aspects, and only in marriage do we have access to the private access. So as long as a couple is not married, they must consider the question of integrity of their relationship which is public. And since it has a public dimension, they must consider the community in that they must seek guidance from those with more wisdom, by this they also practice accountability and transparency to the community.
But concretely, what can be considered okay? Maybe a little kissing is fine, because even if this kind of dangerous since one thing can lead to another, we must also consider that we are creatures that have desires and to repress these desires can actually be harmful. So kissing avoids a total rejection of physical affection that is natural to us, but there must also be discernment in order for this embodied act not to go beyond the limits we have set beforehand considering the integrity of our public sexuality.
Disciplined sex critically avoids self-centred practices such as: pornography which objectifies persons and substitutes reality for a distorted ideal that teach us real persons are not good enough; masturbation which promotes sexual pleasure outside relationships. Masturbation teaches us that we don’t need a significant other to achieve sexual pleasure. However the whole idea of masturbation cannot be compartmentalized in that we cannot condemn everyone who practices it because there could be different reasons as to why people masturbate. Instead we should focus on the bigger picture and defocus sexuality from the genitals and focus more on tenderness and on the potential for growth.; also non-marital sex which tells us that sex must be exciting because of the drama (chase, instability). Instead we should foster such sexuality that is built in familiarity and security (comfort food-winner). We should always remember that sex and marriage must be rooted in love.
13) Real love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” It includes and can be significantly aided by a feeling of love, but it is not identified with it. It must not be confused with falling-in-love, dependency, mere cathexis, and self-sacrifice that does not intend spiritual growth.
Real love is driven by a purpose of nurturing one’s own and another’s spiritual growth. It includes the love of self because only so will we will be able to love others. Real love requires effort as it requires will and action. Even though It includes cathexis, it is different from it because mere cathexis is merely an attraction to the beloved and investment in that beloved wherein only the dependency of the beloved in nurtured and not the independency. Neither is love mere self-sacrifice, because self-sacrifice can easily be selfish also. Neither is it dependency because dependency is like parasitism, wherein one focuses his growth depending on what the partner can give him, so there is no intention for real spiritual growth but only hunger for affection. Neither is it merely falling-in-love because falling-in-love is merely a collapse of ego boundaries (escape) similar to those of experiences of children when they have this false sense of omnipotence, and is temporary. It is also not an act of choice or will which means it is effortless. Neither is it just a feeling of love because feeling is not action.
However real love does not exclude falling-in-love or feeling of love, because it is at the end of these feelings will true love be tested. This is not to say that in order for real love to happen, the feeling must be gone, rather it just focuses more on the volitional aspect of love where there is commitment and mature and thoughtful decisions pointed towards the spiritual growth of both oneself and the other.
PHILO101 ORAL EXAM NOTES (10 2012)
1. The human being is a Truth-seeker whom Truth does not seek.
According to ARISTOTLE in Summa Theoligica, the human being is in a constant search for truth; we are never satisfied and this is embedded in us, it is our nature.
What is truth?
I believe that Truth pertains to grand truth or those that answer the questions “why do we exist if the alternative is better?” “what are we good for, what is our purpose? - KANT”. These truths are what we try to discover all our lives, consciously or subconsciously.
I believe this is the reason for Philosophy.
We are in continuous search for the arche which is the very essence of our being. We are even willing to touch or dive into the idea that there are worlds beyond our material world; the world of forms, or maybe what we heaven, looking for an end or a purpose for life – just to answer the question “What is to be human?”.
However Truth does not seek us.
We are never really given a definite answer to these questions.
Taking from DESCARTES’ perspective, we can never be really be certain of anything, instead the only thing we can be sure of is that everything is to be doubted. Truth will not jump in front of us and introduce itself.
Like what we have derived from KANT, the human being is unnecessary for the world to go on. Man isn’t needed in the picture. We are the ones who need the truth because that’s our nature. We try to seek for the purpose of things. So the burden of finding the Truth, of being in touch with truth, is on us, not on truth.
2. The quest for the soul or the human essence is the expression of the human demand for singularity in the face of a world of multiplicity. The human being is that being that seeks the One in the Many. Neither the One nor the Many can be denied, for the human being is, both and at once, a soul and a body.
From ARISTOTLE, we have derived that human beings exist in two worlds; the world that is tangible and the inner world, or the world of consciousness. This consciousness, we can also refer to as the soul or mind. We know that this consciousness is not of the material realm but something I alone have access to. These two worlds cannot be denied because human beings are both body and soul, meaning we are part of both worlds. But we see how this can turn very subjective. And this is why we need to seek for the One in the Many – the one true thing in a world of multiplicity, our purpose, our destination.
What is multiplicity?
Dictionary definition would be the state of being multiplex or manifold. However we can say that there is not really one exact definition for multiplicity; and that is the very principle of it because multiplicity is the incongruence or the dissimilarity in the ideas of the world. That is why there is the idea that “everything is multiplicity”. In this world there is nothing certain (conn. #1), like how I would connect it to the first thesis on why we are on a constant search for the truth; there’s a demand for singularity because there is nothing we can truly, truly call universal.
How can there be any genuine unity in a world which appears to be multiple?
However since human being is both soul and body, neither the one nor the many can be denied.
This again I believe (conn. #1) as I would connect it to the first thesis, is the reason for philosophy. We are in continuous search for that One. We cannot stop looking for that One in the Many precisely because we are soul and body. That is, we try to understand how the Many(the understanding of nature and the world) is interconnected by One thing. We believe that One thing to be the Only True Being which is ageless, indivisible and eternal. It is a being that no origination but instead was always there.
This is important because it is the root of issues such as individual versus state, disorder versus dictatorship. Without this One thing, unaided human reason can only lead to one extreme or the other because of subjectivity. In short, unaided human reason cannot get to that One truth.
3. Because the Self is merely a “bundle of perceptions,” (HUME) it must be necessarily be always in the past.
Bundle of perceptions?
HUME argues that we are ever changing therefore there is nothing that we can call a continuous self. HUME thinks that the concept of self is just an illusion. He argues that “we can never actually catch ourselves without a perception” and because of that we have no reason to doubt that we are merely a bundle of perceptions; that we are what we perceive.
However since we are merely bundles of perceptions, then there must be a continuous, substantial self that constructs that bundle. I believe that human beings are a bundle of perceptions but not merely; we select and analyze too. This is exactly why we remember some events and not others; and also why we can even come up with complex ideas that come from our impressions. Therefore it is our minds and not our perceptions that “create” our identity through our perceptions. And this is also thanks to our memories.
Our memory is what puts together our perceptions, impression and ideas. And again we question, what then holds this memory together? There must be something that holds it together.
We are always in the past?
Like what HUME says, our memory is that which gives us our identity. This probably means then we must always be in the past; because when we think about ourselves, we instead see our past experiences. Like when we define ourselves, we actually refer to either what we have achieved or acquired, experiences of the past.
Going back to what holds this memory, scientifically we can say it is the brain. However the brain constantly changes too. So let’s forget about the brain and turn to the mind. But again what is the mind – it is the conscious, the inner world, maybe even the soul. We can’t say for sure but we can as far as saying that It is a self that holds together all of these perceptions, memories..
4. The essential definition of the human being is that she/he is epistemological.
What is epistemology?
Epistemology is reconciling our scope of knowledge with nature. That is digging through what appears to be true and what is actually true.
Because of the limits of our knowledge, it is impossible for us to know everything and this is why we must be epistemological as it focuses on 1) how we can differentiate truth from falsehood and 2)whether we can get to the answers through experience or mere reasoning (a posteriori or a priori).
Without some means of understanding on how we acquire knowledge then we (our thinking) would just be like pure nonsense. Debates about different beliefs would not go far because people would just end up talking past each other. This is why there is philosophy. This is why DESCARTES questions certainty.
Now human beings make use of epistemology through judgement, whether of reason or of experience. This is the way we learn, by observing, looking for common elements and making conclusions. This is our way of getting to the truth.
5. Philosophy is a means for man to arrive at the truth. Its only methods are aporia and ratio; its exercise is dialogical; its task is the critique of humanity’s most adhered to ideas. Thus, philosophizing is a necessary speculation. It is conducted only through a process: it moves the philosopher from an accounting of how things are to how things ought to be - that is, from a pure description of reality to an ethical demand on the one who seeks to know reality.
How do we philosophize?
Humans use doubt and reason (aporia and ration) in search for truth. That is, we doubt what is real and observe if that doubt can be refuted. We open ourselves to conflicting views because this is how we find truth behind things (noumenon – what KANT refers to as the true essence of things however unperceivable.)
The dialogical process is important. It is where different positions in an argument can be imagined and considered. By use of dialogical process, the importance of different ideas become more prominent and in turn helps in the philosophizing.
Why is philosophizing necessary?
Many times, especially in this generation, we tend to say things that don’t really mean anything. We passively adhere to ideas of the public and this voids us from critical thinking ergo from arriving at the truth. But we need truth. It is indeed an ethical demand of human beings. Connecting to thesis 4 (conn. #4), this is why human beings must be epistemological, we cannot just be like nonsense and follow everything we see or hear.
6. Soul and body are thoroughly unified and inseparable. yet, they are two distinct entities. The former is substantial, while the latter is accidental. The soul is to body as form is to matter; it is actuality to the body’s potentiality. The human being, then, is a being that is both eternal and transitory.
This is ARISTOTLE’s first thesis which I must say that I do not agree with but I do find sense in his ideas.
The soul is what holds the body(matter) together in the sense that it gives it its form, its identity. Without this form, then anything would just be a random blob of particles bonded together. This form is what makes one thing distinct from the other and it is conceptual, that is even if it is not tangible, we can think about it.
So we say that soul and body are inseparable because no form can exist without its matter, and no matter can be what it is without being determined by a form. So soul and body are inseparable in the sense that without the soul, the body is nothing, it becomes non-operational. When the body dies, we know that something departs from it and we assume that it is the soul. The body does not exist without its form.
However, what happens when a person dies? People still refer to him as a person even if the soul left already.
On one hand since the soul is substantial and the body is accidental, the people who refer to the dead body as person are just accidental to his life so they still recognize him as a person. But substantially, the soul which already existed even before the accidentals, has already left the body.
On the other hand, , I think even as the soul leaves the body, the form stays for the convenience of resurrection.
In conclusion, human beings are both eternal and transitory in the sense that although soul is naturally inseparable from the body, it can be separated momentarily.
If human being is merely transitory, then what is the sense of living? The greatest fact is death, and without eternality then what’s the point?
7. “Now we may have in the world only one kind of beings whose causality is teleological, i.e., is directed to purpose and is at the same time so constituted that the law according to which they have to determine purposes for themselves is represented as unconditioned and independent of natural conditions, and yet as in itself necessary.
The being of this kind is man, but man considered as noumenon; the only natural being in which we can recognize, on the side of its peculiar constitution, a supersensible faculty (freedom) and also the law of causality, together with its Object, which this faculty may propose to itself as highest purpose (the highest good in the world).” (Immanuel KANT, Critique of Judgement)
This thesis is basically answering the question of purpose. It saying that human beings are subject to a purpose that is not an effect of the will to survive (unlike that of other creatures). So basically, we are more than these other creatures. We are the only beings who recognize freedom.
So what is this purpose? This purpose is morality because it is the only sensible purpose. As opposed to solely happiness, humanity, or self, morality is the only activity that can be universalized. It promotes the survival of species instead of annihilation.
KANT argues that although man’s reason can only know phenomenon and cannot penetrate noumenon, he is not excluded from the noumenal. This is because we postulate that existing would make no sense unless a noumenal world existed wherein there is a Summum Bonum, freedom, and immortality. Wherein there is our telos or a highest good. So for KANT it doesn’t really matter if we have arche or essence as long as we have a final end. I think this is the roots of the question of arche itself. We try to know what we are in order to get to where we should go.
8. “Thinking is another attribute of the soul; and here I discover what properly belongs to myself. This alone is inseparable from me. I am -- I exist: this is certain; but how often? As often as I think; for perhaps it would even happen, if I should wholly cease to think, that I should at the same time altogether cease to be. I now admit nothing that is not necessarily true. I am, therefore, precisely speaking, only a thinking thing, that is, a mind, understanding, or reason, terms whose signification was before unknown to me. I am, however, a real thing, and really existent; but what thing? The answer was, a thinking thing.” (Rene DESCARTES, Meditations on the First; Philosophy, Meditation II-6)
DESCARTES is basically saying that we can doubt the contents but not the container. We surely are thinking things. There is an “I” (cogito), a substance which does the thinking (mental activities which includes doubting, claiming, supposing).
Therefore we cannot doubt that we exist because if we do so, we automatically contradict ourselves because we need to exist before we can doubt anything. When we say “I suppose something”, the supposing requires the existence of an “I”
However that’s how far we can go, we can be sure only of our own existence. So even if everything else is merely an illusion, we are without a doubt, a thinking substance.
9. The “I” is a complex idea.
What is the “I”?
I know I exist because empirically, I sense my body when I touch, when I think. But the “I” is more than that which I so easily refer to as myself.
According to HUME, when we refer to ourselves, we usually refer to the experiences we have had instead. And therefore our identity is based on what we have gone through and we constantly go through changes so we are also constantly changing. However, HUME would be referring to the SELF instead of the “I” because that which possesses those changes and experiences (which are accidents) is the SELF.
ARISTOTLE argues that the human being is a soul-body. The “I” is the essence which has always existed even before our conception. The “I” is not the SELF in that the SELF is what possesses accidents and what loses all these accidents in death. So in death, it is the SELF that dies and not the ”I”, because the “I” has always been and always will be.
The “I” is not something tangible but something I can still conceive. What I cannot conceive however is why I am a being at all, and what happens to the “I” after the SELF dies.
This is much like form and matter in Thesis 6. (conn. #6) where the form is the soul while the matter is the body.
10. Consciousness is the definitive act of the human being. man is self-reflexive.
What raises us above from other known beings is our ability to be conscious of our own consciousness. Self-awareness is a gift unique to human beings. While animals have the ability to direct their attention, they can’t be aware of themselves or experience a sense of self. An example of this would be when animals try to attack their own reflections in the mirror.
As DESCARTES would put it, “I think, therefore I exist as a thing that thinks. And to think, it is necessary for me to be.” As human beings we don’t just think, we are conscious that we are thinking, and we are conscious that there is someone conscious of thinking.
Our self-awareness is when our perceptions and knowledge are felt as being part of us and not someone else’s. So when I am hungry or thirsty, I know that that feeling is mine and I need to do something to satisfy it. When I perceive hunger and thirst, I know it is I who perceives, because if not then I would have no reason to satisfy my thirst.
This is important because this consciousness develops ideas in us that result in choices and responses to what happens to us. With self-consciousness, humans long to transcend towards something else, something more. Like towards satisfaction or dynamically a highest end, a final purpose.
According to ARISTOTLE in Summa Theoligica, the human being is in a constant search for truth; we are never satisfied and this is embedded in us, it is our nature.
What is truth?
I believe that Truth pertains to grand truth or those that answer the questions “why do we exist if the alternative is better?” “what are we good for, what is our purpose? - KANT”. These truths are what we try to discover all our lives, consciously or subconsciously.
I believe this is the reason for Philosophy.
We are in continuous search for the arche which is the very essence of our being. We are even willing to touch or dive into the idea that there are worlds beyond our material world; the world of forms, or maybe what we heaven, looking for an end or a purpose for life – just to answer the question “What is to be human?”.
However Truth does not seek us.
We are never really given a definite answer to these questions.
Taking from DESCARTES’ perspective, we can never be really be certain of anything, instead the only thing we can be sure of is that everything is to be doubted. Truth will not jump in front of us and introduce itself.
Like what we have derived from KANT, the human being is unnecessary for the world to go on. Man isn’t needed in the picture. We are the ones who need the truth because that’s our nature. We try to seek for the purpose of things. So the burden of finding the Truth, of being in touch with truth, is on us, not on truth.
2. The quest for the soul or the human essence is the expression of the human demand for singularity in the face of a world of multiplicity. The human being is that being that seeks the One in the Many. Neither the One nor the Many can be denied, for the human being is, both and at once, a soul and a body.
From ARISTOTLE, we have derived that human beings exist in two worlds; the world that is tangible and the inner world, or the world of consciousness. This consciousness, we can also refer to as the soul or mind. We know that this consciousness is not of the material realm but something I alone have access to. These two worlds cannot be denied because human beings are both body and soul, meaning we are part of both worlds. But we see how this can turn very subjective. And this is why we need to seek for the One in the Many – the one true thing in a world of multiplicity, our purpose, our destination.
What is multiplicity?
Dictionary definition would be the state of being multiplex or manifold. However we can say that there is not really one exact definition for multiplicity; and that is the very principle of it because multiplicity is the incongruence or the dissimilarity in the ideas of the world. That is why there is the idea that “everything is multiplicity”. In this world there is nothing certain (conn. #1), like how I would connect it to the first thesis on why we are on a constant search for the truth; there’s a demand for singularity because there is nothing we can truly, truly call universal.
How can there be any genuine unity in a world which appears to be multiple?
However since human being is both soul and body, neither the one nor the many can be denied.
This again I believe (conn. #1) as I would connect it to the first thesis, is the reason for philosophy. We are in continuous search for that One. We cannot stop looking for that One in the Many precisely because we are soul and body. That is, we try to understand how the Many(the understanding of nature and the world) is interconnected by One thing. We believe that One thing to be the Only True Being which is ageless, indivisible and eternal. It is a being that no origination but instead was always there.
This is important because it is the root of issues such as individual versus state, disorder versus dictatorship. Without this One thing, unaided human reason can only lead to one extreme or the other because of subjectivity. In short, unaided human reason cannot get to that One truth.
3. Because the Self is merely a “bundle of perceptions,” (HUME) it must be necessarily be always in the past.
Bundle of perceptions?
HUME argues that we are ever changing therefore there is nothing that we can call a continuous self. HUME thinks that the concept of self is just an illusion. He argues that “we can never actually catch ourselves without a perception” and because of that we have no reason to doubt that we are merely a bundle of perceptions; that we are what we perceive.
However since we are merely bundles of perceptions, then there must be a continuous, substantial self that constructs that bundle. I believe that human beings are a bundle of perceptions but not merely; we select and analyze too. This is exactly why we remember some events and not others; and also why we can even come up with complex ideas that come from our impressions. Therefore it is our minds and not our perceptions that “create” our identity through our perceptions. And this is also thanks to our memories.
Our memory is what puts together our perceptions, impression and ideas. And again we question, what then holds this memory together? There must be something that holds it together.
We are always in the past?
Like what HUME says, our memory is that which gives us our identity. This probably means then we must always be in the past; because when we think about ourselves, we instead see our past experiences. Like when we define ourselves, we actually refer to either what we have achieved or acquired, experiences of the past.
Going back to what holds this memory, scientifically we can say it is the brain. However the brain constantly changes too. So let’s forget about the brain and turn to the mind. But again what is the mind – it is the conscious, the inner world, maybe even the soul. We can’t say for sure but we can as far as saying that It is a self that holds together all of these perceptions, memories..
4. The essential definition of the human being is that she/he is epistemological.
What is epistemology?
Epistemology is reconciling our scope of knowledge with nature. That is digging through what appears to be true and what is actually true.
Because of the limits of our knowledge, it is impossible for us to know everything and this is why we must be epistemological as it focuses on 1) how we can differentiate truth from falsehood and 2)whether we can get to the answers through experience or mere reasoning (a posteriori or a priori).
Without some means of understanding on how we acquire knowledge then we (our thinking) would just be like pure nonsense. Debates about different beliefs would not go far because people would just end up talking past each other. This is why there is philosophy. This is why DESCARTES questions certainty.
Now human beings make use of epistemology through judgement, whether of reason or of experience. This is the way we learn, by observing, looking for common elements and making conclusions. This is our way of getting to the truth.
5. Philosophy is a means for man to arrive at the truth. Its only methods are aporia and ratio; its exercise is dialogical; its task is the critique of humanity’s most adhered to ideas. Thus, philosophizing is a necessary speculation. It is conducted only through a process: it moves the philosopher from an accounting of how things are to how things ought to be - that is, from a pure description of reality to an ethical demand on the one who seeks to know reality.
How do we philosophize?
Humans use doubt and reason (aporia and ration) in search for truth. That is, we doubt what is real and observe if that doubt can be refuted. We open ourselves to conflicting views because this is how we find truth behind things (noumenon – what KANT refers to as the true essence of things however unperceivable.)
