RUBIK’S: AS COMPLICATED AS LIFE ITSELF

Way back when I was just a wandering kid, learning to tie my shoe and welcoming the breeze of life unto my little nostrils, I wonder what was Rubik’s Cube for? It was so grotesque for me, I mean for me it’s more than just a toy (because of it’s symbolism. I guess you really have to read further) I was so awed by it’s multi-rotary sides and perfectly engineered mechanism. A cube within a cube. A handfuls of cube each moving in a perfect mechanical route. Consequently, a single color dangles miles and miles of moves while you don’t know the techniques yet. Thus, if you wanna see your cube still arranged correctly, then careful in twisting it the first time you bought it, else that’s the first and the last time you’ll gonna see it that way (except if you excuse me putting them back, lol!).

I bought one vended at the side-walk. With affordable price(I guess it’s 20 pesos) comes affordable quality. After a day of use the colors become unison white! Wow, before, I pound my head how to put  respective colors back to it’s respective sides, now it’s the other way around, since it’s all white! Well, just a simple thought. If you can, buy the original. Anyway, as I am writing this stuff I have my new original one beside me (as my coach, lol).

The thrill of learning makes me see things far yet so near. That I could ever come to the point where I can really assemble the cube again despite it’s complexity. I put it this way. It’s 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. It’s 99% of my effort and patience have been tried on the table and 1% of it from the World Wide Web where I get the necessary thought to do it. I’d like to clap my hands to this groundbreaking human brainchild, the Internet.

Hmmm, learning the cube is not a joke, as it is not a joke really when you’ll get frustrated after a little consolation of completing one side and then losing it again for the sake of the other. I’ll tell you, your head turns with the cube, ha ha ha! as what your set mate might have told you once.

The primary and simple colors you see(white, orange, blue, yellow, green and red) can never be mistaken to its complex assembly. These simple colors forebode great puzzle wonders  that you’ll ever met in this world (no doubt it’s one of the best puzzle and puzzle game in the toy kingdom). The cube offers one of the most difficult puzzle in the world, paralleled to that of the Bermuda and other daunting phenomena in this world. I guess, the only difference is that, Bermuda is still manifesting it’s puzzling activities, while the cube has long been recreated to manifest more puzzling turnouts. Anyway, it took me some kind of a week or two to learn and master the cube (of course I did eat my meals, took a bath, go to work, brush my teeth, go to sleep and forget about it, it’s not so engrossing after all, besides that it’s fun and annoying sometimes).

Nonetheless, there is only one thing I could admit and realize, Rubik’s cube offers the same dilemma and complexity as life itself offers. The cube offers so much headache if you wanna go into a solo.  It offers teasing puzzles. It offers bright and vexing color combinations. But not much. Take this: a standard and default Rubik’s cube which is 3×3x3, offers you 43, 252, 003, 274, 489, 859, 000 possible configurations. I don’t know how did it come that way. Well, that’s what authority said. As for me, huh, I don’t know about that, that’s Math you know!?

It offers multifarious moves and combinations. All is corollary and mutually dedicated to a single purpose – to solve the cube. Each single move out of that color combinations plays a big part in solving the cube.

So, what do you think in your life as well as mine? If you have a problem, isn’t it so easy as eating an apple pie if you were given those possible combinations to solve your problem? And yet life is more than just a hefty turn and twist of a cube. I’m quite sure life offers more “possible configurations” than the cube itself.

Yeah, life is hard, the craziest man on earth would not admit that! But the way life offers daredevil puzzles and atrocities, is the same way life offers possible solutions to them – we really just have to know the techniques.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK, SAY AND DO

(As far as I know, in college, we have our nose bleed just to catch a bit of John Locke’s inner thoughts. But this is the way I get it. I don’t know if you will, good luck as you read.)

