A for another homework

It took me an hour to write this line.

And it took me another hour to write the words below that first line. I won’t elaborate why it was tedious for me to do this homework, but I’ll let the readers know the cause: the professor wanted us, the class, to say who God is objectively.

I’ve studied in UST for two years before I transferred to San Beda Alabang, fortunately, my stay there have instilled in me who God is.

This is the most objective of the proofs of who God is because it uses logic.

St. Thomas Aquinas' Quinque Viae

God is the ultimate mover.

God is the beginning.

God is a necessity.

God is perfection.

God is the intelligent designer of all things.

For further explanation:

The First Way"The Argument from Motion"
Nothing can move itself.
For any object to move, something must move the object.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Therefore, If any object moves, then there must be a mover.St. Thomas called this Unmoved Mover "God." Why? Because God is eternal, from everlasting to everlasting; God has no beginning and no end. Why doesn't it make sense to humans? Because we're locked in a dimension called "time."


The Second Way"Argument from Causation (Creation) and Existence"
There exists things that were caused or created by other things.
Nothing can be the cause of itself (or create itself).
There can not be an endless string of things causing other things to exist.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Therefore, there must be an uncaused first cause.
St. Thomas is saying that everything has a beginning, and that beginning is God.

The Third Way"Argument from Contingent and Necessary Objects"
Contingent beings are caused (every contingent being depends on another being).
Not every being can be contingent (there must be something that isn't dependent on anything else.)
There must be a being which is necessary to cause contingent beings.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Therefore, this necessary being is God.



The Fourth Way"Argument from Degrees and Perfection"
Qualities of things differ (everything in the universe has a different level of quality).
There are many different levels of quality.
There must be a perfect standard by which all such qualities are measured.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Therefore, these perfections are contained in God (perfection personified). Something in the universe might be perfect to a degree, but not to a perfect perfection.

The Fifth Way"Argument from Intelligent Design"
There is an observable universe and order in nature.
Common sense (also known as judgment, by using the 5 senses) tells us that nature works in such a way.
A person can conclude that everything was designed by an intelligent designer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Therefore, God is the Intelligent Designer of all physical laws of nature and order in the universe.

H for homework

Suffering and pain is man’s reality.

If pain and suffering is inevitable in this world while we are still alive, then we as sentient and rational beings are bound to look for something to relieve us of that burden.

When Professor Motol asked the class to cite a quote from a movie that tells us something about our being man, ­ I immediately knew what movie to cite and discuss. Shawshank Redemption is about a prisoner named Andy Dufrense who made a friendship to a colored inmate named Red. The movie showed 20 years of Andy’s life inside the penitentiary and how he managed to get the most out of the cruelty and harshness of being incarcerated.

The line that I chose is that of Andy in a letter to Red, “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

What Andy said is true. What is essentially good and real will never die. And being a human being, we are bound to hold on to hope and know that positive outcomes will rise from our sufferings and pain.

The ness of being a human being or a man is then his ability to hope for better things to happen despite experiencing suffering and pain. What makes man unique to other creatures on earth is his ability to hope.

We could also say that man is the only creature on earth that feels and understands what suffering and despair is. One could not hope if there are no sufferings or despair, like one could not know the color white if he doesn’t know black.

If one looks into the major religions of the world, a third of them teach the virtue of hope (virtue comes from the Latin word virtus, meaning strength, hoping then is the strength in all of us to endure and persevere through suffering, hope).

Judaism is still waiting for their messiah or Elijah to comeback and their waiting for their savior to come is hoping that despite the harshness of the world, they still know and look forward to be saved, thus hoping for better things to happen.
Buddhism has four noble truths. The first of the noble truths is Life means suffering. But the Buddha, or the enlightened one, doesn’t stop there. He states that suffering can end through enlightenment. The third noble truth shows us that Buddhism practices the virtue of hope: The cessation to suffering is ATTAINABLE. The Buddhists’ practice of the Eightfold Path is parallel to that of hoping. There wouldn’t be practitioners of Buddhism if they knew that there was no end to suffering, thus they are hoping that their suffering would cease and that they would reach the state called nirvana (Nirvana is enlightenment, this is the ultimate goal of Buddhists).
And then, there’s Christianity, we are taught that hope is a grace from God. I wouldn’t elaborate on the topic completely as this might pertain to digression.

The movie is considered to be one of the greatest movies of all time because of its content and message. What I wrote in this homework only touches little of what the movie is trying to say about the essence of man. To surmise what the movie is about and what I’m trying to say about hope, I’ll quote Andy again:
Get busy living, or get busy dying.
Andy chose the former and lived to see his hopes come to reality, we should do the same.

N for nonsensical

Respect, focus, respect.
Respect, focus, respect.
Respect, focus, respect.

These are the rules to live by in order to survive in the world of Ms J and Mr Palma - the rules to live by in order for the team and my batch to survive the efforts of outside forces to penetrate what we have.

Another life lesson from a little boy

Blame the little boy (or me).

