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!