 

John Locke is so engrossed with regards man’s process of cognition, the whys and hows of it. He is an empiricist, but apparently idealistic in approach and treatment of the matter. He used to circle around the concerns of the idealistic philosophers, negating platonic and those slightly Thomistic realist. Locke puts his best foot foreword by exerting that our knowledge and ideas are courtesy of our sense experiences or rather, we can know nothing except things that passes through our senses. In particular, the further mastication of sense experience underwent several “processing mechanisms;” from simple ideas (a mere actual cognition), complex ideas (the manipulation and fusion of diverse ideas) and the general ideas (which cares for essences). Further development of ideas are obtained by combining, comparing and separating; just likely a sort of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

The crux of Locke’s endeavor is quite focused on the mechanism of man’s mental faculty. Though an empiricist, he sounds on the rare side as an idealist, plundering areas under the dominion of idealist philosophers.

Locke also puts out a sketchy psychological analysis of a child, who calls his subject according to the well-framed ideas in his mind, such as the idea of a nurse, a mother or a father. Later the child grew and discovers many contributory or commonality in them, thus calling them in to one (by virtue of the particulars) – a man, for example.

On the other hand, John Locke’s Tabula Rasa or “blank slate or piece of paper” is perhaps a concrete paradigm of his empirical idealistic advocate. And it is at this point that I will draw my sentiments.

I have read a philosopher who says that “what enters into us via sense experiences radically forms our soul.” If man’s action depends on the ideas that he accumulated and, these ideas are sketched on a “blank sheet,” then it follows that what ever enters into a man’s soul forms it in conformity to the kind of ideas he gathers.

With this, I’ve got the notion that a man’s character or moral upbringing are directly affected by these formative stimuli that enter and taint his soul. Say, a man highly inclines himself to keeping tabs on pornographic relish, then shortly thereafter, he could be a rapist, a fornicator, molester or he could be one of them. Yeah, where did it all started, but from small beginnings which drammatically mushroomed to a crime. Think, what are you made up as of now?

The oriental philosophy, in particular, the Indian religion stressed out that the kind of embodiment or reincarnation a man will possess depends upon the “karma” (worldly attachment) he posses during his earthly pilgrimage. The more Karma, less chances of attaining “nirvana” or in a state of a perfect bliss. On the other hand, if a man lives life like a pig (gluttony) he is more likely to inhibit or reincarnate a pig’s nature. Because, everything that has been said is of beastly nature - and we aren’t so different from that. We do have it, and even worse sometimes.

So guys, YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK, SAY AND DO. Be carefull!

FAMILY AND SECULARIZATION

(Familiaris Consortio of the late Pope John Paul II emphasizes on family growth and development amidst material booming in our society. I tried once to project my thought on this, I just don’t know if it will get you.)

 

Each family finds within itself summons that cannot be ignored, and that specifies both dignity and its responsibility: family, becomes what you are looking at it in such a way as to reach its very roots, we must say that the essence and role of the family are in the final analysis specified by love. Hence the family has the mission to guard, reveal and communicate love. Thus, love as its point of departure and making constant reference to it, the recent Synod emphasized four general tasks of the family: 1) forming a community of persons, 2) serving life, 3) participating in the development of the society, 4) sharing in the life and mission of the church (PJPII, Familiaris Consortio).

As far as the aforementioned role and mission is concerned, nothing’s new really in its fundamentality, since its role and task had been specified since the dawn of the first family on earth – our fore parents. However, the love of the husband and wife is a “unique” participation (and therefore always old yet always new) in the mystery of life and love of God himself as specified by Pope John Paul II.

Intense secularization, is I guess something new in the open. The revolution of the new age gadgets, music, fashion an events mushroomed into an enticing lure that outrageously twists the unguarded consciousness of the young. I don’t mean to fully conclude that these stuffs are distructive. Rather most of these in fact, are intended to patch-up man’s mundane incapacities. Thus, leading to their comfort and felicity.

On the other hand, the maleficent aftermath is seems evident and radical than those of the beneficent effects. In a world view, people, especially the youth prefer to hobnob on malls and other places of joints and vanities than attending their moral and spiritual obligations on Sundays and instances calling for it. In our own perspective, in particular, what are locked in the palm of the majority in this present generation, especially of the youths, is a handful of a highlighted electronic buttons and the tingling tease of its teensy ringing tones – no other than the revolutionary breakthrough in the bivouac of communication – the cellular phones. Again, this is of a high significance to people especially of a far-flung communications. But what is demeaning here – is that this gadget syntheticate the natural a personal communications between men especially those who need close and actual intimacy. And, worse in this matter, it menacingly mingle in the family’s essential sense of communication. And how – experiences tell a lot.