A lump the size of a golf ball has appeared on my right ankle last night. I can’t walk and I’m in a bit of pain due to this sprained - I’m hoping that it’s just a sprain - joint of mine.

When I was in my hell mode, I accepted physical pain gladly to mask the emotional turmoil within me. Stupid as it seems, I self-destructed those days. But now that I’m in a happier phase, this injury and pain is not a friend at all. I’m all for physical pain, but when it interrupts my happy time, it sucks. Number one happy-time that the little boy jeopardized is my retreat. I’m an NPC (non-practicing Catholic) but I have other reasons why I want to go to the retreat (Now I can’t spend time with her). Number two happy- time that is affected is my training. I love sports and my sprained ankle is hindering my training for our competition.

Why does that little boy have a near-to-perfect kick,
And why did Migo try to outdo the little boy and imitate him?

Let the little boy speak!

Little Boy:
Ewan ko ba kung bakit ako ginagaya nun ni kuya. Muka namang nageenjoy sila nung isa niyang kasama mag-training. Patapus na nga yung session pero gusto ni master na gumawa pa daw kami ng advanced kicks.

Lagi kasi ako nagprapractice sa bahay sumipa kaya lagi din ako pinupuri nila master. May diin daw yung sipa ko. Siguro naiinggit yung isa kaya ginaya ako. Ayun, namali yung bagsak… yung paa niya tuloy yung sumalo nung bagsak niya.


I’m guessing that’s what the little boy would say if you asked him what happened. Imagine a ten-year old kicked my ass before we even started sparring.

Life lesson:
Be happy with what you have

and

Injuries come easy to old people.

L for Learnings

A broken heart and a myriad of heartaches forced me to search for the sense of what had happened.
These are what I managed to salvage from the people around me and from myself:

- You're giving the person that you love the right to hurt you. Even if that other person doesn't love you back
- Love is really Pain.
- We cease to be human when we reject love...


People don't use their memories until they need it.

H for Her and Happiness

This will hurt badly. This will be painful.

This is the stage – I think – where I admit that I was happy when I was with my ex. Yes, I know that I was happy back then, because if I wasn’t, then I wouldn’t be this sad at all. I guess that I really have to admit to myself that I was happy with her in order for me to move on and get over what I once considered the “love” of my life.

She made me really happy. She made me smile a lot. She made me want to share joy and happiness to her and to others. She made me want to be good for her.
Happiness was she.

The bitterness that I’m feeling stems from me telling myself that I wasn’t happy. It was one of my defense mechanisms from the pain; I told myself that I was never happy with her; at its freshest, denying that fact did help me get through, but now that the realization that it’s really over have sunk in, it’s not healthy to deny the happy times anymore. I know that acknowledging those ‘times’ will help me in the long run.

And with this I believe I’m a step closer to fully achieving what I want: completely getting over the loss.

After this line, you don’t have to read any further, but if you’re still interested, then read on.

Writing and recalling these things stings right now.

I’m letting go of the happiness and the memories.

Starting to loosen my grip on the things and events that made me happy with her:

- When I would lull her to sleep with the use of my fingers. I would make little circles on her shoulder or on the small of her back with the use of my fingers. She will then close her eyes and fall asleep like a baby. She’s a wonder to gaze at when she looks so peaceful. And I was really happy to bring that ‘peace’ to her…
- When she asked me “may dumi ako sa face?” I told her, “yes”. It was her mole. I thought it was something else. Touching that small brown spot on her left cheek always made me happy.
- When ever she feels down, I always manage to act stupid – not purposely – and this makes her smile. This in turn makes me happy… Even in my most stupid state, she still smiles.
- Being excited to go back to her whenever there is rowing practice and school.
- Every little thing that we did… the small things that didn’t matter but really made us happy.
- When her eyes light up whenever I give her a piece of paper with my writings on it.
- When we would sing like crazy because my car hasn’t got a radio.

A whole lot more happy times. but this is enough.
it stings really bad.
goodbye.

N for Neutral

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” - Elie Wiesel

In a car that has an atomatic transmission, you would find the letters "P, R, N, D, L" on the gear box.
If you were made to choose between the letters "R, N, and D" what would you choose?
I wouldn't choose "N" or neutral... It won't get me anywhere.

I've chosen "N" on several occasions in my life, and I thought that I was doing the right thing. And I was proven wrong.

"Hey you. It's alright with me if you took 'their' side. I ain't mad at you. I even quite respect the fact that you chose a side unlike others."

Neutrality, as a lasting principle, is a sign of weakness; and is at times, a graver sin than belligerence.