The dialogical process is important. It is where different positions in an argument can be imagined and considered. By use of dialogical process, the importance of different ideas become more prominent and in turn helps in the philosophizing.
Why is philosophizing necessary?
Many times, especially in this generation, we tend to say things that don’t really mean anything. We passively adhere to ideas of the public and this voids us from critical thinking ergo from arriving at the truth. But we need truth. It is indeed an ethical demand of human beings. Connecting to thesis 4 (conn. #4), this is why human beings must be epistemological, we cannot just be like nonsense and follow everything we see or hear.
6. Soul and body are thoroughly unified and inseparable. yet, they are two distinct entities. The former is substantial, while the latter is accidental. The soul is to body as form is to matter; it is actuality to the body’s potentiality. The human being, then, is a being that is both eternal and transitory.
This is ARISTOTLE’s first thesis which I must say that I do not agree with but I do find sense in his ideas.
The soul is what holds the body(matter) together in the sense that it gives it its form, its identity. Without this form, then anything would just be a random blob of particles bonded together. This form is what makes one thing distinct from the other and it is conceptual, that is even if it is not tangible, we can think about it.
So we say that soul and body are inseparable because no form can exist without its matter, and no matter can be what it is without being determined by a form. So soul and body are inseparable in the sense that without the soul, the body is nothing, it becomes non-operational. When the body dies, we know that something departs from it and we assume that it is the soul. The body does not exist without its form.
However, what happens when a person dies? People still refer to him as a person even if the soul left already.
On one hand since the soul is substantial and the body is accidental, the people who refer to the dead body as person are just accidental to his life so they still recognize him as a person. But substantially, the soul which already existed even before the accidentals, has already left the body.
On the other hand, , I think even as the soul leaves the body, the form stays for the convenience of resurrection.
In conclusion, human beings are both eternal and transitory in the sense that although soul is naturally inseparable from the body, it can be separated momentarily.
If human being is merely transitory, then what is the sense of living? The greatest fact is death, and without eternality then what’s the point?
7. “Now we may have in the world only one kind of beings whose causality is teleological, i.e., is directed to purpose and is at the same time so constituted that the law according to which they have to determine purposes for themselves is represented as unconditioned and independent of natural conditions, and yet as in itself necessary.
The being of this kind is man, but man considered as noumenon; the only natural being in which we can recognize, on the side of its peculiar constitution, a supersensible faculty (freedom) and also the law of causality, together with its Object, which this faculty may propose to itself as highest purpose (the highest good in the world).” (Immanuel KANT, Critique of Judgement)
This thesis is basically answering the question of purpose. It saying that human beings are subject to a purpose that is not an effect of the will to survive (unlike that of other creatures). So basically, we are more than these other creatures. We are the only beings who recognize freedom.
So what is this purpose? This purpose is morality because it is the only sensible purpose. As opposed to solely happiness, humanity, or self, morality is the only activity that can be universalized. It promotes the survival of species instead of annihilation.
KANT argues that although man’s reason can only know phenomenon and cannot penetrate noumenon, he is not excluded from the noumenal. This is because we postulate that existing would make no sense unless a noumenal world existed wherein there is a Summum Bonum, freedom, and immortality. Wherein there is our telos or a highest good. So for KANT it doesn’t really matter if we have arche or essence as long as we have a final end. I think this is the roots of the question of arche itself. We try to know what we are in order to get to where we should go.
8. “Thinking is another attribute of the soul; and here I discover what properly belongs to myself. This alone is inseparable from me. I am -- I exist: this is certain; but how often? As often as I think; for perhaps it would even happen, if I should wholly cease to think, that I should at the same time altogether cease to be. I now admit nothing that is not necessarily true. I am, therefore, precisely speaking, only a thinking thing, that is, a mind, understanding, or reason, terms whose signification was before unknown to me. I am, however, a real thing, and really existent; but what thing? The answer was, a thinking thing.” (Rene DESCARTES, Meditations on the First; Philosophy, Meditation II-6)
DESCARTES is basically saying that we can doubt the contents but not the container. We surely are thinking things. There is an “I” (cogito), a substance which does the thinking (mental activities which includes doubting, claiming, supposing).
Therefore we cannot doubt that we exist because if we do so, we automatically contradict ourselves because we need to exist before we can doubt anything. When we say “I suppose something”, the supposing requires the existence of an “I”
However that’s how far we can go, we can be sure only of our own existence. So even if everything else is merely an illusion, we are without a doubt, a thinking substance.
9. The “I” is a complex idea.
What is the “I”?
I know I exist because empirically, I sense my body when I touch, when I think. But the “I” is more than that which I so easily refer to as myself.
According to HUME, when we refer to ourselves, we usually refer to the experiences we have had instead. And therefore our identity is based on what we have gone through and we constantly go through changes so we are also constantly changing. However, HUME would be referring to the SELF instead of the “I” because that which possesses those changes and experiences (which are accidents) is the SELF.
ARISTOTLE argues that the human being is a soul-body. The “I” is the essence which has always existed even before our conception. The “I” is not the SELF in that the SELF is what possesses accidents and what loses all these accidents in death. So in death, it is the SELF that dies and not the ”I”, because the “I” has always been and always will be.
The “I” is not something tangible but something I can still conceive. What I cannot conceive however is why I am a being at all, and what happens to the “I” after the SELF dies.
This is much like form and matter in Thesis 6. (conn. #6) where the form is the soul while the matter is the body.
10. Consciousness is the definitive act of the human being. man is self-reflexive.
What raises us above from other known beings is our ability to be conscious of our own consciousness. Self-awareness is a gift unique to human beings. While animals have the ability to direct their attention, they can’t be aware of themselves or experience a sense of self. An example of this would be when animals try to attack their own reflections in the mirror.
As DESCARTES would put it, “I think, therefore I exist as a thing that thinks. And to think, it is necessary for me to be.” As human beings we don’t just think, we are conscious that we are thinking, and we are conscious that there is someone conscious of thinking.
Our self-awareness is when our perceptions and knowledge are felt as being part of us and not someone else’s. So when I am hungry or thirsty, I know that that feeling is mine and I need to do something to satisfy it. When I perceive hunger and thirst, I know it is I who perceives, because if not then I would have no reason to satisfy my thirst.
This is important because this consciousness develops ideas in us that result in choices and responses to what happens to us. With self-consciousness, humans long to transcend towards something else, something more. Like towards satisfaction or dynamically a highest end, a final purpose.
Personal Philosophical Reflection on the Human Person
Human beings are beings that motion through life in search for a purpose; beings that are in continuous search for the grand truth –the truth that will answer questions such as “Why do we choose to exist, if the alternative which is non-existence seems to be much less of a hassle?”
In our search for truth, one of the most common concept tackled is the concept of death. Since all human beings will cease to exist at one point in time, it would seem absurd to try to achieve so much just to render them useless upon our death in this material world. For if we believe that after our death in the material world there will be nothing more, even the argument that we live for the people around us or for the greatness we feel because of success would be futile because the bottom line would be that we will all die and our relationships nor our successes will not matter.
I would then think that it useful to believe that when a human being ceases to exist in the material world, it should continue its existence in another world, for only then would it still be sensible for us to continue living.
With this, I believe that the human being consists of soul and body, in which the soul is not separate from the body but is separable from it and by separable, I mean that it can be separated for a span of time, but not for eternity.
Following part of Aristotle’s idea, I say that the soul is not separate from the body because I believe that a human being consists of soul and body, and if they are already entities in themselves they can no longer be the composition of the human being as one entity. Furthermore, if the soul and body are two separate entities then they will not be able to occupy the same space at the same time.
Also, I believe that the soul is not separate from the body because if this is so, it would mean that the soul and the body can then operate even without each other. I would like to oppose the idea that they can operate separately using two illustrations. The first is that if the body is separate from the soul, then a cadaver, or a dead person’s body, should then be able to continue its bodily operations even after death of the human; that is it should still be able to continue at least the nutritive and sensitive operations. The second is that the soul should be able to continue to perform intellectual operations, operations of self-consciousness even without the body. We cannot know for sure what the state of the soul is after the death of the human person, however we can say that it cannot continue to be conscious of a self because in order to have self-consciousness, there must be a self to be conscious about and that self is the human being compose of body and soul, and not only the soul. We cannot say that we are conscious of our soul because it is not something we know of for sure, and therefore we cannot genuinely “catch” or find the concept of the soul alone when we try to be self-conscious. Unlike in the concept of the human person which consists of both soul and body, wherein we can at least be conscious when the body and soul operate together, for instance we can be conscious of the operations of sensitivity.
Saying that I believe that a cadaver cannot continue bodily operations after the death of the human reveals my position in believing that there is something that leaves the human person upon its death; and my understanding of this thing which leaves is that it is the soul. This would pose confusion because one can argue that if the soul can leave the body then it would mean they are separate entities. However this is where I would like to assert my earlier point that even as I believe that the soul is not separate from the body, I think it is separable for a certain time and it is important to emphasize that I believe that this separation is not for eternity. I believe they are separable only at the moment of death. That is to say that upon death of a human person the soul does not die with the body.
I would not be in the position to make a conclusion as to where the soul goes or as to what happens to it after the death of the human person, but I would like to posit that the soul is immortal. This is because I cling to my belief that the only reason for human beings to continue to choose life over death is the hope that there is a continuance of life even after the death in the material world.
When I say that the soul and body are not separate, I say this with regard to their operations, because the soul and body are not merely separate entities that help each other in their respective operations but are rather essential partners that need to be together in order to carry out their operations in the first place. Therefore, I believe that the nature of the soul is to be with the body and the body to be with the soul.
If their nature then is to be with each other, it follows that it would be against their nature to be separated from each other and more over to be separated for eternity. And this separation, I believe is precisely what death of the human person brings. Following Aristotle’s stand on the nature of things, that “nothing against its nature can exist forever” (Aristotle), it would then be only detrimental for the body if it will be eternally separated from the soul –which may explain the reason why that while the body continues to function shortly after death, it does not continue to function for long. At the same time it is also detrimental for the soul if it is eternally separated from the body.
Therefore, from this standpoint that nothing against its nature can exist forever, it would only be sensible that the soul and the body would reunite at some point in time in order for the soul to be truly immortal. That is to say that if the body would resurrect, it may either be because the body’s nature in itself is to resurrect so that it can be together with the soul again or it may be because by the sheer force of nature, it resurrects for the good of the soul; so that the soul can be immortal. With this, however we can only say that we cannot be sure of what the nature of the resurrected body is.
Having defined my understanding of what the human person is I now turn to considering the self in terms of not the soul and body, but as a bundle of perceptions. Hume’s idea is that human beings are just bundles of perceptions, of which perceptions are further broken down to impressions and ideas. He further reasons that we perceive through our five senses, namely the sense of sight, taste, hearing, smell, and touch, and that whatever we perceive or experience are the only things that can possibly be real. And since the “SELF” cannot be perceived by the five senses, then there must be no SELF.
Hume’s ideology is appealing because it does have truth in it; what we call the SELF has never been, in human history, perceived through the five senses. For Hume, whatever idea we have of unperceivable things would just be our ideas and impressions of perceivable things that are stocked in our memories so that we can recreate them as simulations in our minds. This is much like the idea of a pig that flies using elephant ears where we have a concept of the pig from reality, and the concept of the flying elephant ears from the Disney movie, Dumbo, which in itself is actually a non-reality already. And with these two ideas we come up with something that is non-existent which is the flying pig with elephant ears. No matter how real we think the flying pig is, it can never be real because we just made it up with our ideas and impression of different realities. With this, Hume suggests that whenever we refer to a self, we also just create this idea of an actually non-existent SELF in our minds, with the help of our memory, as it puts together our ideas and impressions of other real things.
I would however find some confusion in his ideology because if Hume says that we are but bundles of perceptions then he is suggesting all human beings are merely perceivers.
However the mere fact that we can recreate different ideas and impressions we have perceived shows that we are not merely collectors of perceivable information. We also have a function that puts these ideas together and in turn, enables us to recreate something else in our imaginations.
Furthermore, the concept that we are merely bundles of perceptions overlooks the fact that people may perceive things differently and therefore discounts the fact that human beings are also capable of analyzing. Surely it is not one of the five senses nor is it the five senses working altogether that analyzes because analyzing is not the function of any of those senses. What then is this thing that analyses? Is it not precisely the SELF?
If one would pursue the argument that there is no basis for the SELF because it cannot be perceived, I would argue back that this idea reduces the human being to only being a body. This is probably why Hume’s idea that human beings have no identity came up, for the body on which we attach an identity to, is always changing. Because at every moment whether humans are conscious of it or not, something changes in the compositions of the human body such that it can no longer have the same identity before this moment of change.
I believe however that the human being is not merely a body that can be perceived neither is it only a composition of the senses which perceive. There is something more to the human being than the five senses alone, something that perceives but is simultaneously capable of analysing.
I further believe that perception can be done with the senses as made possible by the body and the analysis can be done by the self, or if I may call it the soul, which performs intellectual operations. Without perception, there can be no analysis and without the analysis, the perception will not make sense and will therefore not matter if it is perceive or not in the first place. Therefore, the human being cannot be just a perceiver. The human being must simultaneously be a perceiver and analyzer, not functioning separate from each other because the human being is both body and soul and they are not separate for they are partners which need to be together in order to be able to operate.
In our search for truth, one of the most common concept tackled is the concept of death. Since all human beings will cease to exist at one point in time, it would seem absurd to try to achieve so much just to render them useless upon our death in this material world. For if we believe that after our death in the material world there will be nothing more, even the argument that we live for the people around us or for the greatness we feel because of success would be futile because the bottom line would be that we will all die and our relationships nor our successes will not matter.
I would then think that it useful to believe that when a human being ceases to exist in the material world, it should continue its existence in another world, for only then would it still be sensible for us to continue living.
With this, I believe that the human being consists of soul and body, in which the soul is not separate from the body but is separable from it and by separable, I mean that it can be separated for a span of time, but not for eternity.
Following part of Aristotle’s idea, I say that the soul is not separate from the body because I believe that a human being consists of soul and body, and if they are already entities in themselves they can no longer be the composition of the human being as one entity. Furthermore, if the soul and body are two separate entities then they will not be able to occupy the same space at the same time.
Also, I believe that the soul is not separate from the body because if this is so, it would mean that the soul and the body can then operate even without each other. I would like to oppose the idea that they can operate separately using two illustrations. The first is that if the body is separate from the soul, then a cadaver, or a dead person’s body, should then be able to continue its bodily operations even after death of the human; that is it should still be able to continue at least the nutritive and sensitive operations. The second is that the soul should be able to continue to perform intellectual operations, operations of self-consciousness even without the body. We cannot know for sure what the state of the soul is after the death of the human person, however we can say that it cannot continue to be conscious of a self because in order to have self-consciousness, there must be a self to be conscious about and that self is the human being compose of body and soul, and not only the soul. We cannot say that we are conscious of our soul because it is not something we know of for sure, and therefore we cannot genuinely “catch” or find the concept of the soul alone when we try to be self-conscious. Unlike in the concept of the human person which consists of both soul and body, wherein we can at least be conscious when the body and soul operate together, for instance we can be conscious of the operations of sensitivity.
Saying that I believe that a cadaver cannot continue bodily operations after the death of the human reveals my position in believing that there is something that leaves the human person upon its death; and my understanding of this thing which leaves is that it is the soul. This would pose confusion because one can argue that if the soul can leave the body then it would mean they are separate entities. However this is where I would like to assert my earlier point that even as I believe that the soul is not separate from the body, I think it is separable for a certain time and it is important to emphasize that I believe that this separation is not for eternity. I believe they are separable only at the moment of death. That is to say that upon death of a human person the soul does not die with the body.
I would not be in the position to make a conclusion as to where the soul goes or as to what happens to it after the death of the human person, but I would like to posit that the soul is immortal. This is because I cling to my belief that the only reason for human beings to continue to choose life over death is the hope that there is a continuance of life even after the death in the material world.
When I say that the soul and body are not separate, I say this with regard to their operations, because the soul and body are not merely separate entities that help each other in their respective operations but are rather essential partners that need to be together in order to carry out their operations in the first place. Therefore, I believe that the nature of the soul is to be with the body and the body to be with the soul.
If their nature then is to be with each other, it follows that it would be against their nature to be separated from each other and more over to be separated for eternity. And this separation, I believe is precisely what death of the human person brings. Following Aristotle’s stand on the nature of things, that “nothing against its nature can exist forever” (Aristotle), it would then be only detrimental for the body if it will be eternally separated from the soul –which may explain the reason why that while the body continues to function shortly after death, it does not continue to function for long. At the same time it is also detrimental for the soul if it is eternally separated from the body.
Therefore, from this standpoint that nothing against its nature can exist forever, it would only be sensible that the soul and the body would reunite at some point in time in order for the soul to be truly immortal. That is to say that if the body would resurrect, it may either be because the body’s nature in itself is to resurrect so that it can be together with the soul again or it may be because by the sheer force of nature, it resurrects for the good of the soul; so that the soul can be immortal. With this, however we can only say that we cannot be sure of what the nature of the resurrected body is.
Having defined my understanding of what the human person is I now turn to considering the self in terms of not the soul and body, but as a bundle of perceptions. Hume’s idea is that human beings are just bundles of perceptions, of which perceptions are further broken down to impressions and ideas. He further reasons that we perceive through our five senses, namely the sense of sight, taste, hearing, smell, and touch, and that whatever we perceive or experience are the only things that can possibly be real. And since the “SELF” cannot be perceived by the five senses, then there must be no SELF.
Hume’s ideology is appealing because it does have truth in it; what we call the SELF has never been, in human history, perceived through the five senses. For Hume, whatever idea we have of unperceivable things would just be our ideas and impressions of perceivable things that are stocked in our memories so that we can recreate them as simulations in our minds. This is much like the idea of a pig that flies using elephant ears where we have a concept of the pig from reality, and the concept of the flying elephant ears from the Disney movie, Dumbo, which in itself is actually a non-reality already. And with these two ideas we come up with something that is non-existent which is the flying pig with elephant ears. No matter how real we think the flying pig is, it can never be real because we just made it up with our ideas and impression of different realities. With this, Hume suggests that whenever we refer to a self, we also just create this idea of an actually non-existent SELF in our minds, with the help of our memory, as it puts together our ideas and impressions of other real things.
I would however find some confusion in his ideology because if Hume says that we are but bundles of perceptions then he is suggesting all human beings are merely perceivers.
However the mere fact that we can recreate different ideas and impressions we have perceived shows that we are not merely collectors of perceivable information. We also have a function that puts these ideas together and in turn, enables us to recreate something else in our imaginations.
Furthermore, the concept that we are merely bundles of perceptions overlooks the fact that people may perceive things differently and therefore discounts the fact that human beings are also capable of analyzing. Surely it is not one of the five senses nor is it the five senses working altogether that analyzes because analyzing is not the function of any of those senses. What then is this thing that analyses? Is it not precisely the SELF?
If one would pursue the argument that there is no basis for the SELF because it cannot be perceived, I would argue back that this idea reduces the human being to only being a body. This is probably why Hume’s idea that human beings have no identity came up, for the body on which we attach an identity to, is always changing. Because at every moment whether humans are conscious of it or not, something changes in the compositions of the human body such that it can no longer have the same identity before this moment of change.
I believe however that the human being is not merely a body that can be perceived neither is it only a composition of the senses which perceive. There is something more to the human being than the five senses alone, something that perceives but is simultaneously capable of analysing.
I further believe that perception can be done with the senses as made possible by the body and the analysis can be done by the self, or if I may call it the soul, which performs intellectual operations. Without perception, there can be no analysis and without the analysis, the perception will not make sense and will therefore not matter if it is perceive or not in the first place. Therefore, the human being cannot be just a perceiver. The human being must simultaneously be a perceiver and analyzer, not functioning separate from each other because the human being is both body and soul and they are not separate for they are partners which need to be together in order to be able to operate.
THE BODY'S RESURRECTION (PHILO101 REPORTING NOTES 08 2012)
Summa Theologica: First Part, Question 75
THESIS STATEMENT:
Even as the soul is separable from the body, its nature is to be with the body. That is, it operates best when it is with the body. Therefore, for the good of the immortal soul, it would be sensible for the body to resurrect.