This is just one of the many and the like factors that somehow radically influence the society, specially its essential cell – the family. Because what is intense and offensive secularization but to put a sturdy material boundary between the precious signature of love within the family circle, which is an intimate familial communication. Else, how could a family be a breading chamber of lives for themselves and to others if some of their members were so engrossed to night sessions, trite and skin-deep television shows, texting and malingering around with mostly impertinent company. How could a family take a step towards fulfilling their mission if they are blinded and scattered by the haze of materiality?

I guess its high time to keep the red lights on. Exercise the family’s synergistic and unitive aspect. So that they might be in full force to face the impending challenges awaiting them in this world. Revitalize the family’s dying potential flames to communicate love, to form community of persons, to serve life, to cooperate in the development of the society and to share the life and mission of the church.

 

FIDES ET RATIO

(Fides et Ratio, in other words Faith and Reason. It could be science and religion, or could be the mind and the heart. I wrote this years ago as a ‘pure thoughts’ on one of PJP II’s encyclical letter Fides Et Ratio.)

 

Their was once a story of a meandering Arabian who was having a respite in his tent, when a man happened to ask him. The man asked, “how do you prove that God exist?” The Arab blatantly answered, “how do I know that a camel or a man passed by my tent last night?”

Obviously what does this peculiar man (Arabian) mean? – it is but a rational notion of the existence of God. That God’s existence is overshadowed in the splendor and majesty of his creations.

Now, what is the noble connection between rational proof and faith? Let me quote for sometime the philosophical ideology of Rev. Fr. Michael Moga as has been clearly stated in his book, In Search of True Religion. I quote…

To affirm that there must be a supreme cause to account for the order in the world does not mean that I have faith, that I commit myself to this supreme cause in trust, obedience and love. Rather, the conclusion of these proofs is a calm, intellectual affirmation that, based in reason, a transcendent cause must exist.1

Clear and bright enough, that reason is not a vain word when we call for the proof of the existence of God. Natural Theology emphasizes that we can know God in two ways; ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’. The natural knowledge of God gives weight to the “light of reason” (lumen rationes), while the supernatural on the “light of faith”(lumen fedei) and the “beatific vision” (lumen gloriae). By virtue of escalation, the light of reason appears at the last (not bad), primed by the beatific vision and seconded by the light of faith. Further, according to Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Fedis et Ratio, faith and reason are like two wings which enables, say for example, a dove to hover and be in balance while on its wings. Such so, that we cannot stifle any of them in search of God. We cannot put off the light of faith to give way for the light of reason to shine, and vice versa. We cannot put the other into inertness in order for the other to subsist. Rather, without the other (or any of them), it is an absurd attempt to know God. We both need faith and reason to know God. Reason needs faith to withstand the awe in standing in front of the Supreme Being. The same is through with faith, it needs reason acknowledge faith in logical sense.

I believe in the indissoluble and in separable marriage of faith and reason, or, of rational proof and faith. Since, after all, what is reason for but to know and to love God (according to the natural theology), as it is the purpose of man’s being. I believe that the purpose of reason is to remind us that we are indebted to know, to acknowledge and love Somebody. Else, we have nothing to be proud of in this world but a demeaning level of beasts.  Though reason works in a limited fashion, as the agent is evidently limited, faith, on the other hand, strikes the other side of the balance to perpetuate their noble purpose – to know and to love God.

At my end, I would like to quote Soren Kierkegaard when he said, that the fullness of my (ones) being is defined by the way I stand before God.       

THE BOSS

When the lord made man, all the parts of the body argued over who would be boss. The Brain explained that since he controlled all the parts of the body, he should be the boss. The Legs argued that they should be boss, since they could take the body anywhere it wanted. The Stomach argued with explanation that since he digested all the food, he kept the body healthy; therefore he should be the boss. The Eyes said that without vision, man could not see where he was going; therefore they should be the boss. The Rectum spoke up and applied for the job. The other parts of the body laughed so hard. Embarrassed, the Rectum closed up. After few days the Brain got so foggy; the Legs became wobbly; the Stomach became ill, the Eyes crossed and could not see.

