BEND WITHOUT BREAKING

BEND WITHOUT BREAKING

Zeno’s paradox of the tortoise and Achilles embezzled the minds of the ancient sages. Here, he authored several ingenious arguments to prove the impossibility of motion. According to this Greek wizard, motion or movement is an illusion. This Greek virtuoso really puzzled my mind. Then, I come to the realization that he is right. Sometimes, movement is really an illusion. Let me prove this with my few experience.

When I was in fourth year high school, one of my favorite subject was physics. In physics, we’ve studied plane’s movement during turbulence. When a jet plane is headed into a violent storm, though it is the world’s most advanced plane, the passengers there would say, “Are we going to make it?” The passengers are most probably worried if they could land safely. But in my surprise, as my teacher demonstrates the movement of the jet plane, I easily got the principle why jet plane could fly even it is headed into a violent storm.

The engineers designed the wings of the aircraft magnificently. The wings of the plane actually bend in flight with the forces of nature. The wings are bending, flexing and yielding to the wind even during storm. I couldn’t imagine that these huge metal boards made up of platinum, the hardest metal in the world, could bend without breaking. In this case, I agreed to Zeno that movement, sometimes, is an illusion.

As I dig up deeply Zeno’s illusion, I was able to reflect and relate it with my experience mentioned above. Bending the hardest metal in the world, most probably, the result will be, it would break. Like a jet plane, how do I respond in the midst of turmoil? How do I behave when suddenly confronted by a force that seems stronger than my self?

Unfortunately, when I face major problems, I respond by becoming extremely tense and inflexible. I clench my fists; set my jaw, and dare anyone to come within ten feet. I realized that instead of having a rigid reaction, there are other better approaches. I should be adaptable and elastic in tough situations. I should learn to ride out the storms of life and even allow these storms to work for me.

Most of us have more or less experienced what I am talking about. We’ve put into several trials that challenge our personality and character. Whatever problems that are ahead before us, we should be able to handle not the problem but handle our selves. We should learn to quickly adapt to new situations. We should be flexible. Brittle steel will shatter. When it has been tempered, however, it has been known to withstand a mighty earthquake.

In every situation, we should seek agreement rather than discord. We should be responsive than use resistance and to compromise rather than to seek conflict. By putting these courses of actions into practice, like the wings of an airplane, we could know what it means to be “bend without breaking”.

Philosophy: Reflections on Parmenides' Consistency

CONSISTENCY

            Parmenides made the first breakthrough in philosophy. He contradicted Heraclitus’ constant Change with his constant Constant.  Constant means something permanent, unchanging. And thus, from the word constant we derived the word consistency. Parmenides’ metaphysics is like a mirror that makes my heart bound and reflect.

            One of the most distinguished icon in the diocese of Legaspi was the Bicol bible scholar Monsignor Noe de los Santos. He is called the reference of the diocese. He devoted his entire life in studying and translating the bible into Bikol language. He could study the whole night up until 3 o’clock in the morning. This brilliant scholar was assigned in our seminary as the Dean of Studies. He introduced to us the importance of language. He knows ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, sometimes he speaks Latin and his Bikol is an old (suanoy) Bikol. As a seminarian, I really admire his eloquence and passion for learning. He was my idol since then. He is a model of excellence and consistency. One time, one of my classmate ask him, “How do you define excellence?” Then Monsignor said in reply, “Excellence means simply to excel, and to excel means to go beyond average.”

Going beyond average is easier said than done. I’ve realized that some of the people who excel continue to excel but some doesn’t maintained or have failed. Some are consistent in excellence and some are simply inconsistent. Sometimes I excel, but most of the time I fail. Whenever I achieve some sort of excellence, I wish to stay forever in that echelon of success. But staying to be always excellent is very hard nut to crack. It’s very hard to maintain. I have to exert a 110 percent effort for excellence requires an excellent effort too. I’ve realized that aiming to be always excellent is impossible but through consistency, it is not just possible but probable. Being excellent means being consistent.

Being consistent means you do not settle for average. I’ve realized that in whatever task we are doing, we should make it a constant goal to perform it again better than we’ve ever done it before. Then we should repeat the same excellent performance again and again, until we reach the excellence that reflects our best. Unfortunately, sometimes we adopt a personal policy of doing just enough to get by. We adopt a myopic policy or a minimalistic mentality (ok na yan). As a student, sometimes, we think that the highest goal of our studies is graduation or diploma rather than the knowledge that makes us excellent. In real life, there is a wide gap between a person with a degree and the one who can perform at a high level of distinction.

The opposite of consistency is mediocrity. Mediocrity is the cancer of the soul. Every time we practice mediocrity, we find our personality a mirror of it---dull and boring. My personal question to counter mediocrity and a life of dullness is: How can the door to personal excellence be opened? My answer is find the key. And the key to excellence is a life of consistency!