· Soul is incorruptible
o Simple substance
§ “And when it does not receive division and is simple, it receives neither corruption nor destruction” (Aquinas 148)
o Separable from being
§ “Every soul is an incorporeal substance and separable from body.” (Dodds 162)
o What is corruptible is something which needs origin
§ “Every destructible, non-sempiternal(non-perpetual/ not eternal) substance is either composed or supported by another thing” (Aquinas 146)
· Soul separated from the body
o Soul’s mode of understanding
§ “After separation from the body it will have another mode of understanding” (Oguejiofor 157)
§ “when the soul departs the body, it will be completely similar to other spiritual substances that are not united to the body and will also acquire their mode of understanding and receive sufficient influx(inflow) from these” (Oguejiofor 156)
o Soul’s nature
§ “on separation, the soul retains its proportionality and its commensuration (correspondence) to a particular body” (Oguejiofor 153)
§ “not caused by this body, but must be prior fitness to be united to the body” (Oguejiofor 153)
· Immortality of the Body
o “(on account of its ability of self subsistence) The soul at the death of the composite can live apart from the body. However, this is not its due mode of existence” (Oguejiofor 160)
o (“nothing that is against nature can exist forever” – Aristotle)
o (assuming that the soul operates best with the body) “immortality of the soul require the future resurrection of the body” (Oguejiofor 161)
o “the body is immortal by association” (Oguejiofor 163)
o 20 We, however, are citizens of heaven, and we eagerly wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come from heaven. 21 He will change our weak mortal bodies and make them like his own glorious body, using that power by which he is able to bring all things under his rule. (Philippians 3: 20-21)
o Many of those whose bodies lie dead and buried will rise up, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting disgrace. (Daniel 12:2)
SOURCES
Aquinas, St. Thomas. Commentary on the Book of Causes. Trans. Vincent A. Guagliardo, O.P. Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1996.
Dodds, E.R. Proclus' Elements of Theology. Trans. Thomas Taylor. Westbury, Wiltshire: The Prometheus Trust, 1994.
Oguejiofor, J. Obi. The Philosophical Significance of Immortality in Thomas Aquinas. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2001.
THESIS STATEMENT:
Even as the soul is separable from the body, its nature is to be with the body. That is, it operates best when it is with the body. Therefore, for the good of the immortal soul, it would be sensible for the body to resurrect.
· Soul is incorruptible
o Simple substance
§ “And when it does not receive division and is simple, it receives neither corruption nor destruction” (Aquinas 148)
o Separable from being
§ “Every soul is an incorporeal substance and separable from body.” (Dodds 162)
o What is corruptible is something which needs origin
§ “Every destructible, non-sempiternal(non-perpetual/ not eternal) substance is either composed or supported by another thing” (Aquinas 146)
· Soul separated from the body
o Soul’s mode of understanding
§ “After separation from the body it will have another mode of understanding” (Oguejiofor 157)
§ “when the soul departs the body, it will be completely similar to other spiritual substances that are not united to the body and will also acquire their mode of understanding and receive sufficient influx(inflow) from these” (Oguejiofor 156)
o Soul’s nature
§ “on separation, the soul retains its proportionality and its commensuration (correspondence) to a particular body” (Oguejiofor 153)
§ “not caused by this body, but must be prior fitness to be united to the body” (Oguejiofor 153)
· Immortality of the Body
o “(on account of its ability of self subsistence) The soul at the death of the composite can live apart from the body. However, this is not its due mode of existence” (Oguejiofor 160)
o (“nothing that is against nature can exist forever” – Aristotle)
o (assuming that the soul operates best with the body) “immortality of the soul require the future resurrection of the body” (Oguejiofor 161)
o “the body is immortal by association” (Oguejiofor 163)
o 20 We, however, are citizens of heaven, and we eagerly wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come from heaven. 21 He will change our weak mortal bodies and make them like his own glorious body, using that power by which he is able to bring all things under his rule. (Philippians 3: 20-21)
o Many of those whose bodies lie dead and buried will rise up, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting disgrace. (Daniel 12:2)
SOURCES
Aquinas, St. Thomas. Commentary on the Book of Causes. Trans. Vincent A. Guagliardo, O.P. Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1996.
Dodds, E.R. Proclus' Elements of Theology. Trans. Thomas Taylor. Westbury, Wiltshire: The Prometheus Trust, 1994.
Oguejiofor, J. Obi. The Philosophical Significance of Immortality in Thomas Aquinas. Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2001.
LS100 SYNTHESIS2 (09 2012) :A
All the tasks that we have gone through in LS100 have taught me a lot with regard group work, especially group work with no connection to academic research of which such tasks have been very mechanical in college life. Before attending the class, I have always hated group work because I felt it was too complicated to work with different people. In the long run, I have grown to appreciate working with other people through the different activities the class exposed us to, not because it has become less complicated but because I now understand org behaviour better. By working with different groups, I have come to learn how greatly the personalities of people differ. For instance, when I was still working with Clique, I became acquainted with my own and my group mates’ personalities and what moved us to work. I learned that I was an owl and that no matter how much I wanted that everyone in our group also be the same, it would not be possible. However, even if I was hesitant to work with people whose personalities differ from mine, there came good results out of our differences. On one hand, our diversity created friction between us; on the other hand it enabled us to establish balance within our group. I further saw how diversity was important when I became part of Infinity. Infinity Corporation consisted of both sexes as opposed to our all girl group in Clique, and this enabled us to contribute vastly different ideas to help our corporation do well. I also found the importance of proper motivation. Each person I have worked with in LS100 responded to different tasks differently and therefore found different motivators. However I think it is safe to say that one common motivator we were all subject to was the negative extrinsic motivator as caused by such fears like getting F’s for the tasks or “losing face”. But I think it was helpful that we were constantly negative-extrinsically motivated, because in the long run even if we still could not be totally indifferent about it, most of us started learning how to become unaffected and started looking for motivations intrinsically.
Aside from personality and motivation, our performance was greatly affected by the familiarity within the group. For instance Quota Corporation’s members who have been working together since their freshman years definitely had an edge against the other groups in our class. I believe that Quota sped towards becoming a high performing team even during the first few tasks. The problem with forming teams is that there is still a “testing of waters” which usually led to passive conformity to people who had strong opinions. This is why a good leader is important in all groups but most importantly in groups which are not yet high performing.
I have also come to learn that good leaders come in different packages. The president of Clique was very autocratic while the president of Infinity was very participative, yet both proved to be adequate leaders adjusting to different situations.
Apart from the various tasks that we went through, it was timely that I was also working part time in ENLI during the duration of LS100 as I have been associating my learning in class and the tasks to the happenings in the office and this resulted to my further appreciation for the course. When I heard a casual conversation between the manager and the boss of ENLI, I immediately remembered the class session wherein we were being asked what kind of leadership qualities our presidents had, and what made us follow and respect them. The boss was asking the manager why people followed him (the manager) and not him (the boss). The manager jokingly answered that that was the difference between being a boss and a leader. Apart from lesson about leadership I have also become more aware about the reasons behind the misunderstandings in the office. All in all, I found that the experiences within our class corporations were but a little different from those in the “outside world”. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience it hands-on.
Aside from personality and motivation, our performance was greatly affected by the familiarity within the group. For instance Quota Corporation’s members who have been working together since their freshman years definitely had an edge against the other groups in our class. I believe that Quota sped towards becoming a high performing team even during the first few tasks. The problem with forming teams is that there is still a “testing of waters” which usually led to passive conformity to people who had strong opinions. This is why a good leader is important in all groups but most importantly in groups which are not yet high performing.
I have also come to learn that good leaders come in different packages. The president of Clique was very autocratic while the president of Infinity was very participative, yet both proved to be adequate leaders adjusting to different situations.
Apart from the various tasks that we went through, it was timely that I was also working part time in ENLI during the duration of LS100 as I have been associating my learning in class and the tasks to the happenings in the office and this resulted to my further appreciation for the course. When I heard a casual conversation between the manager and the boss of ENLI, I immediately remembered the class session wherein we were being asked what kind of leadership qualities our presidents had, and what made us follow and respect them. The boss was asking the manager why people followed him (the manager) and not him (the boss). The manager jokingly answered that that was the difference between being a boss and a leader. Apart from lesson about leadership I have also become more aware about the reasons behind the misunderstandings in the office. All in all, I found that the experiences within our class corporations were but a little different from those in the “outside world”. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience it hands-on.
LS100 SYNTHESIS1 (08 2012) :B
On the first activity, we were tasked to create a corporation and define its missions and strategies. We decided that the name of our group be Clique Corporation. Seeing examples of missions of successful companies such as The Coca Cola Company, we saw how important proper wording would be to implant on the customers a good idea about a corporation. We wanted to design our mission and strategies for a broad scope of products, since this will allow us to become flexible to whatever product we will plan to make. At some point our corporation even leaned to becoming service oriented. However, for convenience and in order to provide boundaries for our goals, we decided to base our mission and strategy on products that will “improve” people’s lives such as cosmetics. However, throughout the different tasks, our product focus changed.
During this activity we also assigned each member to in a specific subgroup. It was important that each member’s roles were defined because the kind of tasks LS100 presented to us had far more dimensions as opposed to tasks of research writing. However at that time, we still had no idea about each others’ strengths and, at some point, even our own strengths when it came to working with the specific group. Because of this, even as we had different roles, we sometimes ended up doing another group member’s job. It was a good thing that the positions in the subgroups did not have closed ends. This allowed us to become more flexible. Eventually when we learned more about each others’ strengths and weaknesses, and changed respective roles in order to maximize the group’s productivity.
On the lesson about Birds of Different Feathers, the corresponding task was to make a Call Me OB music video. Before the task, based on past experiences, I already knew that I was not a peacock and during the task, I found out that I was half owl and half dove. It was important for me to maintain good relations with the other members of the group. I found that I was fond of considering others’ ideas by listening and analyzing it with them. I also realized how hard it was to work with other people with different personalities especially when I had to be closely and actively involved with them in the group. For instance I found it a bit hard at first to work with our president because she put her ideas before others’ feelings. During this task it was also evident that we were still in the storming stage, because we were reluctant in contradicting other people’s ideas.
When we had our first grill, everyone from our group was caught off guard. During that grill and in succeeding grills, only our president seemed to have voiced out her opinions. This may well show her character as a hawk or peacock.
The lesson on motivation was accompanied with the task of creating and selling our own product which we chose to be yema. Our goal which was to win the task became our motive; however we also had both a positive extrinsic and negative intrinsic motives. Our positive extrinsic motive was to prove ourselves to the other groups as a result of our previous mishap with the Call Me OB video, and the negative extrinsic motive was not to lose the profit that we earned. I am sure these two other motives had negative effects on our performance for that task, but thankfully our positive intrinsic motive won over them.
I also realized that I had low ability in being a production member for that particular task. However I did not resign to a defense mechanism instead I focused my energy on different things. This was the time I found out that I had a potential to be a peacock because instead of sulking about how I could not help in production, I became aggressive in marketing.
Before we had our third task, we were given an in-class challenge of constructing a durable and aesthetically pleasing “bridge”. We won the challenge and at that time I felt the confidence in my group. At that moment it felt as if we were a high performing team. However, our loss in task afterwards just shows how team performance can vary depending on different situations.
The most recent lesson we had was about stages of team development, which was accompanied by a task of creating ornaments. During this task, I believe we were already in between storming and norming stage however traces of the forming stage were still evident. For instance I felt how a lot of us, myself included, still had hidden agendas of wanting recognition for our work because of the forced ranking. I also sensed how each member still felt the need to avoid conflict with other members especially during deciding what our product for this particular task would be. I could say that we were starting to voice out our own opinions, but for this particular task, because most of the members of the group were not available during the planning session and because of lack of time, voting was disregarded and the president’s decision was followed. Instead of opposing the idea, the group just decided to become open minded and make the best out of what we had. During the whole process of constructing the ornament for our task, I saw how the members of our group were already comfortable working with each other. Our strengths and weaknesses were already defined and we knew how to support each others’ efforts.
Based on our results in the last task, although it is hard to admit, it is evident that we aren’t a high performing team and it would seem like Quota Corporation would fit this title best among all other groups. Although our group had a shared sense of purpose and results, our abilities were not good enough and our collaboration not firm enough, resulting to a loss and the disbanding of our group. We were devastated because the sense of loss was overpowering. I think most of us did not want to look back on what happened therefore keeping us from having a closure. However, we know that sooner or later we will have to face it in order for us to move on.
With regard to the grilling sessions, I realized how passive our group seemed to be. We tried our best to be unnoticed by the griller. Some of us think that this lack of defense might be one of the reasons of our loss however obviously no one took a stand. By the third grilling session even our president, who at first was responding aggressively to the griller, laid low. Our attitudes during grilling session might mean a lot of things. It might show that not many of us were “talkers”, or that we were simply terrified by the griller, or it could have been a mild case of defense mechanism where we did not have enough confidence to speak up because of some controversial situations that happened. Nevertheless, being placed in new groups I hope that we will find our confidence again.
During this activity we also assigned each member to in a specific subgroup. It was important that each member’s roles were defined because the kind of tasks LS100 presented to us had far more dimensions as opposed to tasks of research writing. However at that time, we still had no idea about each others’ strengths and, at some point, even our own strengths when it came to working with the specific group. Because of this, even as we had different roles, we sometimes ended up doing another group member’s job. It was a good thing that the positions in the subgroups did not have closed ends. This allowed us to become more flexible. Eventually when we learned more about each others’ strengths and weaknesses, and changed respective roles in order to maximize the group’s productivity.
On the lesson about Birds of Different Feathers, the corresponding task was to make a Call Me OB music video. Before the task, based on past experiences, I already knew that I was not a peacock and during the task, I found out that I was half owl and half dove. It was important for me to maintain good relations with the other members of the group. I found that I was fond of considering others’ ideas by listening and analyzing it with them. I also realized how hard it was to work with other people with different personalities especially when I had to be closely and actively involved with them in the group. For instance I found it a bit hard at first to work with our president because she put her ideas before others’ feelings. During this task it was also evident that we were still in the storming stage, because we were reluctant in contradicting other people’s ideas.
When we had our first grill, everyone from our group was caught off guard. During that grill and in succeeding grills, only our president seemed to have voiced out her opinions. This may well show her character as a hawk or peacock.
The lesson on motivation was accompanied with the task of creating and selling our own product which we chose to be yema. Our goal which was to win the task became our motive; however we also had both a positive extrinsic and negative intrinsic motives. Our positive extrinsic motive was to prove ourselves to the other groups as a result of our previous mishap with the Call Me OB video, and the negative extrinsic motive was not to lose the profit that we earned. I am sure these two other motives had negative effects on our performance for that task, but thankfully our positive intrinsic motive won over them.
I also realized that I had low ability in being a production member for that particular task. However I did not resign to a defense mechanism instead I focused my energy on different things. This was the time I found out that I had a potential to be a peacock because instead of sulking about how I could not help in production, I became aggressive in marketing.
Before we had our third task, we were given an in-class challenge of constructing a durable and aesthetically pleasing “bridge”. We won the challenge and at that time I felt the confidence in my group. At that moment it felt as if we were a high performing team. However, our loss in task afterwards just shows how team performance can vary depending on different situations.
The most recent lesson we had was about stages of team development, which was accompanied by a task of creating ornaments. During this task, I believe we were already in between storming and norming stage however traces of the forming stage were still evident. For instance I felt how a lot of us, myself included, still had hidden agendas of wanting recognition for our work because of the forced ranking. I also sensed how each member still felt the need to avoid conflict with other members especially during deciding what our product for this particular task would be. I could say that we were starting to voice out our own opinions, but for this particular task, because most of the members of the group were not available during the planning session and because of lack of time, voting was disregarded and the president’s decision was followed. Instead of opposing the idea, the group just decided to become open minded and make the best out of what we had. During the whole process of constructing the ornament for our task, I saw how the members of our group were already comfortable working with each other. Our strengths and weaknesses were already defined and we knew how to support each others’ efforts.
Based on our results in the last task, although it is hard to admit, it is evident that we aren’t a high performing team and it would seem like Quota Corporation would fit this title best among all other groups. Although our group had a shared sense of purpose and results, our abilities were not good enough and our collaboration not firm enough, resulting to a loss and the disbanding of our group. We were devastated because the sense of loss was overpowering. I think most of us did not want to look back on what happened therefore keeping us from having a closure. However, we know that sooner or later we will have to face it in order for us to move on.
With regard to the grilling sessions, I realized how passive our group seemed to be. We tried our best to be unnoticed by the griller. Some of us think that this lack of defense might be one of the reasons of our loss however obviously no one took a stand. By the third grilling session even our president, who at first was responding aggressively to the griller, laid low. Our attitudes during grilling session might mean a lot of things. It might show that not many of us were “talkers”, or that we were simply terrified by the griller, or it could have been a mild case of defense mechanism where we did not have enough confidence to speak up because of some controversial situations that happened. Nevertheless, being placed in new groups I hope that we will find our confidence again.
Leadership (09 2012)
At the beginning of the talk, the speaker, Mrs. Matec Villanueva, made a rough, statistical analysis of all who attended her talk. She said that throughout the years that she has been speaking about leadership to students, only 15% of them actually wanted to be in that talk and thus were the ones who had strong tendencies to become leaders. The remaining 85% then were probably just “happy followers”. I was disturbed by this statement because personally, I really did not think much about the lecture; I even forgot what the lecture was about until I saw the title slide.
At first thought, being a follower seemed to be really bad as compared to being a leader because a follower is just like a commoner, nothing special, and nothing important. It was relieving though that Mrs. Matec qualified her statement. She spoke largely about the importance of the symbiotic relationship between a leader and its followers. She also mentioned that an organization only becomes strong when it composes of both good leaders and good followers. Finally she says that leaders and followers mirror each other and this is mostly because in order for their organization to be strong, they must have the same goal and values. In short, she was saying that followers are as equally vital to any organization as their leaders and to be either is not fate nor does it mean lack of competence (although sometimes it is). Being either a follower or a leader is ultimately a choice one makes.
Mrs. Matec also enumerated three qualities of a good leader (and follower) which are being able to get things done, being able to communicate well and being driven by goals and values. These qualities reminded me of all the leadership styles we have learned in class. A leader who is focused on getting things done sounded a lot like a directive leader while good communicators reminded me of a combination of affiliative, participative and coaching qualities in a leader.
Even if Mrs. Matec did not explicitly mention anything about “over-doing” leadership, she made clear that a leader must be conscious about his performance and acknowledge what he can or cannot do. This reminds me of our previous tasks wherein we had to look for the strengths and weakness of each member. For example in the Brutally Prank’d task, although the leader was responsible for looking over everything that was happening, the different skills and talents of the members came into play from the planning stage to the stage of execution. The leader was not being an autocrat but instead was being both affiliative and a pace setter. That is, acknowledging that he was not an expert in everything the task required, he did not hog all the space but made room for flexibility.
Overall, good leadership is not a preformatted thing. It well depends on the situation being faced. What can guarantee good leadership, and also good “following” then is an attitude that is ultimately goal driven. When each member of an organization makes sure that he has the goal of the organization in mind, then internal problems could be lessened and performance then would be enhanced.
At first thought, being a follower seemed to be really bad as compared to being a leader because a follower is just like a commoner, nothing special, and nothing important. It was relieving though that Mrs. Matec qualified her statement. She spoke largely about the importance of the symbiotic relationship between a leader and its followers. She also mentioned that an organization only becomes strong when it composes of both good leaders and good followers. Finally she says that leaders and followers mirror each other and this is mostly because in order for their organization to be strong, they must have the same goal and values. In short, she was saying that followers are as equally vital to any organization as their leaders and to be either is not fate nor does it mean lack of competence (although sometimes it is). Being either a follower or a leader is ultimately a choice one makes.
Mrs. Matec also enumerated three qualities of a good leader (and follower) which are being able to get things done, being able to communicate well and being driven by goals and values. These qualities reminded me of all the leadership styles we have learned in class. A leader who is focused on getting things done sounded a lot like a directive leader while good communicators reminded me of a combination of affiliative, participative and coaching qualities in a leader.
Even if Mrs. Matec did not explicitly mention anything about “over-doing” leadership, she made clear that a leader must be conscious about his performance and acknowledge what he can or cannot do. This reminds me of our previous tasks wherein we had to look for the strengths and weakness of each member. For example in the Brutally Prank’d task, although the leader was responsible for looking over everything that was happening, the different skills and talents of the members came into play from the planning stage to the stage of execution. The leader was not being an autocrat but instead was being both affiliative and a pace setter. That is, acknowledging that he was not an expert in everything the task required, he did not hog all the space but made room for flexibility.