F for Four and R for Realizations

1.The year was 1988. My sister was turning three, I was one, and my brother was two-months old. It happened on the early morning of August that year. My dad went to the garage and took out the family car. As soon as he was out the garage, two armed men on a motorcycle approached him and shot him five times. The doctor pronounced my father as DOA – Dead on Arrival.
My father and mother were high school sweethearts. They dated for ten years before they decided to get married.
My mother mourned for four years. Now she’s okay and happy.
Sometimes, I think that the pain I’m feeling now is minute compared to what my mother felt. Sometimes I think that it’s shameful of me to cry to her about the heaviness and the pain of – should I say betrayal – being left hanging in the air without a valid reason. Sometimes I think that I shouldn’t tell her what I’m feeling inside, because she might dismiss it as a sign of weakness.
She has been through a lot and I was thinking that this pain of mine was nothing. Then she said: “Okay lang yan… I can’t comprehend the pain that you’re feeling, but I’ll help you.” That was what I needed, someone who understood that I needed help.

2.I’ve talked to a lot of people concerning what I’m going through. What struck me was what Mathieu’s mom told me “C’mon Migo, you’re strong. You just think you’re not because of the overwhelming pain. You’re the son of your mom, and your mom has been through a lot, so you should be strong, ok?”
I am strong. I was raised around strong people.

3.I should be hating women right now. I should be detesting and mocking women right now. I should be scheming on how to inflict pain on women, especially the deceivingly beautiful women. There are a myriad of “I shoulds” in my mind right now: “I should not trust them again; I should hate them etcetera...” But this kind of thinking is wrong…
What one woman did to me is not the fault of the entire population.
From my previous realizations: my biggest support group right now is women. So, I’m gracious towards those who helped and are helping me.

4. I read in a friend’s blog:“one day you realize that better knights do not come in shining armor as their armors are bashed in the battlefield. Nor are their horses white as they are stained with mud and blood. After all the brutality they go through, their weary souls will look for someone to find comfort in. And once they do, they will never let go. While the knight in shining armor has probably spent more time shining his armor than using it. He has many princesses waiting for him, he wont mind losing one.” –Miggy.
I am not a knight in shining armor. I have my defects but I know that there’s still room for improvement, and I’m trying really hard to be better.

C for Confusion and W for Who-are- we-slash-you

Who are we?
Who is worth dying for, the Filipino or the Indio? Does Mister Aquino’s famous quote really lives up to the great man’s principles? Did my father and the myriads that preceded him die in vain? Are we Filipinos or are we Indios? Are we living up to what is expected of our name?

Questions; queries; questions; queries – where are the answers?

The native inhabitants of the Philippine Archipelago at the time of the Spaniards were called “Indio”, while the Spaniards who dwelled in our islands were called “Filipinos”. There were two types of Filipinos: Penisulares - the Spaniards who were born in Spain and were residing in our country; and the Insulares -the Spaniards who were residing and born in our beloved Philippines.
Is it not these Filipinos were the ones who brought havoc into the lives of the native commoner? Is it not these Filipinos who marginalized the natives into a barrier unseen by bestowing upon them the term Indio? And is it not these Filipino friars that became so corrupt that their properties swelled up too fast and too huge that the remnants of their properties still play a major role in our economy today?

Our great hero and his contemporaries wore this term of degradation as a badge of honor. They used it positively and turned the meaning into a deeper sense of the word. They called themselves ‘Indio’ and coined the term: Los Indios Bravos. In short, they were proud to be called ‘Indio’. They proved the Filipinos (Spaniards) wrong by organizing themselves into a society of intellectuals: La solidaridad; all of its members calling their fellows and themselves ‘Indios’.

Why then when we proclaimed our independence from the clutches of Spain did we start calling ourselves ‘Filipinos’?

Something went wrong within our forefathers’ thinking.

When we achieved our independence from Spain and started calling ourselves ‘Filipinos’, we, unconsciously, started changing into the very thing our forefathers’ revolutionized against. We became what we despised the most; we became “Filipino”.

Our transformation began with the father’s of the revolution themselves:
Andres Bonifacio was executed by his own country men by fear of taking over the declared Republic under Aguinaldo. Just like what the Spaniards did to our national hero.

Once we tasted power, the hunger grew inside of us and made a hole within us that no amount of feeding could nourish. When we tasted power, we longed for more exotic tastes and our palates became hungry for these things. We discovered the sourness of corruption and the sweetness of fraud; we learned to appreciate the bitterness of deceit and the saltiness of black propaganda; and worse of all, we learned the taste of marginalizing our fellow country men into a caste system: haves and have-nots; know and don’t-know. We became, by consuming these things, the Filipino we despised when we were Indios.

These things still applies to our people today. There are still Filipinos out there doing what the Filipinos of 300 years ago did. And there are still Indios who fight the battle that they’ve been fighting for almost 400 years.

The sad thing is, we're confused about who we really are . We are proud, we are shamed; we are Filipinos, we are Indios; we are country men, we are enemies; and so fort and so on.

I am both Filipino and Indio and I am proud and shamed, both enemy and ally, and so fort and so on…

Who is worth dying for, the Filipino or the Indio? Does Mister Aquino’s famous quote really lives up to the great man’s principles? Did my father and the myriads that preceded him die in vain? Are we Filipinos or are we Indios? Are we living up to what is expected of our name?

WHO are we/you?