Soon they all conceded that the Rectum should be the boss. Which just goes to prove that you don’t have to be Brain to be a boss; just  be an Ass!   

FILIPINO PHILOSOPHY OF MANO PO

(Hmmm, as far as I know, this is my term paper on one of my subject in college. Just a bird’s-eye-view (although I have a big-eye-view in personal, ha ha ha) on one of Filipino’s cultural construct on “MANO PO.” Be patient, it’s too English.)

Introduction

It would be a vain enterprise if we would try to contend Filipino philosophy with that of the megalithic brain works of the western philosophers who are obviously diverse and idealistic from our own. Filipinos are engrossed with the scruples of the heart than that of the brain. You can easily pick a Filipino out of the many by working on the cistern of his emotions – his heart level. And in the same line of argument, a Filipino can be facilely scoped-up among the radically contrastive showcases of value systems around the world by his profound reverence towards elders.

One time, when I happened to step on the frolic and bustling planes of Manila, somebody close-at-heart quoted me that somewhere in Europe, in a particular country, a young child or the youngsters can just pop the name of their elders without the use of venerable salutation; as uncle and auntie, say for example. This mannerism extends perhaps even to the parents – without being reprimanded.

Filipinos by world view are non-dualistic, as asserted by Leonardo Mercado. There is this highly peculiar intimacy of the subject and the known; of the nature and of man; of God and the creatures; of the superiors and the subordinates. Responsibility, by virtue of escalation, lies respectively among the different age group of the family members. Say, the younger assumes lighter responsibility that of the elder; the elder than of the eldest, and although the parents. However, the youngest assumes the responsibility of the elder as he matures.

The youngest and the younger in the family must meticulously observe the proper gestures towards their elders for them not to be reprimanded or be censured.

Among the customary gestures inhibited by Filipinos besides the generic po and opo, is the habit of kissing the hand, or as verbally broached by the Filipinos as “Mano Po.” This stuff will be given attention by the proceeding discussions as a one of a kind “specimen” chosen by me.

  

Etymology and Development

Mano certainly got its spark from the Spanish invaders who sacked the Philippine archipelago for a rich span of four hundred years. Mano laterally means hand and the proceeding po is a communal parlance denoting a universal Filipino notion of respect. This po almost appears in every Filipino major and sub-languages, and so therefore common, seems stereotypical already.

The act of graceful bowing and, more often than not, followed by taking one’s hand and politely kissing it, is a highly formal gesture displayed in western cultures. This is highly carried on especially during visits, engagements and soirées. This doesn’t preclude the Spanish culture who obviously repacked it and laid it down to Filipinos. This is then clear that the development of mano po runs from the pioneering generation down to this contemporary period.

  

Mechanism

Mano Po is animated by verbal and bodily movements circumscribed by two parties. The one gives or lays his hand, and the later bends a bit foreword, receives the hand and snootily place it just in the midpoint of the forehead. Strictly, it is always the right hand that is given and received. The later must receive it also by the same hand. He must come closer so that the older person will not stretch to much his arms. Consequently, kissing (the hand) seems tenable only to the less conservative western cultures. To the Filipinos, with respect to evolution of mechanism and other probable legends, this takes a formal shift by placing it on the forehead instead. The grown-up in the family or the group usually take the stance of being “kissed” and the younger do the “kissing.”

  

Character and Basic Notions

Their are various leeways in expressing one’s respect toward the elders, but it seems mano po used to flag the façade of the Filipinos’ standard of respect. Besides the fact that respect is a universal binding moral imperative that beacons to every individual, this further exhibits diverse aesthetic forms; like the one of a kind Mano Po of the Filipinos.

This gesture, however, is tainted with a quasi-superstitious belief rampant in every Filipino ideal. That’s why others are quite reluctant to perform or yield-on to such ritual especially the elders, for the belief that their advance age will be hailed and aggravated by doing so. In other words, the frequent laying of hands on the forehead would hasten one’s senescence or old appearance. Another peculiar annotation to mano po is the belief that this would mount the multiplication of gray hairs especially to the old people with evidently graying hairs.