Overall, good leadership is not a preformatted thing. It well depends on the situation being faced. What can guarantee good leadership, and also good “following” then is an attitude that is ultimately goal driven. When each member of an organization makes sure that he has the goal of the organization in mind, then internal problems could be lessened and performance then would be enhanced.
Mitigate and Adapt
According to the speaker, Mr. William Padolina, there are two universal trends: Temperature will rise and there will be severe climate extremes. One of the factors that cause these universal trends is that of the growing population. While it is true that the population is not the direct cause of climate change, it certainly promotes the advocacy of climate change. The human population is the main cause of source use and because of the increase of it, we lose biodiversity, gain weather extremes, worsen the condition of agriculture, etc. People are either unaware or unconcerned of the fact that to produce from nature is to change nature itself. It is definitely indeed difficult to find a pristine place, if there is, in the world today.
The problem is that the greater the population becomes, the greater there demands become and consequently the lesser the supply is. This eventually results to too much “harvesting” that causes loss of topsoil or drought. There is just not enough supply to sustain the continually growing population.
The concern now is that we should learn to face these problems as efficiently as possible. Best solutions include mitigation and adaptation. We need to enhance what we have now and make sure that we are prepared for the future. One cliché attitude that people throughout centuries should change is that of trying to change things when it is already too late. If our ancestors considered preventive measures regarding nature degradation in the past, the earth’s condition would have not been as poor as it is now. In relation to the article found in our book, Stellar Origin Human Ways, there is a big difference between “multiplying” as it is said in the Bible, and “multiplying” irresponsibly.
On the other hand, adaptation is also a valuable step to facing the earth’s current trouble effectively. Some adaptation measures lies in the maximization of the generation’s knowledge in science. The speaker mentioned a lot of “omics” that can help alleviate the effects of climate change. Genomics is one the many solutions. It can be used for breeding program accelerations by allowing the generation of superior varieties of crops. Looking into some of these many solutions, it is true that there are actually some if not many things we can do to help our environment, sometimes what we need is the initiative to act on it.
The problem is that the greater the population becomes, the greater there demands become and consequently the lesser the supply is. This eventually results to too much “harvesting” that causes loss of topsoil or drought. There is just not enough supply to sustain the continually growing population.
The concern now is that we should learn to face these problems as efficiently as possible. Best solutions include mitigation and adaptation. We need to enhance what we have now and make sure that we are prepared for the future. One cliché attitude that people throughout centuries should change is that of trying to change things when it is already too late. If our ancestors considered preventive measures regarding nature degradation in the past, the earth’s condition would have not been as poor as it is now. In relation to the article found in our book, Stellar Origin Human Ways, there is a big difference between “multiplying” as it is said in the Bible, and “multiplying” irresponsibly.
On the other hand, adaptation is also a valuable step to facing the earth’s current trouble effectively. Some adaptation measures lies in the maximization of the generation’s knowledge in science. The speaker mentioned a lot of “omics” that can help alleviate the effects of climate change. Genomics is one the many solutions. It can be used for breeding program accelerations by allowing the generation of superior varieties of crops. Looking into some of these many solutions, it is true that there are actually some if not many things we can do to help our environment, sometimes what we need is the initiative to act on it.
Experimenter’s (Interviewer’s) Effect
At the beginning of the experiment, we were shown a video briefing us on the experiment we were about to go through. I personally found the way the instruction was imparted amusing because of the Tag-lish language the experimenters used. The experimenters were wearing professional clothes, thus at first I thought that the konyo Atenean lingo simply slipped out of their tongues, however, the odd language continued and grew increasingly as the experiment went on.
The experiment called for us to answer a survey consisting of some attitude and behaviour related questions. It was suppose to elicit a response of just a slight increase on our social desirability bias upon answering because the experimenters were wearing professional clothes but were speaking in Tag-lish.
I actually did not perform social desirability bias on the survey because the effect of the odd language used to instruct us had a greater impression on me compared to the professional clothes the experimenters wore.
In addition to that, the experimenters decided to perform the experiment in our classroom. The setting therefore probably lessened the uncomfortable feeling and increased the casualness in answering the questions.
The experiment called for us to answer a survey consisting of some attitude and behaviour related questions. It was suppose to elicit a response of just a slight increase on our social desirability bias upon answering because the experimenters were wearing professional clothes but were speaking in Tag-lish.
I actually did not perform social desirability bias on the survey because the effect of the odd language used to instruct us had a greater impression on me compared to the professional clothes the experimenters wore.
In addition to that, the experimenters decided to perform the experiment in our classroom. The setting therefore probably lessened the uncomfortable feeling and increased the casualness in answering the questions.
Constructive Comparison
In the final experiment that I took, I was asked to put together three sets of Tangram within the span of five minutes. Obviously, the objective of the experiment was to test if the time pressure affected the participants’ logic skills. This experiment was similar to the one I took last September 14. The main differences were: we were pressed for time and I found the task of assembling the Tangram quite difficult.
I must admit that the experiment did not actually work on me as expected because I was not really affected by the time pressure. What I was more concerned about was the fact that my seat mate was assembling the same Tangram very well while I was not making any progress with it. Even if I was not able to use the main element of the experiment, which was time pressure, to determine its effects on my logic skills, I was contrariwise acquainted with my attitude towards other people’s successes. I was able to confirm that I had the tendency to obsessively compare my work from other people’s work and that most of the time it affected me and my performance in a negative way.
I know that changing this attitude is easier said than done. Therefore, although I will still gradually condition myself to let go of the attitude, for the meantime, I will use it to my advantage. I will use constructive comparison whenever I will feel like comparing my work with others. Instead of insecurity for my own work, I will gather inspiration from the works of others. After all, I believe this is how most masterpieces have come to life.
I must admit that the experiment did not actually work on me as expected because I was not really affected by the time pressure. What I was more concerned about was the fact that my seat mate was assembling the same Tangram very well while I was not making any progress with it. Even if I was not able to use the main element of the experiment, which was time pressure, to determine its effects on my logic skills, I was contrariwise acquainted with my attitude towards other people’s successes. I was able to confirm that I had the tendency to obsessively compare my work from other people’s work and that most of the time it affected me and my performance in a negative way.
I know that changing this attitude is easier said than done. Therefore, although I will still gradually condition myself to let go of the attitude, for the meantime, I will use it to my advantage. I will use constructive comparison whenever I will feel like comparing my work with others. Instead of insecurity for my own work, I will gather inspiration from the works of others. After all, I believe this is how most masterpieces have come to life.
The Power of Suggestion
The experiment I underwent leaned towards focusing on a person’s outlook on life and how suggestions can alter it. During the experiment, a bunch of words were shown to me through a computer screen and I was to rate and comment on the last word that flashed in the screen as to whether it provided me with a good or bad memory.
As explained by the experimenter, typically an “experimentee” was expected to release happy thoughts in the presence of words such as “peace, hugs, lollipop, giggles”, but instead of happy thoughts, I was overcome by a sad feeling when I saw the final word on the screen which was “freedom”.
Since my early high school days, I have always had the impression that life would have been a lot better if it were care free. I always felt like I was trapped in the middle of mountains of responsibilities and this in turn hindered me from enjoying my life in general. Now, even as I realize that the responsibilities should instead serve as a challenge to inspire me in life, the impression of being trapped in them still remains. This impression manifested on how I perceived the word “freedom” in the experiment I participated in. Even though happy words were presented to me before I was to encounter the final word “freedom”, the overarching negativity of the word still prevailed. The idea of freedom has already imprinted a negative impression in me for such a long time that it probably would have taken more than suggestions of happiness to entirely change my perception on the idea. This goes to prove the fact that not all psychological concepts apply to everyone, everytime.
I would like to add that the concept of state dependent memory did not prove true to me in this experiment as well. Even though I felt very positive during the experiment, nothing stopped me from remembering the negative thought that was previously associated with the idea of freedom. I believe though, that with the help of hypnosis and other psychological techniques, I would eventually get over the negative impression I have built on the idea.
As explained by the experimenter, typically an “experimentee” was expected to release happy thoughts in the presence of words such as “peace, hugs, lollipop, giggles”, but instead of happy thoughts, I was overcome by a sad feeling when I saw the final word on the screen which was “freedom”.
Since my early high school days, I have always had the impression that life would have been a lot better if it were care free. I always felt like I was trapped in the middle of mountains of responsibilities and this in turn hindered me from enjoying my life in general. Now, even as I realize that the responsibilities should instead serve as a challenge to inspire me in life, the impression of being trapped in them still remains. This impression manifested on how I perceived the word “freedom” in the experiment I participated in. Even though happy words were presented to me before I was to encounter the final word “freedom”, the overarching negativity of the word still prevailed. The idea of freedom has already imprinted a negative impression in me for such a long time that it probably would have taken more than suggestions of happiness to entirely change my perception on the idea. This goes to prove the fact that not all psychological concepts apply to everyone, everytime.
I would like to add that the concept of state dependent memory did not prove true to me in this experiment as well. Even though I felt very positive during the experiment, nothing stopped me from remembering the negative thought that was previously associated with the idea of freedom. I believe though, that with the help of hypnosis and other psychological techniques, I would eventually get over the negative impression I have built on the idea.
Stress (and Time) Management
Stress – This is one thing the average Atenean can do without. On my second year of studying in the Ateneo, stress has been like my best friend. Coming from a high school where I was pampered and spoon-fed with all the knowledge that I needed to pass secondary education, being in Ateneo really opened up a part of me which I never knew to be there – the part that knew how to handle stress.
For the past year, I have been able to observe myself and my attitude towards things that did not necessarily go the way I wanted them to. I realized that I really had a hard time to work under pressure and needed to do something about it. This is why I started a program for myself to follow: the mirror program. I used this program whenever I needed to deal with new people with various personalities that did not reach my expectations when it came to org works or group efforts in different classes. I came to see that most of the time, it was not always other people’s fault and that I had to evaluate myself too. Along with it, I included time management as a complement to my stress management program. These two programs have certainly helped me cope with my academics and org works inside and outside Ateneo for the past year.
Unfortunately, I have gradually forgotten about my management programs in the arrival of school year 2011. After the short yet simple psychological experiment I took awhile ago, I was reminded of the factors missing as to why I could not seem to piece myself together this year.
The experiment was a test on stress management. Prior to the exam, the proctor did not reveal the purpose of the test but stated that the results of the exam would be published in the Guidon. The test consisted of simple but many mathematical problems. Because we were not pressed for time, I leisurely answered the equations and because of this, I ended up finishing only half of the test.
After we passed our papers, I asked my friend how she faired in the exam; she said that she had along only 5 items left to answer. That was when I suddenly realized that if only I took the test seriously from the beginning, I could have finished it in no time. This was exactly what was happening to me in real life. I was being preoccupied with watching telenovelas and playing new Facebook games that I thought I did not have time to study anymore while the truth was that I just did not want to face the stress of academics anymore. Given this realization, I now resolve to do my best to resume my management programs in order to continue the good habit I have developed last year.
For the past year, I have been able to observe myself and my attitude towards things that did not necessarily go the way I wanted them to. I realized that I really had a hard time to work under pressure and needed to do something about it. This is why I started a program for myself to follow: the mirror program. I used this program whenever I needed to deal with new people with various personalities that did not reach my expectations when it came to org works or group efforts in different classes. I came to see that most of the time, it was not always other people’s fault and that I had to evaluate myself too. Along with it, I included time management as a complement to my stress management program. These two programs have certainly helped me cope with my academics and org works inside and outside Ateneo for the past year.
Unfortunately, I have gradually forgotten about my management programs in the arrival of school year 2011. After the short yet simple psychological experiment I took awhile ago, I was reminded of the factors missing as to why I could not seem to piece myself together this year.
The experiment was a test on stress management. Prior to the exam, the proctor did not reveal the purpose of the test but stated that the results of the exam would be published in the Guidon. The test consisted of simple but many mathematical problems. Because we were not pressed for time, I leisurely answered the equations and because of this, I ended up finishing only half of the test.
After we passed our papers, I asked my friend how she faired in the exam; she said that she had along only 5 items left to answer. That was when I suddenly realized that if only I took the test seriously from the beginning, I could have finished it in no time. This was exactly what was happening to me in real life. I was being preoccupied with watching telenovelas and playing new Facebook games that I thought I did not have time to study anymore while the truth was that I just did not want to face the stress of academics anymore. Given this realization, I now resolve to do my best to resume my management programs in order to continue the good habit I have developed last year.
Analysis of a Loved One’s Psychological Behaviour
My brother is 28 years old and is currently working as a registered nurse in Chinese General Hospital. I chose him as a subject for my psychological analysis reflection paper because he is one of the few people i know with very eccentric personalities. We are the only two offsprings in the family, but we are not so fond of each other. some people might say it is because of the age gap because we are 11 years apart,i believe though that even if age may be a relative reason as to why we don’t like each other that much, it probably is not the only reason. We used to be close, but that was back then when i was younger.
A few words to describe the worse side of my brother would be: immature, careless and temperamental. These are some of the things i really dislike about him but at the same time would like to look deeper into just to understand what makes him like that.
Immaturity: Not long ago, when i came back home from an out-of-town outing, our maids would again report to me some of my brother’s “nakaka-iritang” behaviours as they phrased it. They said that the moment i left the house, my brother would start doing baby talk towards my mom. He is 5’7 tall and around 220lbs heavy so one can just imagine how out of character he was. The first time i heard about it, i was extremely irritated of his acts of immaturity because for crying out loud, he was actually old enough to be a father! but when i repeatedly heard it from our maids, i soon found it amusing and even asked them to secretly record my brother in action, just for a few laughs at the expense of his silliness (i know, that was quite evil). I’ve thought of different reasons as to why he acted like so; it might have been because i was born 11 years after he was, and he lived quite a long time as an only child and he probably was used to getting all the attention before i came along. It might also have been because, as my mom would tell me, he did not really get to enjoy his youth as much as other kids because both our parents were always too busy with work. The psychodynamic theory might be applicable to this because his behaviour might have been causes of early childhood experiences which did not allow him to develop enough of a sense of self to act maturely. The behavioural theory and cognitive theory can also be valid concepts because it could be that he was conditioned to be the “baby” for 11 long years and was forced to suddenly grow up when he became the big brother, and he has most likely not yet forgotten how nice it felt to be the center of the family’s attraction.
Slovenliness: another word that would better describe him would be his slovenliness. I remember my mom complaining about how my brother acts like a barbarian. This was because he was so burara with almost everything he did. In the kitchen, the comfort room, the living room or his own room; you name it, and he probably left his slovenliness there somewhere. I once compared him to a snake that sheds, because snakes left their skin where they shed and he was exactly like that. He would leave his shoes in the middle of the way, his shirt on of the sofa, his wallet above the dining table –the list goes on and on. Both of my parents were neat freaks even back then so my brother couldn’t have possibly imitated them. So i guess his uncouth behaviour could be genetic, thus two theories might be appropriate for this. The first is bio psychological and the next is the humanistic approach. His actions could be potentially effects of the bio psychological concept because there might have been an ancestor who carried the same “messy bessy” traits, and the latter because growing up in a community where neatness was strictly implemented (which he dutifully NOT followed), his surroundings could not have propped him up to act in such a way. This then would be the total opposite of the sociocultural concept because the environment did not have an effect whatsoever to his behaviour.
Temperamental: this one i understand but don’t necessarily accept. High blood pressure has been passed on generations to generations in my father’s side of the family. Most of my relatives died of stroke caused by high blood pressure, which includes my father himself. I personally have noticed myself to be too hot headed at times but i take drastic measures to control my temper and stress levels such as conditioning myself to feel distressed whenever i take in big breaths, sniff some “white flower”, or even force a smile on my face (the stretch is actually very relaxing). My brother, on the other hand quickly loses himself in his temper. We have one car and he is the only one in the family who knows how to drive, which is why i never really get to ride our car. It’s not because he hogs the car all to himself, he actually often offers to give us rides whenever he has free time; it is just because whenever we ride the car he drives, our heart rate gallops. He honks the car like there is no tomorrow, and what’s worse is that he honks at most inappropriate circumstances, such as when there is a traffic jam and when jeeps would halt to pick up waving passengers. I think it is safe to conclude that one of his hobbies is to challenge other people to riots, I guess he gets adrenaline rush from it. As i have said, this temperamental disposition in no doubt genetically run in our blood, but i firmly believe that a person should not be enslaved by these things. Going back, this behaviour is another example for the bio psychological theory. At the same time this could be an example of the evolutionary perspective or even a total opposite of it. It could have been an evolutionary behaviour because one has to be a fighter to get through life, on the other hand it can be actually destructive because those who subject themselves to conflicts are more likely to engage in hostilities and actually endanger their lives.
A few words to describe the worse side of my brother would be: immature, careless and temperamental. These are some of the things i really dislike about him but at the same time would like to look deeper into just to understand what makes him like that.
Immaturity: Not long ago, when i came back home from an out-of-town outing, our maids would again report to me some of my brother’s “nakaka-iritang” behaviours as they phrased it. They said that the moment i left the house, my brother would start doing baby talk towards my mom. He is 5’7 tall and around 220lbs heavy so one can just imagine how out of character he was. The first time i heard about it, i was extremely irritated of his acts of immaturity because for crying out loud, he was actually old enough to be a father! but when i repeatedly heard it from our maids, i soon found it amusing and even asked them to secretly record my brother in action, just for a few laughs at the expense of his silliness (i know, that was quite evil). I’ve thought of different reasons as to why he acted like so; it might have been because i was born 11 years after he was, and he lived quite a long time as an only child and he probably was used to getting all the attention before i came along. It might also have been because, as my mom would tell me, he did not really get to enjoy his youth as much as other kids because both our parents were always too busy with work. The psychodynamic theory might be applicable to this because his behaviour might have been causes of early childhood experiences which did not allow him to develop enough of a sense of self to act maturely. The behavioural theory and cognitive theory can also be valid concepts because it could be that he was conditioned to be the “baby” for 11 long years and was forced to suddenly grow up when he became the big brother, and he has most likely not yet forgotten how nice it felt to be the center of the family’s attraction.
Slovenliness: another word that would better describe him would be his slovenliness. I remember my mom complaining about how my brother acts like a barbarian. This was because he was so burara with almost everything he did. In the kitchen, the comfort room, the living room or his own room; you name it, and he probably left his slovenliness there somewhere. I once compared him to a snake that sheds, because snakes left their skin where they shed and he was exactly like that. He would leave his shoes in the middle of the way, his shirt on of the sofa, his wallet above the dining table –the list goes on and on. Both of my parents were neat freaks even back then so my brother couldn’t have possibly imitated them. So i guess his uncouth behaviour could be genetic, thus two theories might be appropriate for this. The first is bio psychological and the next is the humanistic approach. His actions could be potentially effects of the bio psychological concept because there might have been an ancestor who carried the same “messy bessy” traits, and the latter because growing up in a community where neatness was strictly implemented (which he dutifully NOT followed), his surroundings could not have propped him up to act in such a way. This then would be the total opposite of the sociocultural concept because the environment did not have an effect whatsoever to his behaviour.
Temperamental: this one i understand but don’t necessarily accept. High blood pressure has been passed on generations to generations in my father’s side of the family. Most of my relatives died of stroke caused by high blood pressure, which includes my father himself. I personally have noticed myself to be too hot headed at times but i take drastic measures to control my temper and stress levels such as conditioning myself to feel distressed whenever i take in big breaths, sniff some “white flower”, or even force a smile on my face (the stretch is actually very relaxing). My brother, on the other hand quickly loses himself in his temper. We have one car and he is the only one in the family who knows how to drive, which is why i never really get to ride our car. It’s not because he hogs the car all to himself, he actually often offers to give us rides whenever he has free time; it is just because whenever we ride the car he drives, our heart rate gallops. He honks the car like there is no tomorrow, and what’s worse is that he honks at most inappropriate circumstances, such as when there is a traffic jam and when jeeps would halt to pick up waving passengers. I think it is safe to conclude that one of his hobbies is to challenge other people to riots, I guess he gets adrenaline rush from it. As i have said, this temperamental disposition in no doubt genetically run in our blood, but i firmly believe that a person should not be enslaved by these things. Going back, this behaviour is another example for the bio psychological theory. At the same time this could be an example of the evolutionary perspective or even a total opposite of it. It could have been an evolutionary behaviour because one has to be a fighter to get through life, on the other hand it can be actually destructive because those who subject themselves to conflicts are more likely to engage in hostilities and actually endanger their lives.
