Philosophy is Life

“Know Thyself”

Everybody who knows Socrates will surely recognize the words which he uttered almost 2,500 years ago yet still gives out a challenge to every man of this modern time.

What does really make a better you? What makes a good life? Most of us would think it would be things, material things.

During my childhood years, we lived at a subdivision in Norala. Some of my friends came from well-to-do families and they have as it seem everything they want. They have computers on their homes. Encyclopaedias don their living room. Bulky dictionaries would be their companion during studies. Their “yaya’s” would even accompany them going to school with their cars to bring them to and fro. At a young age they have cellphones to call their own. To sum up, they are rich while my family is only from the middle class. Though our everyday life is alright, not as bad as others, to dream of someday also becoming rich was implanted to my being. I was taught that if I study harder, someday I will also have these things and my life would be better. Better if I also have those things.

At first I succumb to that temptation of dreaming of having also those things. I wished I also live on a big house; I can be brought to school with a really nice car. I also dreamed of reading those thick encyclopaedias in our home and scan that dictionary everytime I have assignments. I really thought happiness, before you will have it, you should have these things also. But it is not.

I was transferred school when I was in Grade 4 because of my Mother’s work. It was really a new life where I transferred, totally a new life.

I was transferred to Laconon Elementary School. It was actually the second largest school in T’boli but still a few kilometres from the town proper. We will be trekking an 8-kilometer road with 2 rivers just to get there. Our house there is made of nipa. We live in a compound where teachers are boarding. Our water supplies come from springs. There are springs there where you can tap a hose up to your house and would be the source of water for your house. Sometimes if our tapping system would break we will be most happy because we will have no water and we will be washing ourselves in a river at the back of our house. The water is so pure and clean and it is literally as cold as water with ice! We used to heat water first before bathing.

Life is very different from that of Norala. Everything my classmates at Norala have, that’s the very opposite of what my classmates in T’boli has. Literally, small houses, no cars and we don’t even have books from the school. My classmates would start “walking” from their houses at 4 and still they would be late for the first period. Our school also practice an “early dismissal system” so that those who live in the barrios can reach their homes early. At 3:30 pm we are already dismissed. Life is just so simple in that mountain. But, one thing makes them superior than my rich classmates before. They truly know life.

With all the scarcity of what they have, they would still share, laugh and enjoy each day. You would even think if they have problems at all! They are all relatives by the way; they can trace every member of their clans though they do not have the same surname. Even those whom you would expect to be “siga” can be so gentle in his sister, can share the little he has with his friends and can be of company for his brothers in walks miles away.

Well, that is philosophy especially in the practice of metaphysics. It teaches us how to truly live our lives. It teaches us how to see beyond. Seeing from the simplest of things the greatness of meanings it wants us to perceive. Later, we may realize that this life we live is a great unveiling of mysteries.
They would say, “Philosophy is so hard!” Others would ask, “If you graduate the course, what good will it bring you?” Well, it is bringing good to you now.

Philosophy is never detached from the world. It actually gives balance and meaning to the world. As a telescope would help astronomers venture the heavens, know the vastness of the cosmos and discover the deepness of the universe so is Philosophy leading us to discover what life truly is, the life itself. It leads us to our inmost being. If you look into the heavens under a light post, that artificial light from the post may blur our eyes from seeing the very beauty of the moon and the stars. If we look into what happiness in life is through the lenses of material things, we may be disillusioned from what real happiness is.

Our life is like the universe, so vast and full of wonders yet unknown. It may be discovered but still there are more to offer. The stars, the moon, the comets and many other wonders lie beneath the dark spaces. We are told that these wonders are only fragments, debris; trash of what happened millions of years ago. If this debris would fall so beautiful, what more is that very nucleus which happened long ago? Philosophy does that; it makes us discover that very beautiful self of us. That very nucleus of ourselves which if discovered is so beautiful.

So let us anchor to Philosophy and let us live life itself.

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Everything Flowing

We Filipinos are well known all over the world for our extremes. We have in our culture things with no match around the world. We are a people of uniqueness that other nationalities consider to be a blessing and even viewed with envy. From our geographical point of setting which produced our rich floras and faunas to our unique culture produced from a mixture of other different great cultures of the Chinese, Malay and Indo, with that of the west, the Spaniards, Germans and the Americans which contributed to this unique culture of ours and produced great people as Dr. Jose Rizal and Manny Pacquiao. All made it possible for this people being jealous by the world.

Our geographical setting is situated just above the equator of the earth making our archipelago a tropical biome. With this setting in the ecological point of view would produce a biodiversity which will have no match from other biomes. And we can actually verify this fact. We have in our country archipelago the highest statistics of floras and faunas. We have 52 species of Nepenthes, also known as pitcher plants. This is the highest record of species of Nepenthes all over the world present in a single country. This is just one example of the many great facts about the Philippines’ faunas and faunas which makes our country really unique. Scientists would estimate that only about 10% of these unique floras and faunas are known and given name by the scientific world.

From the point of view of sociology, the Filipino culture is also unique. It is a product of different cultures possessing qualities with no match from the world. It is a culture of ‘bayanihan’ or team-work-coupled-with-kindness-and-love-of-neighbour. It is a term that cannot be anglicized because it is a value which has no match.

Of course, it would be bias if we only state the positive qualities that we possess. For we also have those negative which only makes us humans and help in testing the authenticity of our values and the goodness of being Filipinos.

We are a country archipelago situated beside the Pacific which makes us susceptible to typhoons and extreme weathers. The La Niña and El Niño made it almost a common sound of words for our ears as Filipinos. Just recently is the example of the super-typhoon Yolanda which devastated the Tacloban and almost of Visayas. But, what matters in this negative that we have is that test of value it gives. Amidst these, especially the typhoon Yolanda, Filipinos still smiled and expressed their Bayanihan. Helping the fellowmen, even if, they too needed help. They shared, even if, they have their very least.

These are just but a fraction of the best and even worst of Filipinos. There are a lot more for us to be proud of. But, a question still bugs my mind: “Why many of my fellow youth ambitions to be part of other countries’ culture, considering it better than our own?” But, do I really have the right to question this? By questioning this am I not boxing up a being into my own and only perspective? Yes, it is good to care for my culture because it is my identity, it forms my being. But, at the expense of suppressing the reality of that being, I realized it is a no. By suppressing and ending the possibility of being into the context of another culture is to make that being static and we fall into that trap very easily. I tend to realize that everything that I do is a product of that desire to put everything in order with what I am. It is like making mini-me’s in another person’s person and to do so is to suppress that being’s being.

There was once a TV show where kids are encouraged to dress up as their idols – artists, Filipinos or Foreign. In the hope of parents that their children be like this people someday they, famous, they would enlist their kid to that show and make them perform. It is like suppressing these kids’ possibilities and making them live a life already fixed. Why not let the child live in his own ways and develop in his own ways?

Let everything flow, like flowing water in the course of the rivers. Without form, forever changing, forever flowing. Like in the words of the Tao Te Ching: “It is easier to carry an empty cup than one that is filled to the brim.” Let being flow. Let not hinder the uniqueness of it. Let it flow. Do not conceive being. Let it flow.

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