Mano Po by belonging is compartmentalized to the elders or the old people. Following, that once a person inaugurates such act, he is that old enough to be called. Unfortunately, by conscious instinct no body wants to appear old or at least old adults.

Mano po runs from the lay or secular highways down to the altar of the religious personalities. Filipinos used to capture the notion that it seems part of the package for the consecrated hands of priests to be kissed, with the sense of exceptional reverence than the common people around. This is so with two viable reasons ahead: for the godly respect due him and the belief that upon performance they themselves (the people) ask for or anticipate for a blessing from the priest, or in the other way around, without further willing by the priest a blessing will by itself just descend from on high. Consequently, they believe they would share the grace with the priest.

  

Conclusion

Filipinos, if scrutinized form a distant perspective, flowers a sublime upbringing despite being last-in-the-line economic and political achiever compared to other countries. Mano Po, as I consider it, is the first-of-the-line embodiment of a Filipino’s stupendous regard to their fellows. Asserts Leonardo Mercado that Filipinos are rather person oriented than idea oriented. Respect envelops this character, which consequently prompts domino effects on the other lauded Filipino values; such as the overwhelming hospitality, respect for life (by the mean time showcases the delegalization of abortion), respect for mother nature (except for those who utterly disregard their natural duties) and respect for superiors.

It accounts a lot of calories in other denomination to sketch-out their line of respect, but for Filipinos, just a “mano po” talks a lot about him as being a Filipino. To mention my personal identity as also a Filipino, this gesture, which is in danger of trite regard and extinction, is a systematic operating procedure at home. During my childhood years, my mother would (would kick my ass, excuse me) give me a pinch if I would forget to perform mano po during elder visitation or the other way around. That one, that simple, chronicles a lot of me – how am I raised and how am I raising my self.   

SOREN KIERKEGAARD’S NOTION OF SELF-ACTUALIZATION

(Just for the sake of reading I guess. It’s a considerable time since I have this penning in thought, and I wonder how I’ve come up with this. Can someone tell me what does this mean? lol.)

 

Kierkegaard is an intensely personal philosopher, because, for him, philosophy is nothing more than a persoanal reflection of one’s lived experience. Further, life is so complex and precious to be boxed-in a system.

Human being must be fully aware of his individulity; it is a prized position and unshared by any other creature. But the temptation of losing oneself is so great; the crowd by its very nature, by the reason of the fact that it renders the individual completely impatient and irresponible.

If authentic personhood resides in ones relationship with God, then the first question to be asked is, how does one, for Kierkegaard, come to know God? His personalism precludes, as systematic, reasoned approach to God’s existence for this would narrow down the infinite God to the very argument used to prove his existence and  would make it impossible for God to be thought of as being any different from the categories used to know him. God is in every sense believable and welcoming, I, by my personal choice, believe in him.

Kierkegaard’s description of his awareness of God’s existence and his response to that awareness is the immediate background of his notion of self-actualization, which, of all notions, is the one that summarizes his thought.

Crowd existence, previously mentioned,  violates self-identity, personhood, and human dignity, whereas the goal of self-actualization is the affermation of the individual as an individual, the actual making of the self within.

The relationship I have with God is the ultimate form of self-actualization because it represents the deepest level of commitment to the truth I can discover in my self. “What I really need is to get clear about what must I do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowlege must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what is really that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die. Of what use would it be to me to be able to formulate the meaning of Christianity, be able to explain many specific points – if it had no deeper meaning for me and for my life.

Kierkegaard present these into 3 stages by which self-actualization as a movement through several stages or levels in which the self is progressively realized. It is a growth, or even a dialectical developmentof sorts, in which the person move to the highest level. He discribe such stages; the esthetic, the ethical and religious. The esthetic pertains to the senses. The individual acts not out of any moral standard or firm religious faith but of impulse or emotion, without care for accountability. A person recognizes that his emptiness is in fact a beckoning to a higher level of life; it is a despair of truth. This is also a moment of choice; to ascent to the ethical stage.

The ethical stage is characterized by the effort to conquer the dispersion of life by the primacy of duty. He lays aside for example, sexual awkwardness, of the aesthetic life. In taking a wife, accepts marriage in its full consequences.