Entrepreneurship for God and for Others
When we hear about Dr. Jose Rizal, the usual impression that comes to our mind is that of a martyr, a literary genius, a hero. Seldom, if not never, have we recognize him as the genius of a businessman he really is. Rizal has inspired us in so many ways and in so many fields yet here we discover that he can further inspire us in the field of business as well. How Rizal used his skills in business is different from how most businessmen of our day do, and this is commendable to say at the least.
Instead of mere entrepreneurship, Rizal practiced social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship is defined in many ways: Creating sustainable businesses, spreading opportunities of livelihood for less fortunate individuals, working with economically yet environmentally sound business ventures, etc.
Today, Rizal would want us, the youth that he pertains to as the hope of the nation, to continue his legacy. As we construct the blueprints for our future businesses, we should check whether we have taken into consideration the potential domino effect our venture would impact to the world, our only market.
The idiom “The world does not revolve around us,” does not merely attribute to adolescents going through the stage of self centeredness. It actually refers to everyone of every age, especially those in the field of business. While businessmen thrive at the idea that it is human nature to play by the game of survival, it is imperative that they start considering the effects that go beyond their own sphere. Not only is this preventive of dire consequences but also does it help boost economy, thus boosting their future revenue as well. Just like how Mr. Paolo Aquino phrased it, “Business has to change for business to go on.”
As there are many other factors to consider in being an outstanding entrepreneur, the most important is to put into consideration that of being a God-fearing entrepreneur.
“Bring the full tithe into the storehouse... And thereby put me to the test, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.” – Malachi 3:10
After all, in all things we do, there is nothing we can achieve without the grace of our almighty Father. Rizal, in his time of exile, maximized what he had and what he can do, attributing his successes to God. We who are fortunate enough to not need go through what he had to go through should be no less be able to maximize ourselves to being entrepreneurs too; and not just entrepreneurs, but social entrepreneurs.
Instead of mere entrepreneurship, Rizal practiced social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship is defined in many ways: Creating sustainable businesses, spreading opportunities of livelihood for less fortunate individuals, working with economically yet environmentally sound business ventures, etc.
Today, Rizal would want us, the youth that he pertains to as the hope of the nation, to continue his legacy. As we construct the blueprints for our future businesses, we should check whether we have taken into consideration the potential domino effect our venture would impact to the world, our only market.
The idiom “The world does not revolve around us,” does not merely attribute to adolescents going through the stage of self centeredness. It actually refers to everyone of every age, especially those in the field of business. While businessmen thrive at the idea that it is human nature to play by the game of survival, it is imperative that they start considering the effects that go beyond their own sphere. Not only is this preventive of dire consequences but also does it help boost economy, thus boosting their future revenue as well. Just like how Mr. Paolo Aquino phrased it, “Business has to change for business to go on.”
As there are many other factors to consider in being an outstanding entrepreneur, the most important is to put into consideration that of being a God-fearing entrepreneur.
“Bring the full tithe into the storehouse... And thereby put me to the test, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.” – Malachi 3:10
After all, in all things we do, there is nothing we can achieve without the grace of our almighty Father. Rizal, in his time of exile, maximized what he had and what he can do, attributing his successes to God. We who are fortunate enough to not need go through what he had to go through should be no less be able to maximize ourselves to being entrepreneurs too; and not just entrepreneurs, but social entrepreneurs.
Coconuts Nuts On The Market
The seminar about “Let’s Use Our Coconuts!” was very informative. One of its main focuses was on raising awareness on how to use coconuts to its full potential. I knew most of the practical uses for coconuts such as the coconut meat used in Virgin Coconut Oil, coconut water as a refreshing juice, etc. But to our surprise, there are much more to what we know on how and where to use coconuts, therefore opening a whole new light to the marketing opportunities present.
It was discussed that the coconut tree is popularly known as the tree of life, and was famous as cocoanut palm before and its fruit, cocoanut before it was called a coconut. Its recognition on account, I had the impression that the coconut has been proven useful even a very long time ago. Starting from its roots up to its leaves and even until its very shell and fruit, the coconut definitely deserves to be recognized as a useful produce.
It is amazing how this fruit can generate such a huge variety of goods which are made available and sold in the market and be proven to be indeed very helpful to our daily lives. I remember Dr. Dayrit saying “you can be lost in an island and have a coconut tree, and live perfectly well.”
Out of the numerous countries that grows coconut trees, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) noted that the Philippines lead all of these countries in the production and exportation of the coconut. This should not only make the Filipino people proud but also should stir them to make the most out of this valuable resource as well.
Ms. Alice Fontecha of Philippine Coconut Authority PCA gave us an overview of the Marketing Opportunities for Coconut Products, not only applicable in the Philippines but also internationally. She rose up the fact that people these days are indeed immensely concerned about health issues, and probably because of the trends of this generation, also with functionalism.
The youth and aged alike want foods that are healthy and functional. Even as people grow in age, they still want the aspect of attractiveness and sustainability of the products they buy. These are the gaping openings where we can put effective marketing to use. It is almost general knowledge that the coconut industry is beneficial in countless ways to all consumers, therefore, whether they patronize coconut merchandise or not will rest largely on how the coconut industry markets its products.
Advertisement is a big factor on determining if your product will sell or not. According to Ms. Dina Masa, “in the food industry, or anywhere else, only 10% of the costs go into the product, the rest (90%) goes to the packaging.” Given this fact, we see the reality that no matter how great a product is, advertisement and presentation is still of vital importance.
Innovation of course is a key factor to making the products sell. It was mentioned that people these days also want products that are eco friendly but at the same time fashionable. Coconut produce obviously are eco friendly, therefore the question is how does one go about making it fashionable? Innovation, as I’ve said earlier, is the key. A large variety of products our ancestors could never have imagined have been made: detergents, watches, lotions, bags, etc. And most recently in Ateneo’s SOMBA program, the coconut noodle (c/o Le Sante).
The seminar showed us countless opportunities on starting our own coconut businesses by showing us the countless uses of coconuts itself. Because of this, I personally am looking into entering the business when I get the chance, not only because of its likelihood of profitability, but also because of the potential inexhaustibility of its produce which I also consider a major factor of importance in business.
It was discussed that the coconut tree is popularly known as the tree of life, and was famous as cocoanut palm before and its fruit, cocoanut before it was called a coconut. Its recognition on account, I had the impression that the coconut has been proven useful even a very long time ago. Starting from its roots up to its leaves and even until its very shell and fruit, the coconut definitely deserves to be recognized as a useful produce.
It is amazing how this fruit can generate such a huge variety of goods which are made available and sold in the market and be proven to be indeed very helpful to our daily lives. I remember Dr. Dayrit saying “you can be lost in an island and have a coconut tree, and live perfectly well.”
Out of the numerous countries that grows coconut trees, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) noted that the Philippines lead all of these countries in the production and exportation of the coconut. This should not only make the Filipino people proud but also should stir them to make the most out of this valuable resource as well.
Ms. Alice Fontecha of Philippine Coconut Authority PCA gave us an overview of the Marketing Opportunities for Coconut Products, not only applicable in the Philippines but also internationally. She rose up the fact that people these days are indeed immensely concerned about health issues, and probably because of the trends of this generation, also with functionalism.
The youth and aged alike want foods that are healthy and functional. Even as people grow in age, they still want the aspect of attractiveness and sustainability of the products they buy. These are the gaping openings where we can put effective marketing to use. It is almost general knowledge that the coconut industry is beneficial in countless ways to all consumers, therefore, whether they patronize coconut merchandise or not will rest largely on how the coconut industry markets its products.
Advertisement is a big factor on determining if your product will sell or not. According to Ms. Dina Masa, “in the food industry, or anywhere else, only 10% of the costs go into the product, the rest (90%) goes to the packaging.” Given this fact, we see the reality that no matter how great a product is, advertisement and presentation is still of vital importance.
Innovation of course is a key factor to making the products sell. It was mentioned that people these days also want products that are eco friendly but at the same time fashionable. Coconut produce obviously are eco friendly, therefore the question is how does one go about making it fashionable? Innovation, as I’ve said earlier, is the key. A large variety of products our ancestors could never have imagined have been made: detergents, watches, lotions, bags, etc. And most recently in Ateneo’s SOMBA program, the coconut noodle (c/o Le Sante).
The seminar showed us countless opportunities on starting our own coconut businesses by showing us the countless uses of coconuts itself. Because of this, I personally am looking into entering the business when I get the chance, not only because of its likelihood of profitability, but also because of the potential inexhaustibility of its produce which I also consider a major factor of importance in business.
Act on the Risk
Mister JJ started his talk with an illustration of the anatomy of an entrepreneur: the mind frame, heart frame, and most importantly, the gut game. Before the start of the talk, I remembered one of my professors who said in class, “Kung gusto mong gumaling, siyempre kailangang magaling ka na talaga..” upon hearing this, I was disheartened into thinking that this path that I took up, starting with a course of business management in the Ateneo might not be for me. I’m not that smart, I can’t say that I have the ability to compete with most of the members in the block I came from. I felt that I might not have what it takes to achieve the standards of Ateneo, what more as an entrepreneur?
The talk inspired me to change my mind set. The first thing that Mister JJ pointed out was that an entrepreneur had to think positively and in a different manner. He also said that to be a success, one must be passionate in trying new things, that these new things whether or not will it bring in great accomplishments should be considered as the payback. As he continued to talk, I came into the realization that in accord with the forces of changes that affect businesses globally, I too have to change the way I think to be able to succeed and be of influence.
The world is now in a stage of what we can call “fast paced phase”. We are overwhelmed by different tasks which require us to exert more effort, spend more time, and aim for more achievements. If we don’t keep up with the world and stay inside our shells, not being sensitive, we will be left behind and the changes that will surely affect us might in turn afflict us. There is continuous innovation taking place as generations progress and along with this innovation, expectations also continue to rise. Sometimes, it is expectations that stimulate people to put effort in the things they do; in our part, we have to assure that we are stimulated properly to be able to be industrial.
We have to be sensitive in seeing opportunities. Not only opportunities for change but also for improvement, opportunities to juice up ideas and use our minds to its full potential. And upon seeing these opportunities, we should act on it because indeed, we already have lots of dreamers.
Not everyone is blessed with brains that can kill so to speak, but everyone is blessed with the ability to make choices. These may be different sets of choices for different people but definitely we are given the chance to choose. My probable success in the field of business and maybe also in life is not defined by how high my QPI in the Ateneo is and will be. It is defined by the choice to act on what I have.
As Mister JJ instigates in his talk, our success is defined by how we create insights, make informed decisions, and most importantly by the decision on taking calculated risks –by acting on it.
The talk inspired me to change my mind set. The first thing that Mister JJ pointed out was that an entrepreneur had to think positively and in a different manner. He also said that to be a success, one must be passionate in trying new things, that these new things whether or not will it bring in great accomplishments should be considered as the payback. As he continued to talk, I came into the realization that in accord with the forces of changes that affect businesses globally, I too have to change the way I think to be able to succeed and be of influence.
The world is now in a stage of what we can call “fast paced phase”. We are overwhelmed by different tasks which require us to exert more effort, spend more time, and aim for more achievements. If we don’t keep up with the world and stay inside our shells, not being sensitive, we will be left behind and the changes that will surely affect us might in turn afflict us. There is continuous innovation taking place as generations progress and along with this innovation, expectations also continue to rise. Sometimes, it is expectations that stimulate people to put effort in the things they do; in our part, we have to assure that we are stimulated properly to be able to be industrial.
We have to be sensitive in seeing opportunities. Not only opportunities for change but also for improvement, opportunities to juice up ideas and use our minds to its full potential. And upon seeing these opportunities, we should act on it because indeed, we already have lots of dreamers.
Not everyone is blessed with brains that can kill so to speak, but everyone is blessed with the ability to make choices. These may be different sets of choices for different people but definitely we are given the chance to choose. My probable success in the field of business and maybe also in life is not defined by how high my QPI in the Ateneo is and will be. It is defined by the choice to act on what I have.
As Mister JJ instigates in his talk, our success is defined by how we create insights, make informed decisions, and most importantly by the decision on taking calculated risks –by acting on it.
Reflecting on the “Lost City of Shang”
Apart from the fact that I am very fond of the cheap merchandise China has been offering people around the world, I never had the interest to go into deeper understanding about their history. I am a Chinese myself, but growing up in the Philippines and specifically in Manila, did not give me a chance to experience the culture and traditions my blood brothers had, I was too immersed with the city life and was preoccupied by new age technologies to even bother with what was supposedly my ethnicity.
In my personal opinion, i think one of the goals of numerous archaeologists to discover the verified first dynasty of China is to understand how the China of today is believed to be the sleeping dragon that when awakens, will either make or break the world. That is, finding out what the foundation of such a powerful country was? Seeing the archaeological documentary about the search for China’s Shang dynasty caught me off guard. China as it turns out to be is more than a country populated with chinky-eyed people. Contrary from the impression I had, It was more than a country filled with people with business oriented minds ever since the dawn of time; China, apparently had deep and dark secrets that could only be unravelled by digging up and studying its history thoroughly.
Back in my high school, we studied about the history of different Asian countries and only surfaces of information about them were addressed, consequently an in depth study of China was never conducted. Along with this, we also had a Chinese language subject that thought us all about Chinese principles that inspired people to do better in life and poetry that showed the nation’s positive and balance oriented nature, but never the brutal killings as homage to the gods they believed in. History when studied well is indeed still full of gaps and could be misleading, what more if history is not studied properly? Literature might be a reflection of a nation’s culture but it can never be compared to cold, hard evidence from thorough research to give us a more concrete view of their lives.
The film showed different kinds of findings the archaeologists studied about; there were some irrelevant evidences and some that were ultimately significant to their search about China’s Shang dynasty. One particular evidence astonished me as to how it could have been preserved for so long – the fingerprints found on the potteries of the ancient city. No matter how trivial this discovery was in helping complete the picture of China’s earlier dynasties, I was still really amazed at what kinds of things can be left from the past.
On the other hand, one example of concrete evidence was the oracle bones found in city of Anyang as mentioned in the film. These are the kind of evidences that are potentially reliable. Potential because indeed, even though the bones date back to centuries ago, as it was discussed in our history classes, what was written there could have been prefabricated by later generations. We also cannot disregard the fact that even some accounts of history taken from these bones could have been filled with unreliable accounts written by the people of that time.
According to the film, in one of the oracle bone inscriptions was an account about the lady Fu Hao. It was said that she lead thousands of armies of soldiers into war. This account by itself goes against the belief that women did not have voices in the past. Fu Hao proved that even what was deemed impossible could be attained. When Fu Hao died, her faithful servants and soldiers were buried with her. This was because the people of their time believed that whatever a dead person has with her on her burial will be regenerated with her in the afterlife, thus the killings of numerous unfortunate people. As quoted from the film, their rituals “reached beyond religion and reason itself”. The Shang people did not value life and this could have potentially been one of the causes of their dynasty’s fall. Another example of concrete evidence would be the skulls with smoothed edges that were found and believed to have been used as drinking vessels. These were evidences of the Shang dynasty’s inhumanity –I personally don’t think I would be able to force myself to drink from the skull even of my worst enemy. But then again, are we sure that these skulls were used just for the sake that they could be used for drinking vessels, or could there be other significances as to why they used it for that purpose? For all we know they could have believed that there were medicinal benefits upon using skulls as drinking vessels. This probably is the reason why historians are not contented with just a few sources to complete a whole picture of history; an interpretation can easily go wrong. They need to fervently continue looking for sources that would back up the current evidences they have in hand.
The last ruler of the Shang dynasty was said to be the most debauched king of China. He lived a life of extreme luxury – drinking, women and all other corrupted acts. He was too intoxicated that he was not able to govern his city properly. It was even said that he set up gardens with “meat trees” and “wine pools”, for him to be able to do that, he must have been extremely plentiful. But it was true that regardless how blessed you are, if you don’t know how to manage those blessings, you will be left with nothing. When the city was about to be conquered, the Shang king burned himself down in his palace because he was too proud to allow himself to be under other’s rule.
After seeing these parts of the film, what slowly came to my mind was, “so that’s why!” That was why there were Chinese people in the present day that would deliberately include melamine in milk their own babies drank, that was why there would be rampant news about china’s cruelty to animals and that was probably why torturous killings in China is still widespread to date; it was because their ancestors were crazy enough to do things like that too. There is this idiom that says “A mango tree cannot produce bananas.” I think this is why it is important to really know where you came from, because upon knowing, you have the chance to change what has been continually wrong to what is right.
What the historians have been doing in the past centuries is certainly not easy. They had to learn about the language, the culture and the lifestyles of different nations. They had to face the dangers that foreign places and people imposed on them. And most importantly, they had to have enough courage to actually delve into what was unknown and make it known. Because apparently, learning about your origin and other’s as well is part of the important factors that help an individual grow to his full potential, it helps us make a connection to the mere ground we are standing on.
In my personal opinion, i think one of the goals of numerous archaeologists to discover the verified first dynasty of China is to understand how the China of today is believed to be the sleeping dragon that when awakens, will either make or break the world. That is, finding out what the foundation of such a powerful country was? Seeing the archaeological documentary about the search for China’s Shang dynasty caught me off guard. China as it turns out to be is more than a country populated with chinky-eyed people. Contrary from the impression I had, It was more than a country filled with people with business oriented minds ever since the dawn of time; China, apparently had deep and dark secrets that could only be unravelled by digging up and studying its history thoroughly.
Back in my high school, we studied about the history of different Asian countries and only surfaces of information about them were addressed, consequently an in depth study of China was never conducted. Along with this, we also had a Chinese language subject that thought us all about Chinese principles that inspired people to do better in life and poetry that showed the nation’s positive and balance oriented nature, but never the brutal killings as homage to the gods they believed in. History when studied well is indeed still full of gaps and could be misleading, what more if history is not studied properly? Literature might be a reflection of a nation’s culture but it can never be compared to cold, hard evidence from thorough research to give us a more concrete view of their lives.
The film showed different kinds of findings the archaeologists studied about; there were some irrelevant evidences and some that were ultimately significant to their search about China’s Shang dynasty. One particular evidence astonished me as to how it could have been preserved for so long – the fingerprints found on the potteries of the ancient city. No matter how trivial this discovery was in helping complete the picture of China’s earlier dynasties, I was still really amazed at what kinds of things can be left from the past.
On the other hand, one example of concrete evidence was the oracle bones found in city of Anyang as mentioned in the film. These are the kind of evidences that are potentially reliable. Potential because indeed, even though the bones date back to centuries ago, as it was discussed in our history classes, what was written there could have been prefabricated by later generations. We also cannot disregard the fact that even some accounts of history taken from these bones could have been filled with unreliable accounts written by the people of that time.
According to the film, in one of the oracle bone inscriptions was an account about the lady Fu Hao. It was said that she lead thousands of armies of soldiers into war. This account by itself goes against the belief that women did not have voices in the past. Fu Hao proved that even what was deemed impossible could be attained. When Fu Hao died, her faithful servants and soldiers were buried with her. This was because the people of their time believed that whatever a dead person has with her on her burial will be regenerated with her in the afterlife, thus the killings of numerous unfortunate people. As quoted from the film, their rituals “reached beyond religion and reason itself”. The Shang people did not value life and this could have potentially been one of the causes of their dynasty’s fall. Another example of concrete evidence would be the skulls with smoothed edges that were found and believed to have been used as drinking vessels. These were evidences of the Shang dynasty’s inhumanity –I personally don’t think I would be able to force myself to drink from the skull even of my worst enemy. But then again, are we sure that these skulls were used just for the sake that they could be used for drinking vessels, or could there be other significances as to why they used it for that purpose? For all we know they could have believed that there were medicinal benefits upon using skulls as drinking vessels. This probably is the reason why historians are not contented with just a few sources to complete a whole picture of history; an interpretation can easily go wrong. They need to fervently continue looking for sources that would back up the current evidences they have in hand.