Philosophy: Reflections on Heraclitus' Constant Change

CONSTANT CHANGE

            “You cannot step in the same river twice”, says Heraclitus. There is a constant change in everything. For seven years of stay in the seminary, only Heraclitus made me think and realize that I have changed.

            Today, I reminisce the day that I decided to study in the seminary. It’s a life-changing decision. Before my interpose in St. Gregory the Great Seminary, I was quite in doubt of my decision. At that time, I was so confused. I cannot see things clearly. If I will enter seminary, I will miss lot of things---I can’t use my cell phone, can’t play computer games, can’t watch my favorite soap opera and so many things. I want to study in the seminary but I was drastically attached with worldly things. I have to decide but I was totally undecided. No one advised me even my parents for they themselves are against with my decisions. I tried to back out but it is against my will. I don’t know if my decision is right. But I bear in mind that “wrong decisions can be corrected, but zero decisions can’t”.

            That decision changed the course of my entire life. That decision had a total impact to my life and perhaps to the lives of my love ones. Somehow, it has an impact to them. That decision somehow changed the atmosphere of our house. It changed my family. That decision has brought me to the height of human fulfilment and happiness.

Inside the seminary, I experienced the most ironic process of change. We were introduced with things we‘ve never met before. The seminary changed my personality and character. Before, I just relied on destiny. But successful men don’t. They make their own destiny. Why leave your future in the hands of faith? Expectation can make it great! The seminary taught me to do and think two to five steps ahead.

It is only in the seminary that I have experienced activities that have ground-breaking transformative effects in my character and personality. I had a lot of time inside exploring topics that are brand new and deal with people who shares innovative and deep insights. The seminary has magnificent structures that have expanded my horizons. As I reached out beyond the walls of the seminary, I was able to harvest the majestic and positive perspectives of the realities within our world which before I just ignored. The seminary taught me to do these things. These structures also gave me a technical expertise in communicating with people at the level I’ve never imagined.

The seminary is a place for the best, for the hand-picked. Some say that seminary is the place for the elite. But we may not be the best, but we always strive to become. We may not have a supreme intellect to become successful but only through a personal change in us would do. If we aim for success, we should change first ourselves, change our perspectives. This process of change in us is a constant change. It is a lifelong task. A positive outlook plus willingness to change will bring us to the upper echelon of success!

Ancient Philosophy: Reflections on Thales' Water

 HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY  

POWER OF DISKARTE

            Welcome to the world of Thales!

            The world of Thales is full of water. But it’s not an aquarium. Full of water, to the point that he was able to realize that “everything is water”. For him, water is alive and moisture supports life. This primitive view of water ignites a fire in me. It propels my will to reflect.

            I grew up in the heart of Albay, near the prestigious Cagsawa Ruins, in the town of Daraga. Our house there is just a simple and small house. At the back of our house, there is a small river crossing the rice fields with a magnificent ambiance: the Mayon Volcano. When i’m just a kid, my childhood friends and I used to make paper boats and we play on it in the river. Whenever I get tired and full of problems, I just go and stay there. That place is full of tranquillity. You can feel the gentle breeze of wind that caresses your emotions. You will forget all your problems if you stay there.

            The flow of water in the river always catches my attention. And during rainy season, the river overflows and the water gets through the balcony of our house. The current of the water during flood is very strong, very powerful. After the flood, some parts of our house are destroyed and lot of things are missing. The character of water is very amazing. Its bombastic strength inspired me so much. When I was just a chid, I wanted to be as strong and powerful like water. Water, then, becomes my idol. But before, it was Batman. I really idolized the power of water because it can do a lot of things---barred down our balcony, banished the orchids that are ever dear to my mother than me and the roster that is a treasure to my father than his family.

            This character of water is very much the same to the character of an ideal seminarian. In a life of a seminarian, he faces challenges and trials that he can never escape. Like water, he must be strong to face these trials and challenges. Another character of water is its formlessness. This formlessness is equated to human character as flexibility. The course of life is not a scripted and fixed structure. Sometimes, you have to bend, you have to adjust, you have to be flexible. Filipino identity identifies this virtue as diskarte.

            An old Chinese adage says, “Yesterday is a history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift.” Since tomorrow is a mystery, we incline to predict what will happen on that day. We tried to plan out everything. We structuralize everything so that we could control the events of tomorrow. But sometimes, our plans fail. Technical errors barred down our planned structures.  We face critical problems that are sometimes a dead end. In life, we experience trials that are no way out. In this case, water’s flexibility will teach us the virtue of diskarte.                    

This diskarte will not just teach us what to do in critical situations. But rather, this virtue leads us to new virtues. It will teach us to become skilful and competent in life. It will teach us also perseverance and aim for success. These virtues are vital and important as we face real life.

In conclusion, let me give some course of actions that are rooted in the virtue of diskarte: never quit, GO THE SECOND MILE, BE CONSISTENT, NEVER STOP IMPROVING AND MAKE EXCELLENCE A LIFESTYLE!