The ethical quality is jealous for its own integrity – it may fail to provide me, as an individual, to support in certain exceptional instances. So it is possible for the universal or the ethical to be transcended.

The religious stage is the final stage of self-actualization. It is a freedom, a freedom first of all from the dread who hunts a person who takes life seriously but who feels life’s meaning to be so illusive, so inconsistent, so absurd as to bring him to the verge of annihilation. “Christ says; I will manifest my self to him who loves me…” and the lover himself is transformed in to the likeness of the thing beloved, and to become what one loves is the only only fundamental way of understanding. Having posed the “troubled truth”, the man of faith now possesses the assurance that all absurdity dissolves when he says ‘I believe.’”

MORALITY AND DEATH PENALTY

 

(Alright! perhaps this is the last paper I have written. T’was March of 2006 and we were graduating after a ‘4-short years’ in college. This is the last full blow on our legal subject, Philippine Constitution with our pretty Prof. Miss… I mean Mrs. Karen Iniego, she’s already taken, ha ha.)
        

We draw a lot of argumentative showcases on death penalty, but the most basic argument lies between morality and the social norms. Is death penalty, in any way justifiable, moral or “good” in a sense? These would entail miles and miles of discussions and perennial arguments. But let me demarcate my stand on the point of view of the society and the point view of each individual.
In the most basic position, on every individual, life is the most vital foundation of all social as well as moral norms. For without life most of these are indiscernible. Right to life is most asserted in any humanitarian convention. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted on December 10, 1948, expounded a lot on the inherent dignity of human life – considering also its sacrosanctity and divine root. Thus, every individual has the inherent right to life.

However, in the same fashion of argument, the society, as a collective model of human life, has also the right to the same element – the right to “life.”

Every form of killing in whatever token, is intrinsically evil. That’s why we say, the “legality doesn’t follow morality.” Simply saying that no counts of legal exposé can ever subvert the intrinsic entity of a thing or action; right is right and wrong is wrong in its right perspective. As Socrates said, no matter who you are, young or old, rich or poor, servant or king, there are only two things you are to consider in life – either you are doing right or wrong, evil or good.

Some philosophers says that if the good of the individual is important, then how much more of the society which is the composition of individuals?      

 

ANGELS OF MINE

(When I was giving recollection to high school students. It gives me the willies. Nonetheless, it’s all about the angels. Things aren’t the way the way we look at them from a distance. Thus, the difference between appearance and reality.)

 

It is noble to learn from stories or even nobler to learn from experiences themselves; however, the best of all is to learn from both. I am usually troubled by the thing recollection giving. I’m far too unrelenting to give one if only I could say no. It gives me a nauseating stomach every now and then, thinking that my good might not be enough after all to give to these individuals the thing they suppose to gain. That every thing might turn out to be worst, once again. Besides that fact that I’m not too prepared, I have these low public disposition. I’m so down-esteemed when it comes to facing and drawing the crowds; that I might just be huddled behind my company.

However, everything turns out to be like a blessing in disguise, in a nutshell, I superbly enjoyed the activity. I did even perhaps gain the most copious fruit of that activity for life. Really, oftentimes things are not as they seem to us. This palpable experience respectively orchestrate the narrative story of he two angels which was kept few pages in my module. It is a consequential story wherein two angels who looked for an asylum on the first house they tried to knock. They came in to the house of a wealthy merchant. But they were kept warm over the night at a stingy compartment. Consequently, the older angel found a hole at the wall of the house. The older angel covered and fixed it.

The next day, the angels found rest at the house of a farmer couple. They were snootily kept on the bed. With kindness and compassion to these straying angels, they were even fed with finest bread the farmers could ever had. But in the morning, the wife was weeping for their only milking cow was dead. The younger angel indignantly complained to the older angel, “the rich man treated us badly but you fixed the hole in his house, and yet this farmer who kept us really warmed and well fed was deprived of their only living instead.” The older angel replied, “when we were at the merchant’s house, I saw gold stocks in the hole, so I covered it knowing that the merchant is of greedy character. But last night when the angel of death came to get the farmer’s wife, I gave him the milking cow instead.” Really, things are not what they seem to be.