The last ruler of the Shang dynasty was said to be the most debauched king of China. He lived a life of extreme luxury – drinking, women and all other corrupted acts. He was too intoxicated that he was not able to govern his city properly. It was even said that he set up gardens with “meat trees” and “wine pools”, for him to be able to do that, he must have been extremely plentiful. But it was true that regardless how blessed you are, if you don’t know how to manage those blessings, you will be left with nothing. When the city was about to be conquered, the Shang king burned himself down in his palace because he was too proud to allow himself to be under other’s rule.
After seeing these parts of the film, what slowly came to my mind was, “so that’s why!” That was why there were Chinese people in the present day that would deliberately include melamine in milk their own babies drank, that was why there would be rampant news about china’s cruelty to animals and that was probably why torturous killings in China is still widespread to date; it was because their ancestors were crazy enough to do things like that too. There is this idiom that says “A mango tree cannot produce bananas.” I think this is why it is important to really know where you came from, because upon knowing, you have the chance to change what has been continually wrong to what is right.
What the historians have been doing in the past centuries is certainly not easy. They had to learn about the language, the culture and the lifestyles of different nations. They had to face the dangers that foreign places and people imposed on them. And most importantly, they had to have enough courage to actually delve into what was unknown and make it known. Because apparently, learning about your origin and other’s as well is part of the important factors that help an individual grow to his full potential, it helps us make a connection to the mere ground we are standing on.
What Does It Take To Be A Traditional Chinese Drugstore in Binondo? (as published in Balikbayan Magazine)
All around Binondo, Chinese drugstores would be a common sight. However most of these supposedly “traditional” Chinese drugstores have been dramatically modernized. Different merchandises, irrelevant to the name, “medicine,” would be sold in these drugstores. In fact, the traditional herbs, in which these stores were famous for selling, are rarely found in them anymore. Instead, their shelves would be stacked with bottles of western pills and creams. They had to keep up with times if they wanted people to continue patronizing their business, but they did it at the expense of losing completely their establishment’s ethnicity.
I was determined to penetrate through Binondo to find the few drugstores left which were able to preserve their business’s traditional values.
Xin Ren Ho Drugstore. The moment I set foot inside this establishment I immediately felt the authentic Chinese ambience. Unlike the previous Chinese drugstores this particular drugstore lived up to its name.
The first thing I noticed was the strong odor of Chinese herbs lingering all over the place. I tried vainly to inhale as much of the pungent smell as my stomach could handle, believing the saying that people who work around Chinese herbs, live longer because of the medicine infused air they breathe in. I sat myself down at a mahogany bench right in front of a line of aluminum counters they used for transacting sales. The small bench I sat on was backed up on one wall of the store, enabling my eyes to look around the whole place.
A well polished, old fashioned metal weighing scale was set above the counter; beside it was a manual plastic sealer. Behind the counter was an old man with thick rimmed glasses and thin hairline. He looked like a typical Chinese grandfather while he was reading a newspaper. Behind him was a wide spread of wooden cabinets, its antiqueness given away by its old style carved furnishings and a few rotting edges. Enclosing one end of the line of counters was a tall grayish shelf; stacked with containers and bowls of different sizes, all filled with rather peculiar looking herbs. Another shelf with plastic barrels o herbs was backed up on the wall at one side of the store. There were two refrigerators within the store, one was to the left of the small bench I was seated in and the other behind the aluminum counters. The one behind the counters contained loads of plastic bags of herbs and wine bottles labeled with Chinese writings, while the one beside the bench was filled with bottles of distilled water and soft drinks, which they also sold. To the right of the bench was a worn-out, tile staircase leading up to a small door. The walls of the store were hardly embellished with ornaments, making its cracks and water stains visible. These cracks and stains made me speculate that the store must be over fifty years old.
I stood up and walked towards the aluminum counters. The old man standing behind the counter immediately set down the newspaper he was reading among a bundle of others as he saw me approaching. I spoke to him in Filipino, wondering how much of what I said he would understand. To my surprise, he responded to me in fluent Filipino with no sign of Chinese accent at all. I asked if their traditional Chinese doctor was in and if it would be possible to make an appointment with him. He pointed to the mahogany bench and asked me to wait for the doctor’s current appointment to end.
As I again sat down on the bench, I could not help but wonder how a traditional Chinese doctor would look like. An image of an old man with long gray hair and an exaggeratedly long beard came into my mind. He would have dark, swollen eye bags, and a sulking face full of wrinkles and freckles. His head would be covered with an ancient headpiece and his body draped in layers of Chinese robes. He would be frowning all the time and would be using a wooden pestle and mortar for grinding and mixing whatever medicine he would prescribe to his patient.
My train of thought was brought to an end when a little girl with her mother, both looking genuinely Chinese, came down hand in hand from the narrow stairs. They went straight to the counter carrying a paper I surmised to be a prescription.
I went up the staircase and entered the small room. I couldn’t help myself but chuckle as I entered the “clinic” of the Chinese doctor. The first thing I saw was the mini laptop on top of his wooden table, he was researching in the internet about new breakthroughs in traditional medicine – So much for pestles and mortars. And how the doctor looked like; one would be shocked, as I was, if she faithfully believed the odd representation of Asian novellas of traditional Chinese doctors. The doctor did not look old at all. He seemed like a little over thirty and he was clothed semi-formally; a white polo shirt, black slacks, and shiny black leather shoes. His hair was neatly cut and was glistening of hair gel. He actually looked crisp and sharp.
The room was quite small and cramped up with various things. I sat down on one of the few plastic mono-block chairs lined beside his table. Since I did not speak Chinese very well, I immediately realized the need for a translator as I found out that the doctor only knew how to speak Chinese and very few English. He was quite cheerful and smiled every time we found it difficult understanding each other. But it didn’t really interrupt the routine of the check-up. He felt the pulse on my wrist, checked my eye, and made me stick my tongue out, and in a matter of less than one minute, he started enumerating my illnesses one by one. I curiously asked him how it was possible to determine illness just by “pulse.” And he simply answered that he studied it in his course. He said that as opposed to what people usually think, there is actually a college course for traditional medicine in China. While saying this, he finished scribbling down my prescription in a sheet of clean, white paper.
I led myself out of the room and down to the counter. The old man behind the counter took off his glasses and looked for the herbs written on my prescription. As the drawers of the antique cabinets were opened, more unpleasant scents whiffed my nostrils. There were containers inside each drawer that held a variety of strange looking “medicines”. There were different kinds of twigs and leaves, some mushrooms and fruits, dried seahorses, and gross insects.
As the old man rummaged through the drawers, he instructed me on how to boil the herbs to get their full effectiveness. He then gave me a red plastic bag containing a sealed plastic of the herbs.
After paying for the medicine, I started walking out of the store to the side walk. I reminisced on how I perceived a traditional drugstore should be. I felt foolish for thinking that traditional and modern cannot go together.
Yes, Xin Ren Ho Chinese Drugstore definitely kept its ethnicity, but its traditional fashion did not hinder the business from keeping up with the modernity of the times.
I was determined to penetrate through Binondo to find the few drugstores left which were able to preserve their business’s traditional values.
Xin Ren Ho Drugstore. The moment I set foot inside this establishment I immediately felt the authentic Chinese ambience. Unlike the previous Chinese drugstores this particular drugstore lived up to its name.
The first thing I noticed was the strong odor of Chinese herbs lingering all over the place. I tried vainly to inhale as much of the pungent smell as my stomach could handle, believing the saying that people who work around Chinese herbs, live longer because of the medicine infused air they breathe in. I sat myself down at a mahogany bench right in front of a line of aluminum counters they used for transacting sales. The small bench I sat on was backed up on one wall of the store, enabling my eyes to look around the whole place.
A well polished, old fashioned metal weighing scale was set above the counter; beside it was a manual plastic sealer. Behind the counter was an old man with thick rimmed glasses and thin hairline. He looked like a typical Chinese grandfather while he was reading a newspaper. Behind him was a wide spread of wooden cabinets, its antiqueness given away by its old style carved furnishings and a few rotting edges. Enclosing one end of the line of counters was a tall grayish shelf; stacked with containers and bowls of different sizes, all filled with rather peculiar looking herbs. Another shelf with plastic barrels o herbs was backed up on the wall at one side of the store. There were two refrigerators within the store, one was to the left of the small bench I was seated in and the other behind the aluminum counters. The one behind the counters contained loads of plastic bags of herbs and wine bottles labeled with Chinese writings, while the one beside the bench was filled with bottles of distilled water and soft drinks, which they also sold. To the right of the bench was a worn-out, tile staircase leading up to a small door. The walls of the store were hardly embellished with ornaments, making its cracks and water stains visible. These cracks and stains made me speculate that the store must be over fifty years old.
I stood up and walked towards the aluminum counters. The old man standing behind the counter immediately set down the newspaper he was reading among a bundle of others as he saw me approaching. I spoke to him in Filipino, wondering how much of what I said he would understand. To my surprise, he responded to me in fluent Filipino with no sign of Chinese accent at all. I asked if their traditional Chinese doctor was in and if it would be possible to make an appointment with him. He pointed to the mahogany bench and asked me to wait for the doctor’s current appointment to end.
As I again sat down on the bench, I could not help but wonder how a traditional Chinese doctor would look like. An image of an old man with long gray hair and an exaggeratedly long beard came into my mind. He would have dark, swollen eye bags, and a sulking face full of wrinkles and freckles. His head would be covered with an ancient headpiece and his body draped in layers of Chinese robes. He would be frowning all the time and would be using a wooden pestle and mortar for grinding and mixing whatever medicine he would prescribe to his patient.
My train of thought was brought to an end when a little girl with her mother, both looking genuinely Chinese, came down hand in hand from the narrow stairs. They went straight to the counter carrying a paper I surmised to be a prescription.
I went up the staircase and entered the small room. I couldn’t help myself but chuckle as I entered the “clinic” of the Chinese doctor. The first thing I saw was the mini laptop on top of his wooden table, he was researching in the internet about new breakthroughs in traditional medicine – So much for pestles and mortars. And how the doctor looked like; one would be shocked, as I was, if she faithfully believed the odd representation of Asian novellas of traditional Chinese doctors. The doctor did not look old at all. He seemed like a little over thirty and he was clothed semi-formally; a white polo shirt, black slacks, and shiny black leather shoes. His hair was neatly cut and was glistening of hair gel. He actually looked crisp and sharp.
The room was quite small and cramped up with various things. I sat down on one of the few plastic mono-block chairs lined beside his table. Since I did not speak Chinese very well, I immediately realized the need for a translator as I found out that the doctor only knew how to speak Chinese and very few English. He was quite cheerful and smiled every time we found it difficult understanding each other. But it didn’t really interrupt the routine of the check-up. He felt the pulse on my wrist, checked my eye, and made me stick my tongue out, and in a matter of less than one minute, he started enumerating my illnesses one by one. I curiously asked him how it was possible to determine illness just by “pulse.” And he simply answered that he studied it in his course. He said that as opposed to what people usually think, there is actually a college course for traditional medicine in China. While saying this, he finished scribbling down my prescription in a sheet of clean, white paper.
I led myself out of the room and down to the counter. The old man behind the counter took off his glasses and looked for the herbs written on my prescription. As the drawers of the antique cabinets were opened, more unpleasant scents whiffed my nostrils. There were containers inside each drawer that held a variety of strange looking “medicines”. There were different kinds of twigs and leaves, some mushrooms and fruits, dried seahorses, and gross insects.
As the old man rummaged through the drawers, he instructed me on how to boil the herbs to get their full effectiveness. He then gave me a red plastic bag containing a sealed plastic of the herbs.
After paying for the medicine, I started walking out of the store to the side walk. I reminisced on how I perceived a traditional drugstore should be. I felt foolish for thinking that traditional and modern cannot go together.
Yes, Xin Ren Ho Chinese Drugstore definitely kept its ethnicity, but its traditional fashion did not hinder the business from keeping up with the modernity of the times.
A Year of Shaping: A Freshie in Ateneo
I can attest that my one year stay in the Ateneo has opened new paths for me to pursue, helping me excel exceptionally in various aspects of my life. The numerous endeavours I have faced within and outside the campus helped me realize more of my skills, capabilities and hidden talents. By allowing me to experience hardships in more ways than one, Ateneo has also helped me grow more spiritually intact. I have learned that conquering the numerous obstacles in the past year was not solely dependent on my own capabilities- it was also in the mercy of the Father and I realized that it was important to rely on Him wholeheartedly. Ateneo has also been moulding me into becoming a person for others by opening a new world of understanding to the true meaning of excellence, not only to benefit myself but also for others.
I still have a good three years left in the Ateneo to hone myself into the best I can be, but it is evident that even in my first year in college, Ateneo has already been building the very foundation of excellence in me. Different school works, activities and organizations have required me to walk a mile further, to go one step ahead. Simultaneous deadlines for numerous projects have allowed me to push myself to the limits and indeed, helped me grow more proficient. Because Ateneo did not practice block sectioning, I was given a chance to meet and work with new people, people who had different personalities and skills. Having this opportunity to be surrounded by exceptional (and not so exceptional) people not only motivated me to excel more but also allowed me to stretch my patience through tedious group works. I have experienced failures, and by it I have learned that those who fall can rise high again. It was by low exam scores, dissatisfying presentations and unsuccessful propositions that I have learned that pushing myself further helped me grow to the best that I can. I have experienced successes: The fruits of the hard labour and perseverance and the rewards of overcoming challenges. Through failure, I have learned humility and through success I have received inspiration.
There would be moments when I would be disheartened of the results of my hard work, moments when my best just did not seem to be enough. But through the support of prayer sessions and such that the Ateneo has provided, I was encouraged and inspired. I was reminded that all was required from me was the best that I can give and it was actually His grace that was going to pull me through. I have learned that having a close relationship to God would not give me an easy way out through the hardships of life, instead it would mean even more obstacles, more responsibilities –and I have learned that this was a training to what was truly important, to learn to hold firmly to my faith even through the hardest of times.
Contrary to what other people think, I have learned Ateneo is actually a society that is “down to earth.” The people within the Ateneo are not just aloof individuals; they are people who graciously extend their assistance to the less privileged. Witnessing different projects of the student organizations inside the Ateneo inspired me to help in my own little way those who are in need. I became aware of projects such as Bantay Bata and Red Cross whereas before I would simply disregard them. Helping others made me realize that simple thank you’s and sweet smiles were enough to stir up a feeling of warm glow inside, the satisfaction of being able to give part of myself to others.
Certainly, my first year in the Ateneo changed me a great deal: honing my professionalism, stretching my faith and shaping my outlook and decisions in life to the right direction. And most importantly, I was reminded that everything I could have achieved was all in the mercy and all to the glory of God.
I still have a good three years left in the Ateneo to hone myself into the best I can be, but it is evident that even in my first year in college, Ateneo has already been building the very foundation of excellence in me. Different school works, activities and organizations have required me to walk a mile further, to go one step ahead. Simultaneous deadlines for numerous projects have allowed me to push myself to the limits and indeed, helped me grow more proficient. Because Ateneo did not practice block sectioning, I was given a chance to meet and work with new people, people who had different personalities and skills. Having this opportunity to be surrounded by exceptional (and not so exceptional) people not only motivated me to excel more but also allowed me to stretch my patience through tedious group works. I have experienced failures, and by it I have learned that those who fall can rise high again. It was by low exam scores, dissatisfying presentations and unsuccessful propositions that I have learned that pushing myself further helped me grow to the best that I can. I have experienced successes: The fruits of the hard labour and perseverance and the rewards of overcoming challenges. Through failure, I have learned humility and through success I have received inspiration.
There would be moments when I would be disheartened of the results of my hard work, moments when my best just did not seem to be enough. But through the support of prayer sessions and such that the Ateneo has provided, I was encouraged and inspired. I was reminded that all was required from me was the best that I can give and it was actually His grace that was going to pull me through. I have learned that having a close relationship to God would not give me an easy way out through the hardships of life, instead it would mean even more obstacles, more responsibilities –and I have learned that this was a training to what was truly important, to learn to hold firmly to my faith even through the hardest of times.
Contrary to what other people think, I have learned Ateneo is actually a society that is “down to earth.” The people within the Ateneo are not just aloof individuals; they are people who graciously extend their assistance to the less privileged. Witnessing different projects of the student organizations inside the Ateneo inspired me to help in my own little way those who are in need. I became aware of projects such as Bantay Bata and Red Cross whereas before I would simply disregard them. Helping others made me realize that simple thank you’s and sweet smiles were enough to stir up a feeling of warm glow inside, the satisfaction of being able to give part of myself to others.
Certainly, my first year in the Ateneo changed me a great deal: honing my professionalism, stretching my faith and shaping my outlook and decisions in life to the right direction. And most importantly, I was reminded that everything I could have achieved was all in the mercy and all to the glory of God.
Ocean Heaven Review
This paper will have three parts. The first one would be about the character of old Wang mainly as a parent hero towards his autistic son, the second would be about Dafu and how his character represents autistics, and finally the third would be about how the love of old Wang for his son reflects on China as the patriotic country it is.
Ocean heaven is first and foremost a story about a father’s ultimate love and devotion to his child. Jet li that plays old Wang as Dafu’s father shows a love so genuine for his son that he is happy even in the small things that Dafu does. His life basically revolves around his son since he works to sustain him and sustains to be with him. However, old Wang is only human and it was inevitable that he grew physically and emotionally tired too. But even though old Wang was tired as he has aged as he has taken care of Dafu having the condition of autism for 21 years, he still endured. When old Wang found out that he had cancer and was dying, he was thought about Dafu instead of himself. “If Papa leaves, where will you go?” This must be why old Wang tried to take Dafu with him to death, he thought Dafu would be better off to die with him than to suffer in a world where he will be alone. However when he realized that Dafu did not yet want to die, he decided not to give up on life because he knew that Dafu depended on him. Instead, he tried to ensure the life of Dafu by finding a suitable place for him to live and by training him to try to be able to survive even on his own. Old Wang basically did not want to leave Dafu alone in a world that is full of danger because he does not think Dafu will be capable of taking care of himself. He also acknowledges the fact that Dafu is hard to take care of because he thinks there will be no one at all who would want to take care of him. This is reflected in what old Wang said “Dafu is a burden to everyone, i am his father so i have to take responsibility.”
Even during the time old Wang finally found a place for Dafu to live, it is undisputable that he was not merely trying to escape from his responsibility on Dafu; he was actually sacrificing. He came into a realization of loneliness when he was apart from his son. He still wanted to be with Dafu, but he had to let him go because it would be best for him to start being used to live independently. At old Wang’s dying state, he even risked his few remaining breaths of life just to make sure Dafu does not completely feel his presence lost. Even if it was difficult for him, he made a turtle costume and played pretend for Dafu, making him believe that he will become a sea turtle when he dies so that Dafu will still feel his presence.
Old Wang is an example not only of a good father, but also of a good man. This is seen in how he relates to others, especially to his neighbour who he likes and liked him as well. Even if he knew he was dying, he did not succumb into his selfish desires to have someone, a wife, to share the burden of taking care of Dafu, instead he still remained selfless and thought of the welfare of his neighbor.
Apart from showing how old Wang represents the parents who are heroes because of their love for their children, the movie also tries to show some facts about autistic people. Dafu is the character that has a sickness of autism. He has a special skill though, which is swimming. His father even commented how "he was born into the wrong body and became a man” which is the (figurative) reason behind his autism. The movie does not disregard the fact that autistic people have trouble understanding things at deeper levels and also have tough times expressing themselves. In most parts of the movies, the childish side of Dafu would be seen whenever he would be around the things that are familiar and/or appeal to him; such as swimming in the water, watering flowers, and even juggling eggs that attracted him at first sight. The movie shows his distinct response of happiness when he is clapping and laughing whenever he sees something which he understands.
There is also a part that reflects on how autistic people have the same feelings normal people have too, but only at a different level- a more sensitive level. This is emphasized in the way he relates to Lingling. Dafu is very attached to Lingling because she shows him genuine care and she seems to depend on him too for happiness. It is probable that Dafu felt a sense of purpose because of his relationship with Lingling and felt good about it. His character also shows that even if the mental processes of autistics differ from those of normal people, most of it still is the same –such as how his memory works. When Lingling left, Dafu did not simply forget about her, he replayed their memories in hopes that it would bring him back to the time when Lingling was still around. Also in his separation from his father, even if Dafu did not immediately respond to his loneliness from the separation, he soon enough expressed his feelings especially when he realized that his father was not around for their routine before bedtime. For Dafu, this was probably a very sentimental and important part of the day wherein he and his father spend quality time with each other, and he was just not ready to give it up. There was also a part in the movie where Dafu was reprimanded by old Wang because he was not picking up fast enough on what old Wang was teaching. Here, Dafu cries and shows fear probably either because he does not understand what he did wrong or he does not know how to actually do good enough to please his father. Dafu, in this movie also represents how some autistic people perceive touch as one of the most important mechanism in their body. This is shown in how Dafu was very accustomed to do hand gestures. For them, touch is mostly their way of connection with other things and other people.
