On Being Proud of My Work

As I have mentioned in my previous entry, I will be posting a copy of my Philo reflection paper. The one I did well in. Hahahaha. Really proud of myself. Please forgive my bragging. I promise this will not take on forever. This will just be a "now" thing. Hahaha.

Our paper is about a reading we took up in class. We are suppose to appropriate it to our own life experience I think. Anyway, just read on. :)

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The term creativity, almost always, connotes a relation to the arts. But in essence, it goes beyond the arts. Another common misconception about creativity is that which comes out of nothing. Creativity, by definition, means “to bring into being; cause to exist; make, produce” With this said, to be and become a human person, one must also acknowledge his/her being a creative entity. To be and become a human person, one must realize that he/she has the power to effect change. It was discussed in the article “Philosophical Introduction: Correlative Cosmology – An Interpretive Context,” creativity cannot possibly come from a single entity, much like God and that creativity is, in fact, beyond God. It was mentioned that if the presence of God – where everything is perfect, nothing more or nothing less is needed – there can be no room for spontaneity or novelty, thus reducing all “creative” process to be merely exercises of power. However, I believe otherwise.

I thought, at first, that I was not a creative person because of the misconception I have had of it for so long. It was not until I started taking up my COM14 (Visual Thinking for Communication Managers) class that I have come to understand that I am a creative individual and that this comes from God, who is the inherent creative force. Thus, I believe that my being a creative person is because of the creativity of God, my creator. I believe that it is God who has gifted me with the ability to be creative and being so, I have a responsibility to it. Furthermore, in one of the readings required for my TH131 (Marriage, Family Life and Human Sexuality in a Catholic Perspective) class, it was mentioned that one of the things that God called us to do is to be his co-creators and continue the creative process He has begun.

All these insights, including that ones from Ames and Hall’s article shed light on how I see and understand myself as a human being, as a particular becoming. The way I see it, the significance of one’s life comes from one’s ability to influence others, to effect change, to make a difference. If one is basically just like everyone else, then it would be problematic because his/her loss would not have an impact on other people. His/her presence in the world would not make things any different for the rest of humanity However, in a world where there are six billion people other than oneself, it may also be problematic stand out and really make one’s life affect the rest of the six billion population of the entire world.

Therefore, it must also be mentioned that significance does not only refer to something external. The significance of one’s life may not be measured solely by the magnitude of its influence. If this were true, then a lot of people would have resorted to suicide long ago. Making life significant is primarily making life significant for oneself. I, as a person, have to be knowledgeable and have to understand fully myself, my experiences, my ordeals, my surroundings, on top of making my life significant to other people.

Scott Peck, in his book “The Road Less Traveled,” defines love as “the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth”. This definition presents to us an understanding of one thing that is two-fold. It is other-oriented in the same way that it goes back to oneself. We do not look for in love what we lack in ourselves. One of the most famous lines – which is probably the sweetest line – in the movie Jerry Maguire is “You complete me.” However, I believe that this should not be the case in approaching love. I believe that we must be able to establish ourselves as individuals first before we enter into a relationship. One must first make sense of things that surround him/her, one must first understand himself/herself before he/she is able to do the same and seek for the same in another person. Two people in love must not be seen as complements of each other. Rather, they should be understood as letting one enter the life of and work along with the other. This sheds light to my being and becoming a human person. Before we become something, we must first be something because creativity does not come out of nothing. There underlies a being, a canvas, upon which creative processes are laid on or drawn on.

Going back to Ames and Hall’s article, making this life significant may be said to be getting the most out of one’s experiences. This gives rise to another question: how does one get the most out of one’s experiences? This, for me, draws a similarity to investing money in a bank, in a corporation or in a particular piece of asset: the more we put in, the more we get in the end. I believe that we are able to make most of our experiences if we also give so much to it. This translates to the way we deal with other people and other things that surround us. If we give only our mind to something, if we try to make sense of things and people surrounding us solely on the basis of logic, then we are limiting ourselves to the whole experience. All persons are given not only the ability to think logically but also to think intuitively. Unfortunately, most of the time, people only use the former. Being in touch with our emotions, with our intuitions provide us a deeper understanding of a particular object. Being sensitive and making use of our senses in trying to understand this whole world which surrounds us gives us a richer experience of it. In the same way, it would also be problematic if we approach the understanding of things surrounding us on the basis of our mere emotions and intuition. This reminds me of a particular event in my life that I went through just about two years ago. I was in a relationship then with someone and because he was my first real boyfriend, I gave him all my time and love. I gave so much of myself, my emotions.. I was enamored by this so-called love for him even at a very young age. Thus, in the end, I was left in so much pain and feeling so stupid for not seeing things logically, not realizing that in order for us to grow in our relationship, we must not forget about our individualities. Looking back at it now, I can say that I was blinded by my love for him that I have failed to see things logically. This sheds light on how we give ourselves in the understanding of the world around us and of ourselves being a part of the world around us. There has to be a particular balance between logical and emotional or intuitive thinking in trying to understand the world that surrounds us and ourselves as being part of the world.

Making this life significant also presupposes that one must acknowledge the polarity of our experiences. More than just this acknowledgement, one must anticipate and be open to this. Thus, in love, even though things are going pretty well between a couple, they must still try and be open to the fact that things could change and that their relationship may not last until forever unless they get married. However, at times, even marriage does not guarantee that relationships would be eternal. This particular understanding does not have to be as serious as marriage. This also applies to the different things we plan. It just goes to show that in dealing with anything, we must be open to possible unexpected events that may come out of it. Everything is not always as we planned. Sometimes it is even the things that are unplanned and/or the things that unexpectedly arise from situations we are in that really enrich our experience.

In essence, the bottom-line of the article is to share with us an approach to understanding our life experiences on two different yet similar and related perspectives. The article points out that aside from understanding things the way it is laid out in front of us, we must also understand things in the context of our being-in-the-world. It also tries to present to us an approach to understanding our being co-creators of the world around us. It leads us to see that we have a lot of givens laid out in front of us and that it is left on our decision on how we make use of the them and how we make sense of them in order to make an impact on ourselves and on others in this lifetime. It is in the way we make sense of the world, and of our experiences, in the way we interact with the rest of the world, that we, as beings, become becomings. Because of our interaction with the world around us, we are constantly made new, we are constantly transforming and we are molded by it in the same way that we mold the reality around us. It is our wei ziran or”self-so-ing” that we are able to establish ourselves as individuals. And it is when we give ourselves to our experiences, when we allow ourselves to be correlated with the world that we become becomings and that we are able to truly say that we have made this life significant for ourselves and for others. It is in our being and becoming human persons that we are able share in the co-creatorship of the world as God has called us to do so.