The most important portion of Dafu’s character in the movie was that in the end, he was able to survive even after the death of his father. Dafu learns to become responsible and this gives inspiration to all the other people who have autism or even any other condition, that there is a beam of light even in darkness and that one just has to decide to pursue that light.
Through old Wang, the movie also emulates the Chinese people’s deep sense of love for their country; that which is instilled in them even in childhood. They treat their country with respect and this virtue is passed on from generation to generation. Old Wang’s selflessness, love and devotion for his son (and occasionally for other people), symbolizes the culture of China and on how it is a very patriotic country. On the other hand, Dafu’s determination to survive emulates how the citizens of China, even in the worse periods of which they experienced starvation, political and natural turmoil, still had a strong hold to their nation; that which is because of their unified love for their country.
Ocean heaven is first and foremost a story about a father’s ultimate love and devotion to his child. Jet li that plays old Wang as Dafu’s father shows a love so genuine for his son that he is happy even in the small things that Dafu does. His life basically revolves around his son since he works to sustain him and sustains to be with him. However, old Wang is only human and it was inevitable that he grew physically and emotionally tired too. But even though old Wang was tired as he has aged as he has taken care of Dafu having the condition of autism for 21 years, he still endured. When old Wang found out that he had cancer and was dying, he was thought about Dafu instead of himself. “If Papa leaves, where will you go?” This must be why old Wang tried to take Dafu with him to death, he thought Dafu would be better off to die with him than to suffer in a world where he will be alone. However when he realized that Dafu did not yet want to die, he decided not to give up on life because he knew that Dafu depended on him. Instead, he tried to ensure the life of Dafu by finding a suitable place for him to live and by training him to try to be able to survive even on his own. Old Wang basically did not want to leave Dafu alone in a world that is full of danger because he does not think Dafu will be capable of taking care of himself. He also acknowledges the fact that Dafu is hard to take care of because he thinks there will be no one at all who would want to take care of him. This is reflected in what old Wang said “Dafu is a burden to everyone, i am his father so i have to take responsibility.”
Even during the time old Wang finally found a place for Dafu to live, it is undisputable that he was not merely trying to escape from his responsibility on Dafu; he was actually sacrificing. He came into a realization of loneliness when he was apart from his son. He still wanted to be with Dafu, but he had to let him go because it would be best for him to start being used to live independently. At old Wang’s dying state, he even risked his few remaining breaths of life just to make sure Dafu does not completely feel his presence lost. Even if it was difficult for him, he made a turtle costume and played pretend for Dafu, making him believe that he will become a sea turtle when he dies so that Dafu will still feel his presence.
Old Wang is an example not only of a good father, but also of a good man. This is seen in how he relates to others, especially to his neighbour who he likes and liked him as well. Even if he knew he was dying, he did not succumb into his selfish desires to have someone, a wife, to share the burden of taking care of Dafu, instead he still remained selfless and thought of the welfare of his neighbor.
Apart from showing how old Wang represents the parents who are heroes because of their love for their children, the movie also tries to show some facts about autistic people. Dafu is the character that has a sickness of autism. He has a special skill though, which is swimming. His father even commented how "he was born into the wrong body and became a man” which is the (figurative) reason behind his autism. The movie does not disregard the fact that autistic people have trouble understanding things at deeper levels and also have tough times expressing themselves. In most parts of the movies, the childish side of Dafu would be seen whenever he would be around the things that are familiar and/or appeal to him; such as swimming in the water, watering flowers, and even juggling eggs that attracted him at first sight. The movie shows his distinct response of happiness when he is clapping and laughing whenever he sees something which he understands.
There is also a part that reflects on how autistic people have the same feelings normal people have too, but only at a different level- a more sensitive level. This is emphasized in the way he relates to Lingling. Dafu is very attached to Lingling because she shows him genuine care and she seems to depend on him too for happiness. It is probable that Dafu felt a sense of purpose because of his relationship with Lingling and felt good about it. His character also shows that even if the mental processes of autistics differ from those of normal people, most of it still is the same –such as how his memory works. When Lingling left, Dafu did not simply forget about her, he replayed their memories in hopes that it would bring him back to the time when Lingling was still around. Also in his separation from his father, even if Dafu did not immediately respond to his loneliness from the separation, he soon enough expressed his feelings especially when he realized that his father was not around for their routine before bedtime. For Dafu, this was probably a very sentimental and important part of the day wherein he and his father spend quality time with each other, and he was just not ready to give it up. There was also a part in the movie where Dafu was reprimanded by old Wang because he was not picking up fast enough on what old Wang was teaching. Here, Dafu cries and shows fear probably either because he does not understand what he did wrong or he does not know how to actually do good enough to please his father. Dafu, in this movie also represents how some autistic people perceive touch as one of the most important mechanism in their body. This is shown in how Dafu was very accustomed to do hand gestures. For them, touch is mostly their way of connection with other things and other people.
The most important portion of Dafu’s character in the movie was that in the end, he was able to survive even after the death of his father. Dafu learns to become responsible and this gives inspiration to all the other people who have autism or even any other condition, that there is a beam of light even in darkness and that one just has to decide to pursue that light.
Through old Wang, the movie also emulates the Chinese people’s deep sense of love for their country; that which is instilled in them even in childhood. They treat their country with respect and this virtue is passed on from generation to generation. Old Wang’s selflessness, love and devotion for his son (and occasionally for other people), symbolizes the culture of China and on how it is a very patriotic country. On the other hand, Dafu’s determination to survive emulates how the citizens of China, even in the worse periods of which they experienced starvation, political and natural turmoil, still had a strong hold to their nation; that which is because of their unified love for their country.
A Basic Understanding of Economics
Economics is an integral part of our lives. That we use economics all the time without even knowing is not an exaggeration. Our decisions, choices, preferences are all illustrations of how economics work. It is then important for us to learn economics because by doing so, we somehow get a grasp of how the systems of the societies we dwell in work and consequently aid its progress by making right choices that will benefit instead of continuing to harm it. We are missing the bigger picture when we think that the little things that we do would not have much of an effect to society while in fact, even our split second changes in decision making and preferences may go as far as impacting the whole world. This ripple effect only shows us that the economic position of our society is unstable and undergoes continuous change.
This position is also easily influenced; Famous personalities affect the everyday lives of other people/individuals because of their beliefs regardless of their credibility. One influential person can lead hordes of people into choices that are not actually beneficial to the latter and even to the society. Scarcity is also a big factor in influencing the decisions of people. The tendency is for an individual to make most out of what is already scarce. It does not as much matter whether the scarcity is personal or global, what is scarce for one person is most likely scarce for many others as well. Therefore, how one individual decides upon considering what he has to utilize is most likely how other people decide to utilize what they have as well, and this being, we can say with surety that “microeconomic choices can impact the macroeconomic world.”
This position is also easily influenced; Famous personalities affect the everyday lives of other people/individuals because of their beliefs regardless of their credibility. One influential person can lead hordes of people into choices that are not actually beneficial to the latter and even to the society. Scarcity is also a big factor in influencing the decisions of people. The tendency is for an individual to make most out of what is already scarce. It does not as much matter whether the scarcity is personal or global, what is scarce for one person is most likely scarce for many others as well. Therefore, how one individual decides upon considering what he has to utilize is most likely how other people decide to utilize what they have as well, and this being, we can say with surety that “microeconomic choices can impact the macroeconomic world.”
Commentary on Supply and Demand: Farmers Market
In the video we watched about Applications of Supply and Demand, there were some illustrations of practical applications for the concepts of supply and demand. One illustration that caught my attention was that of the farmers market. I like this example because it did not only highlight the importance of market efficiency; it also described the components that make up an efficient market.
I learned how competitions are vital so that the prices in markets are able to adjust freely. I was also reminded how it is that the consumers are the ones who create the demand and that the equilibrium price can be achieved by changing prices according to the demand of the buyers. I also found out how the government protects the interests of either buyers or sellers by setting price floors and ceilings, but at the same time also complicate the whole market activity by potentially causing shortages and surpluses.
I also saw how there are other factors that affect the market, its suppliers and its buyers preferences. Other than considering the price, “moving from stall to stall for cheaper goods”, taste and quality are important factors for buyers in deciding which sellers to patronize.
Overall, i found it important to consider all the major players in the market: the supply, the demand, and the equilibrium in studying the economic factors. It is not efficient to prioritize one factor and let the others lag behind.
We can put this analysis into practical use by being properly informed about the market activity. As consumers, we can save our resources by knowing when it is most favourable for us to purchase products and not just base our decisions on influential advertisements or other such marketing strategies. As suppliers, we can be more efficient by knowing the interest of the market whether in terms of quality or price, and supply the products according their needs and wants to avoid unnecessary surpluses and/or shortages.
I learned how competitions are vital so that the prices in markets are able to adjust freely. I was also reminded how it is that the consumers are the ones who create the demand and that the equilibrium price can be achieved by changing prices according to the demand of the buyers. I also found out how the government protects the interests of either buyers or sellers by setting price floors and ceilings, but at the same time also complicate the whole market activity by potentially causing shortages and surpluses.
I also saw how there are other factors that affect the market, its suppliers and its buyers preferences. Other than considering the price, “moving from stall to stall for cheaper goods”, taste and quality are important factors for buyers in deciding which sellers to patronize.
Overall, i found it important to consider all the major players in the market: the supply, the demand, and the equilibrium in studying the economic factors. It is not efficient to prioritize one factor and let the others lag behind.
We can put this analysis into practical use by being properly informed about the market activity. As consumers, we can save our resources by knowing when it is most favourable for us to purchase products and not just base our decisions on influential advertisements or other such marketing strategies. As suppliers, we can be more efficient by knowing the interest of the market whether in terms of quality or price, and supply the products according their needs and wants to avoid unnecessary surpluses and/or shortages.
A Bee That Flew High
Jollibee, one of the most famous fast food restaurants here in the Philippines today, actually started out as a small Magnolia ice cream parlour at Cubao in 1975. The owner, Tony Tan, and his family’s entry into the fast food industry was a struggle at first; like other small businesses, they started out with a small store trying to call the attention of customers to come try their products. It is also interesting to mention that along with their growth, their name also grew from “Jolibe” to “Jolly Bee” and finally to what we know today as “Jollibee”. Their main product was initially their Yumburgers, that which lead them to have a whopping profit of P2 million in just a year and at the same time, caused them to fight off controversies that they were using worm meat. After about four years, the nation’s present favourite Jolly Spaghetti that was formerly called Spaghetti Special, was introduced along with the opening of their first franchise store. From then on, Jollibee has paved its road towards good fortune. By the 80’s, they launched their first commercial and introduced several other products to go with their Yum burger and Special Spaghetti, the Chickenjoy becoming one of its most loved food products. In a span of 10 years, through the leadership of Tony Tan, Jollibee has already been leading the fast food industry in the Philippines, afterwards, the corporation and himself has been winning several awards for their outstanding performances. Along with Tony Tan are other key executive members some of them who are namely Cho Sit Ang, a co-founder also serving as Director of the corporation since year 1978; Poe Eng Chua, also co-founder and Director; Ysmael V. Baysa, CFO and Vice President of finance; Ernesto Tanmantion, COO and Treasurer Director; Andrew Tan; Manuel C. Lumba, who actually came up with the idea of selling burgers instead of ice cream and helped develop the name of Jollibee as to how it is called today. Apart from their membership as executives in Jollibee Food Corporation, they also have different affiliations with other significant companies.
Contrary to what some many people think that Jollibee just thrives in the Philippines, Jollibee has actually been opening fast food restaurants all over Asia ever since 1986 until today, and since year 2000, Jollibee has been merging with different food corporations starting with Greenwich, then Chowking, and et al. Along with their successes, Jollibee has not forgotten to share blessings to fellow countrymen; they also have been continuously launching various projects throughout their development as a corporation.
The mission, vision, and values of Jollibee are simple and concise. The phrases taken from their mission and vision statements “To serve great tasting food, bringing the joy of eating to everyone” and “Jollibee is truly a global brand” shows a message that is clear as to what its intentions are for the corporation and for the Philippines as well. As Jollibee started out as a fully Filipino-owned company, it is just like Filipinos to want to market their brand all over the world. They also did not forget the core values of the Filipino culture which is to treasure personal relationships; there being a huge amount of effort in making sure that their customers are always “jolly” upon encountering the Jollibee experience.
Being able to open several branches all over the Asia, Jollibee has been making significant contributions by providing not only satisfying food but also providing millions of jobs for people. Also, through their signature mascot “Jollibee”, the corporation has also established a (trade)mark that Filipino people can see and be reminded of home and also be proud of as being a brand that is their own.
However, Jollibee is not a corporation who has been rolling in a bed of roses for all times; they have their ups so they also have their downs. There are also some instances wherein some Jollibee stores would close down because of wrong decisions and unanticipated problems. This is why Jollibee has not been stopping its innovation whether in its menu line-up, marketing programs, and other pertinent facilities.
I personally think that the rich history of Jollibee is very inspiring. I would remember my parents telling me that back in their younger days Jollibee would call out to high school students to take advantage of various discounts in their restaurant. Comparing it to the Jollibee I know (and also love) today, it is inevitable that they really have come far. I believe that the hard work they invest, the right decisions with regards to the people they work with, the advents they choose to enter, and of course how they organize the management of their corporation are major causes of their growth, however with lots of positivity and prayer, they had the recipe for their clearly recognizable success.
Contrary to what some many people think that Jollibee just thrives in the Philippines, Jollibee has actually been opening fast food restaurants all over Asia ever since 1986 until today, and since year 2000, Jollibee has been merging with different food corporations starting with Greenwich, then Chowking, and et al. Along with their successes, Jollibee has not forgotten to share blessings to fellow countrymen; they also have been continuously launching various projects throughout their development as a corporation.
The mission, vision, and values of Jollibee are simple and concise. The phrases taken from their mission and vision statements “To serve great tasting food, bringing the joy of eating to everyone” and “Jollibee is truly a global brand” shows a message that is clear as to what its intentions are for the corporation and for the Philippines as well. As Jollibee started out as a fully Filipino-owned company, it is just like Filipinos to want to market their brand all over the world. They also did not forget the core values of the Filipino culture which is to treasure personal relationships; there being a huge amount of effort in making sure that their customers are always “jolly” upon encountering the Jollibee experience.
Being able to open several branches all over the Asia, Jollibee has been making significant contributions by providing not only satisfying food but also providing millions of jobs for people. Also, through their signature mascot “Jollibee”, the corporation has also established a (trade)mark that Filipino people can see and be reminded of home and also be proud of as being a brand that is their own.
However, Jollibee is not a corporation who has been rolling in a bed of roses for all times; they have their ups so they also have their downs. There are also some instances wherein some Jollibee stores would close down because of wrong decisions and unanticipated problems. This is why Jollibee has not been stopping its innovation whether in its menu line-up, marketing programs, and other pertinent facilities.
I personally think that the rich history of Jollibee is very inspiring. I would remember my parents telling me that back in their younger days Jollibee would call out to high school students to take advantage of various discounts in their restaurant. Comparing it to the Jollibee I know (and also love) today, it is inevitable that they really have come far. I believe that the hard work they invest, the right decisions with regards to the people they work with, the advents they choose to enter, and of course how they organize the management of their corporation are major causes of their growth, however with lots of positivity and prayer, they had the recipe for their clearly recognizable success.
Our Very Own Pop Cultures Expounded: On JEJEMON
In every society, there is one particular culture in which the individuals dwell on, but as a law of the human race, it is inevitable that there are some people who will be different from others. These people are what make any society immensely diverse. And this kind of diversity is what makes possible the emergence of subcultures. (White, L. A. P44)
Post- Gutenberg aural culture, subculture, popular culture, and mass culture, all pertain to one thing –the culture of the majority of a given society. (Joaquin, N. 1988) Since long ago, popular culture has been considered the lower kind of culture a society can have, consisting of those who make up much of the populace, the poor. In the Philippines, the reign of popular culture in every generation is evident. This might be simply and precisely because of the fact that the majority of the Filipino people are indeed poor.
Today, the Philippines is experiencing an invasion of the pop culture Jejemon. But so was such an invasion of a subculture apparent in the past.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the reason behind the surfacing of these pop cultures in the Philippines. The first part will be a brief discussion of fine culture and the past subcultures of the Philippines as to be able to compare them to the present. The next will be an expansion of details of the current popular culture Jejemon, and the possible causes of its emergence. This paper concludes with an explanation as to why subcultures like Jejemons are continuously evident in the society.
Fine Culture, Fine Art
A man is a creature, a human being who experiences joys and tears as well as fulfilment and dissatisfactions. Sometimes he is content, but sometime he can’t get enough. Throughout the years, art has been a medium to help fulfil a person’s desires. His search for inner beauty coming from spirituality or character is adorned by his fondness for art. Art is where his emotions run loose. It is a medium of expression that is concretized through paintings, sculpture, architecture, literature, music and dance. Apparently, the only ones who can use these mediums are the ones who know how to. Here is where the division of educated (maybe elites) and illiterates come in. To fully grasp the context of fine arts, one must have adequate knowledge in his artistic endeavour. He must get hold of skills and techniques that is usually acquired only by those who can afford it. Then there it would be apparent that fine culture is separated from low culture because of these conditions. (Groyon, 1977)
Fine culture in the Philippines has emerged and changed throughout the generation as low culture has. From the Spanish period, American period to today’s Modern Period (after war), the architecture, paintings, sculptures in the Philippines have been moulded according to each era such that the architecture changed from the construction of big concrete buildings in Manila to the construction of the biggest TV in Asia (Channel Big) located along Robinson’s; and the paintings went from landscape to sidewalk exhibitions. Like low culture, the fine culture in the Philippines also found its way to different alterations of the same thing. (Castaneda, 1964)
The Past Popular Cultures
Bakya
A few decades past, the term “Bakya crowd” was put together to pertain to the rural poor of the Philippines. A bakya is a wooden slipper worn by Filipino women in the past and is considered nowadays to be baduy and cheap. This kind of consciousness of the native and baduy footwear extends to the impression that the individuals who eat food sold by street vendors, who like watching Filipino movies as opposed to foreign ones, and even those which read Filipino Komiks (even if the idea of comic strips actually came from foreign influence) are considered bakya.(Reyes, p40) Basically, all of that which engages in local activities are considered to be baduy and included in the Bakya crowd.
In Jose Lacaba’s news article, Notes On Bakya, he defines Bakya as a social condition of the majority of the Filipinos.(Philippines Free Press 1970) The Bakya crown was understood to be the group citizens who could not afford the sophisticated lifestyle of their civilization, and consequently, also the ones who were less educated.
A late Filipino actor, Jesse Cruz was later in his career known for his malapropism of the English language; malapropism being mostly and especially evident from those who were not given proper education, namely the poor which make up most of the Philippines population. And because of this, Jesse Cruz, better known as Ricky Belmonte unsurprisingly became the Bakya idol.
As time passed, the definition of Bakya has evolved from the condition of poverty into being what was basically popular in a society. Thus regardless of the monetary value or standing of an object or a subject, what was generally popular with the mass was considered as Bakya.
Jologs
The word Jologs was thought to have been made up either as a definition for the fashion of a former popular teen icon, Jolina Magdangal, or as an acronym of the customary fare Filipinos buy at a local tindahan: dilis, tuyo and itlog.
Being frequently used, the word Jologs was also soon thought to pertain to those who either had the courage to look and feel good despite of their lack of wealth or those who kept on trying to look and feel good but just failed in doing so. (Manapul, M.)
In Paolo Manalo’s Jolography, he wrote a collection of poems where the style of writing in each poem was made of transition, translation, interpretation and violent configuration of words, which can be compared to the practice of malapropism in the former popular culture discussed.
Paola Manalo also listed down a few arguments on the makeup of a Jolog’s persona. It was suggested in his discussion that a person can only be Jologs until a certain age. As quoted, “If you’re old and baduy, you’re just that: matanda na kasi.” Briefly touching the idea that being Jologs may be compared being conyo (tag-lish), he stated that it is different from being a squatting (a person from the squatters’ area). Manalo also discusses some theories of the origin of the word Jologs. He stated the possibility of coining of the word Jologs from the word hulog which was later spelled julog referring to the hip-hop fashion statement of loose, baggy pants. Manolo also suggested that the word had an the etymology from the word was Jaloux (French for jealous) which was a disco back in the 80’s that was considered the “squatter of discos”. But Manalo ends the discussion by a quote that says “You are what you eat” which leads back to the discussion of the Philippine delicacies discussed above; dilis, tuyo, and itlog. (Manalo 2003)
Eventually, Jologs became a way of life of the populace.
In a movie review for Jologs, the people who were Jologs were described as the citizens who were practical and realistic.
“..young people... cool, liberated, and makatotoo, theirs are different views and beliefs that are willing to stand...”(cbcpworld.com 2002)
Practical, in this case, a sugar-coated term for the poor people, of which again makes up most of the population of the Philippines.
By now, it can be concluded that the creation of a popular culture in the Philippines is dependent on the populace and the poverty that characterizes them. But other than being financially under privileged, there are definitely more aspects as to how a subculture is formed. By conducting a further observation of the subculture we are experiencing today, the Jejemon culture, we will be able to recognize these aspects.
In Pinoy Pop Culture (a compilation of a good number of articles and essays under the subject), Gilda Cordero-Fernando explains some of the characteristics of popular culture. It is suggested that a culture accepted by the mass, with the influence of media, and is somehow positive of foreign flavour is or should be considered a popular culture. (Cordero-Fernando, G., & Chaves, M. p4)
What is Jejemon?
What exactly is Jejemon?
“Jejemon is a new breed of hipsters who have developed not only their own language and written text but also their own subculture and fashion.” (inquirer.net 2010)
There are numerous ways to describe the people who make up this recent popular culture and many of those present descriptions lean to the negative side, at times the people involved in the pop culture are even referred to as Jejemonsters. The Jejemons were made known by their controversial text messaging style converting phrases such as “Hello po” into a fanciful or intangible “Eow pOuhWz”.
Their Controversial Language
In the book Leisure and Popular Culture in Transition, Thomas Kando stresses that today, admittedly, the world revolves around technology. Being a veritable tower of power, coming from it is what people cannot live without today – convenience. Technology is made so easy for everyone to understand that even the less legitimate half of the society can freely use it. (Kando, T. M. p42) The extensive use of text messaging and social networking today attests to Kando’s idea. And because of technology’s easy access, the inevitable has happened –technology has been abused (Provided the fact that the Philippines is the texting capital of the word, this was not hard to attain) and the emergence of Jejemon is proof to this.
According to ABS CBN’s news headline “Philippines wrestles with ‘Jejemon’ cyber dialect” last 16 June 2010, it is generally believed that the subculture jejemons were an effect of widespread use of shortcuts in text messaging which in turn created a new approach as to how to conduct their communication.(abs-cbnnews.com 2010) As an attempt to make easier the means of communication through technology by shortcuts, what was developed instead was a more complex and abstract approach to communication,(Lumbera, B. p160) the subculture language of the Jejemons – the Jejenese.
Jejenese words are words formulated from the alphabet of the Jejemons, Jejebet – basically still the English alphabet but with added numerical characters and Roman alphabet, rearranged and reformed to appear as a cluster of letters in one Jejebet.
E.g.: A = eI, B = vBiE, C = xI3, D = dHie, E = iHh, F = eFfX ... (jejeje.com 2011)
The Jejemons are definitely very supportive to the idea of having their own official language and a proof to this is the creation of an internet site called Jologs-inator that translates any word or sentence to Jejenese or as they would call it, to Jejemonize the words, which serves as a spelling guide to more aspiring Jejemons.( kalokohan.guissmo.frih.net 2011)
Blanktape, a Filipino band explains in their song Jejemon just how the Jejemon identity can be recognized in the way of texting, they even manipulated the spelling of their lyrics to illustrate the informality of Jejenese.
“..Na kapag nagtext ang kanyang message ay naku so arte tsong
Hirap tuloy itong ma-read kaya Jejebusters ay galit
Kasi bago mo magets analyze first is all u need”
(lyricsreg.com 2011)
To The Calling of Peers
The Jejemons are also defined as some of this generation’s youth who sought for and found social acceptance in these Jejemon groups.
“The Jejemons find their place in their world by finding a clan, or a regular group of people they text and talk with (also through text messaging and social networking) in Jejenese. Regardless of whether they know each other or not, they will form clans and will communicate with the other members of these clans and even meet up with them in Jejelands frequent hang-outs)” (inquirer.net 2010)
Renato Constantino, in his book, Synthetic Culture and Developement, coined the word “compunication” from the words computer and communication, which he explained as being made possible by the advances in technology and the popularity of social networking through internet and text messaging, the vital communication tools of this generation. (Constantino, R. p18) Since it is a concern of most teenagers of any generation to have a peer group, what can be an easier way to find peers but through social networking, the medium of communication most commonly used today?
An act of Rebellion
Another common concern of a society is the inevitable rebellion of the teenagers of each generation. News reports from ABS-CBN News.com shows that Jejemon might also be a form of rebellion of the youth. Though comical as this explanation may seem, it may actually be a fact that the Jejemons formulated their own special language to disable their parents from effectively monitoring their communication with their peers.
To Copy and to Alter
A common characteristic of the Filipino people is to “copycat” and alter foreign concepts into their own. This characteristic of the Filipinos is evident in the formation of the clothing style of the Jejemons.
In Rolando Tinio’s essay Pilipino Para sa Mga Intelektuwal, he suggested to his readers that even if it is justifiable to say that the Filipinos, secretly (or not) have been moulding themselves to the western ways, it would just be as fair to say that though most of the ideas we have are inspired by foreign thought, we cannot deny the fact that we are also creative by nature. (Tinio, R. S. p148) The fashion statement that the Jejemons have developed is a current proof to this: oversized T-shirts, baggy pants and odd looking hats or beanies –a Filipinized version of foreign countries’ hip hop.
Here we can also see the influence of people’s status in the society to how people see or judge them. Given that the clothes the Jejemons wear are seeming replicas of foreign hip hop fashion, it is a revelation of how partiality for the mass works in each generation. Popular icons such as Will Smith and Sandara Park also demonstrated such fashion statements but neither was ridiculed as much as the Jejemons were. (ehow.com 2011)
As for the history of the Bakya and Jologs pop culture, the society should not forget that Jejemon also is a culture that is patronized by the masses and will stay until another generation with another set of ideas regarding popular culture arises.
It Will Never End
In Approaches to Popular Culture, CWE Bigsby explained how the continuous transformation of culture by culture as directed by each generation’s youth is led by their exuberance that causes them to be creative and look for ways to beautify what they have. (Bigsby, C. p110)
As Bienvenido Lumbera suggested in Popular Culture as Politics, that popular culture is a culture trimmed in many ways to satisfy the desires of a population at a given time, moulded according to the dictations of the generation, we now realize that aside from poverty( in which we know for a fact, that the Philippines have always had a good number of poor people to go around until today), the needs of the populace change in every turn of event in history therefore so does the emergences of new subcultures continue all the way. (Florentino H. Hornedo, P. p150)
An emergence of a popular culture is not necessarily noticed then and there, it may come with different impacts but as long as the universe continuous to progress, popular cultures will surely emerge.As quoted in Georgette Wang’s Continuity and Change,
“They (cultures) do not always have abrupt beginnings and endings; when flourishing, they have indistinct peripheries; and they shade of into one another in a quite indefinite way. We do not always recognize a culture when we see one.” (Wang, p4)
Another big concept to consider is the continuous modernization of the civilization. Development is something that we cannot stop. As a side note from a quote from the movie Ratatouille, “Change is nature... The part that we can influence.” (imdb.com 2011)
From the financial condition of the mass, the nature of change and to the continuously uprising youth are indeed persistently searching for alteration and beautification of anything and everything, these explanations might be the keys to understand as to why there is a continuous formation of pop cultures, from Bakya, Jologs to Jejemon, generation by generation.
Post- Gutenberg aural culture, subculture, popular culture, and mass culture, all pertain to one thing –the culture of the majority of a given society. (Joaquin, N. 1988) Since long ago, popular culture has been considered the lower kind of culture a society can have, consisting of those who make up much of the populace, the poor. In the Philippines, the reign of popular culture in every generation is evident. This might be simply and precisely because of the fact that the majority of the Filipino people are indeed poor.
Today, the Philippines is experiencing an invasion of the pop culture Jejemon. But so was such an invasion of a subculture apparent in the past.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the reason behind the surfacing of these pop cultures in the Philippines. The first part will be a brief discussion of fine culture and the past subcultures of the Philippines as to be able to compare them to the present. The next will be an expansion of details of the current popular culture Jejemon, and the possible causes of its emergence. This paper concludes with an explanation as to why subcultures like Jejemons are continuously evident in the society.
Fine Culture, Fine Art
A man is a creature, a human being who experiences joys and tears as well as fulfilment and dissatisfactions. Sometimes he is content, but sometime he can’t get enough. Throughout the years, art has been a medium to help fulfil a person’s desires. His search for inner beauty coming from spirituality or character is adorned by his fondness for art. Art is where his emotions run loose. It is a medium of expression that is concretized through paintings, sculpture, architecture, literature, music and dance. Apparently, the only ones who can use these mediums are the ones who know how to. Here is where the division of educated (maybe elites) and illiterates come in. To fully grasp the context of fine arts, one must have adequate knowledge in his artistic endeavour. He must get hold of skills and techniques that is usually acquired only by those who can afford it. Then there it would be apparent that fine culture is separated from low culture because of these conditions. (Groyon, 1977)
Fine culture in the Philippines has emerged and changed throughout the generation as low culture has. From the Spanish period, American period to today’s Modern Period (after war), the architecture, paintings, sculptures in the Philippines have been moulded according to each era such that the architecture changed from the construction of big concrete buildings in Manila to the construction of the biggest TV in Asia (Channel Big) located along Robinson’s; and the paintings went from landscape to sidewalk exhibitions. Like low culture, the fine culture in the Philippines also found its way to different alterations of the same thing. (Castaneda, 1964)
The Past Popular Cultures
Bakya
A few decades past, the term “Bakya crowd” was put together to pertain to the rural poor of the Philippines. A bakya is a wooden slipper worn by Filipino women in the past and is considered nowadays to be baduy and cheap. This kind of consciousness of the native and baduy footwear extends to the impression that the individuals who eat food sold by street vendors, who like watching Filipino movies as opposed to foreign ones, and even those which read Filipino Komiks (even if the idea of comic strips actually came from foreign influence) are considered bakya.(Reyes, p40) Basically, all of that which engages in local activities are considered to be baduy and included in the Bakya crowd.
In Jose Lacaba’s news article, Notes On Bakya, he defines Bakya as a social condition of the majority of the Filipinos.(Philippines Free Press 1970) The Bakya crown was understood to be the group citizens who could not afford the sophisticated lifestyle of their civilization, and consequently, also the ones who were less educated.
A late Filipino actor, Jesse Cruz was later in his career known for his malapropism of the English language; malapropism being mostly and especially evident from those who were not given proper education, namely the poor which make up most of the Philippines population. And because of this, Jesse Cruz, better known as Ricky Belmonte unsurprisingly became the Bakya idol.
As time passed, the definition of Bakya has evolved from the condition of poverty into being what was basically popular in a society. Thus regardless of the monetary value or standing of an object or a subject, what was generally popular with the mass was considered as Bakya.
Jologs
The word Jologs was thought to have been made up either as a definition for the fashion of a former popular teen icon, Jolina Magdangal, or as an acronym of the customary fare Filipinos buy at a local tindahan: dilis, tuyo and itlog.
Being frequently used, the word Jologs was also soon thought to pertain to those who either had the courage to look and feel good despite of their lack of wealth or those who kept on trying to look and feel good but just failed in doing so. (Manapul, M.)
In Paolo Manalo’s Jolography, he wrote a collection of poems where the style of writing in each poem was made of transition, translation, interpretation and violent configuration of words, which can be compared to the practice of malapropism in the former popular culture discussed.
Paola Manalo also listed down a few arguments on the makeup of a Jolog’s persona. It was suggested in his discussion that a person can only be Jologs until a certain age. As quoted, “If you’re old and baduy, you’re just that: matanda na kasi.” Briefly touching the idea that being Jologs may be compared being conyo (tag-lish), he stated that it is different from being a squatting (a person from the squatters’ area). Manalo also discusses some theories of the origin of the word Jologs. He stated the possibility of coining of the word Jologs from the word hulog which was later spelled julog referring to the hip-hop fashion statement of loose, baggy pants. Manolo also suggested that the word had an the etymology from the word was Jaloux (French for jealous) which was a disco back in the 80’s that was considered the “squatter of discos”. But Manalo ends the discussion by a quote that says “You are what you eat” which leads back to the discussion of the Philippine delicacies discussed above; dilis, tuyo, and itlog. (Manalo 2003)
Eventually, Jologs became a way of life of the populace.
In a movie review for Jologs, the people who were Jologs were described as the citizens who were practical and realistic.
“..young people... cool, liberated, and makatotoo, theirs are different views and beliefs that are willing to stand...”(cbcpworld.com 2002)
Practical, in this case, a sugar-coated term for the poor people, of which again makes up most of the population of the Philippines.
By now, it can be concluded that the creation of a popular culture in the Philippines is dependent on the populace and the poverty that characterizes them. But other than being financially under privileged, there are definitely more aspects as to how a subculture is formed. By conducting a further observation of the subculture we are experiencing today, the Jejemon culture, we will be able to recognize these aspects.
In Pinoy Pop Culture (a compilation of a good number of articles and essays under the subject), Gilda Cordero-Fernando explains some of the characteristics of popular culture. It is suggested that a culture accepted by the mass, with the influence of media, and is somehow positive of foreign flavour is or should be considered a popular culture. (Cordero-Fernando, G., & Chaves, M. p4)
What is Jejemon?
What exactly is Jejemon?
“Jejemon is a new breed of hipsters who have developed not only their own language and written text but also their own subculture and fashion.” (inquirer.net 2010)
There are numerous ways to describe the people who make up this recent popular culture and many of those present descriptions lean to the negative side, at times the people involved in the pop culture are even referred to as Jejemonsters. The Jejemons were made known by their controversial text messaging style converting phrases such as “Hello po” into a fanciful or intangible “Eow pOuhWz”.
Their Controversial Language
In the book Leisure and Popular Culture in Transition, Thomas Kando stresses that today, admittedly, the world revolves around technology. Being a veritable tower of power, coming from it is what people cannot live without today – convenience. Technology is made so easy for everyone to understand that even the less legitimate half of the society can freely use it. (Kando, T. M. p42) The extensive use of text messaging and social networking today attests to Kando’s idea. And because of technology’s easy access, the inevitable has happened –technology has been abused (Provided the fact that the Philippines is the texting capital of the word, this was not hard to attain) and the emergence of Jejemon is proof to this.
According to ABS CBN’s news headline “Philippines wrestles with ‘Jejemon’ cyber dialect” last 16 June 2010, it is generally believed that the subculture jejemons were an effect of widespread use of shortcuts in text messaging which in turn created a new approach as to how to conduct their communication.(abs-cbnnews.com 2010) As an attempt to make easier the means of communication through technology by shortcuts, what was developed instead was a more complex and abstract approach to communication,(Lumbera, B. p160) the subculture language of the Jejemons – the Jejenese.
Jejenese words are words formulated from the alphabet of the Jejemons, Jejebet – basically still the English alphabet but with added numerical characters and Roman alphabet, rearranged and reformed to appear as a cluster of letters in one Jejebet.
E.g.: A = eI, B = vBiE, C = xI3, D = dHie, E = iHh, F = eFfX ... (jejeje.com 2011)
The Jejemons are definitely very supportive to the idea of having their own official language and a proof to this is the creation of an internet site called Jologs-inator that translates any word or sentence to Jejenese or as they would call it, to Jejemonize the words, which serves as a spelling guide to more aspiring Jejemons.( kalokohan.guissmo.frih.net 2011)
Blanktape, a Filipino band explains in their song Jejemon just how the Jejemon identity can be recognized in the way of texting, they even manipulated the spelling of their lyrics to illustrate the informality of Jejenese.
“..Na kapag nagtext ang kanyang message ay naku so arte tsong
Hirap tuloy itong ma-read kaya Jejebusters ay galit
Kasi bago mo magets analyze first is all u need”
(lyricsreg.com 2011)
To The Calling of Peers
The Jejemons are also defined as some of this generation’s youth who sought for and found social acceptance in these Jejemon groups.
“The Jejemons find their place in their world by finding a clan, or a regular group of people they text and talk with (also through text messaging and social networking) in Jejenese. Regardless of whether they know each other or not, they will form clans and will communicate with the other members of these clans and even meet up with them in Jejelands frequent hang-outs)” (inquirer.net 2010)
Renato Constantino, in his book, Synthetic Culture and Developement, coined the word “compunication” from the words computer and communication, which he explained as being made possible by the advances in technology and the popularity of social networking through internet and text messaging, the vital communication tools of this generation. (Constantino, R. p18) Since it is a concern of most teenagers of any generation to have a peer group, what can be an easier way to find peers but through social networking, the medium of communication most commonly used today?
An act of Rebellion
Another common concern of a society is the inevitable rebellion of the teenagers of each generation. News reports from ABS-CBN News.com shows that Jejemon might also be a form of rebellion of the youth. Though comical as this explanation may seem, it may actually be a fact that the Jejemons formulated their own special language to disable their parents from effectively monitoring their communication with their peers.
To Copy and to Alter
A common characteristic of the Filipino people is to “copycat” and alter foreign concepts into their own. This characteristic of the Filipinos is evident in the formation of the clothing style of the Jejemons.
In Rolando Tinio’s essay Pilipino Para sa Mga Intelektuwal, he suggested to his readers that even if it is justifiable to say that the Filipinos, secretly (or not) have been moulding themselves to the western ways, it would just be as fair to say that though most of the ideas we have are inspired by foreign thought, we cannot deny the fact that we are also creative by nature. (Tinio, R. S. p148) The fashion statement that the Jejemons have developed is a current proof to this: oversized T-shirts, baggy pants and odd looking hats or beanies –a Filipinized version of foreign countries’ hip hop.
Here we can also see the influence of people’s status in the society to how people see or judge them. Given that the clothes the Jejemons wear are seeming replicas of foreign hip hop fashion, it is a revelation of how partiality for the mass works in each generation. Popular icons such as Will Smith and Sandara Park also demonstrated such fashion statements but neither was ridiculed as much as the Jejemons were. (ehow.com 2011)
As for the history of the Bakya and Jologs pop culture, the society should not forget that Jejemon also is a culture that is patronized by the masses and will stay until another generation with another set of ideas regarding popular culture arises.
It Will Never End
In Approaches to Popular Culture, CWE Bigsby explained how the continuous transformation of culture by culture as directed by each generation’s youth is led by their exuberance that causes them to be creative and look for ways to beautify what they have. (Bigsby, C. p110)
As Bienvenido Lumbera suggested in Popular Culture as Politics, that popular culture is a culture trimmed in many ways to satisfy the desires of a population at a given time, moulded according to the dictations of the generation, we now realize that aside from poverty( in which we know for a fact, that the Philippines have always had a good number of poor people to go around until today), the needs of the populace change in every turn of event in history therefore so does the emergences of new subcultures continue all the way. (Florentino H. Hornedo, P. p150)
An emergence of a popular culture is not necessarily noticed then and there, it may come with different impacts but as long as the universe continuous to progress, popular cultures will surely emerge.As quoted in Georgette Wang’s Continuity and Change,
“They (cultures) do not always have abrupt beginnings and endings; when flourishing, they have indistinct peripheries; and they shade of into one another in a quite indefinite way. We do not always recognize a culture when we see one.” (Wang, p4)
Another big concept to consider is the continuous modernization of the civilization. Development is something that we cannot stop. As a side note from a quote from the movie Ratatouille, “Change is nature... The part that we can influence.” (imdb.com 2011)
From the financial condition of the mass, the nature of change and to the continuously uprising youth are indeed persistently searching for alteration and beautification of anything and everything, these explanations might be the keys to understand as to why there is a continuous formation of pop cultures, from Bakya, Jologs to Jejemon, generation by generation.