Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside) Reflection Paper

"Life has value as long as we value ourselves; when that is no longer possible, it is better to end it than continue without meaning. The choice must be an act of personal freedom, and it must be easier to find help when we need it. This is also a way of showing love!”

­-Ramon Sampedro

Mar Adentro was based on the true story of Ramon Sampedro, a sailor who became a quadriplegic and has been bedridden for 28 years. He was the first Spanish who asked the courts to grant him the right to assisted suicide or euthanasia. The film can be captured by the above quote in Ramon’s book “Letters from Hell” (Cartas desde el infierno).

There are two major ethical issues that I felt strongly portrayed in the film: euthanasia and adultery. Euthanasia, dignified death, the right to die, freedom of choice, etc., are the terms with which the main topic of the film could be defined. I can say that the film revolves around this major ethical issue since the protagonist, Ramon, strongly wishes to die and was evidenced by how he rejects resources that might improve his quality of life (e.g. wheelchair), his confinement in a non-accessible environment and his stubborn desire to die. However, a love story that is more delicate than the discussion on euthanasia, which is the film’s main topic, also develops throughout the film. This love story between Julia (Ramon’s lawyer) and Ramon was an example of what I consider as an unethical act. Theirs was a forbidden love since Julia was already married at that time. Although their love story was not really emphasized in the film, it can be deduced from their actions and decisions how they really love each other despite knowing the harsh reality they both face.

Ramon perceived his life as “a living head in a dead body” and talks with cold detachment of lives that should not be lived like his. He refused to use the wheelchair because “to accept the wheelchair would be like accepting scraps of what my freedom used to be”. He believed that living is truly experienced when one has freedom; freedom to move and to act to chase his dreams. 

Gené and Marc, defenders of the pro-euthanasia association, also become standard-bearers of life, explaining their ideals as the defense of all: “we support freedom: that of those who wish to live and that of those who wish to die”. Conversely, those who are against of euthanasia, like Fr. Francisco, who was also quadriplegic, engaged Ramon in a debate on the possibilities involved in living in a wheelchair, setting forth arguments such as “life is not only moving one’s arms or running from one place to another or kicking a ball…” and “life is a gift”, clearly reflecting, in the scenes where he appeared, on the architectural barriers that exist where Ramon lives.

Osvaldo's Cakes - Davao

After the Philosophers' Rally, my friends and I decided to have a date. We agreed to try "something new", thus ending up with the decision to try the famous cakes at Osvaldo's.

The place is located at Door 7, Ground floor of Paseo De Legaspi. The landmarks near the place are The Apo View Hotel and GMall Ilustre. One can take a jeepney ride en route Ilustre and stop by The Apo View Hotel and just go straight Pelayo St. (going the opposite direction to People's Park). For first timers like us who were not familiar with the place, we opted to take the taxi from AdDU and paid P56.00 only.

We expected the place to be "café-like" but it's actually designed to be a kitchen where they prepare their cakes. Walk-in customers can buy a whole cake for P2000-2500, depending on the flavor; or they can buy a piece for P150 (cakes) to at least P200 (cheesecakes) and eat in the tables inside the compound. We saw one of the owners, Mr. Joel Rodriguez who enthusiastically greeted us and encouraged us to try out some of their cakes.

Asking what we should try out as first timers, he immediately recommended the Carrot Cake and their Cheese Cakes.

We ordered four slices so we can try different flavors: Red Velvet Cheesecake (P200), Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese frosting (P150), Caramel and Almond Cheesecake (P210) and Deep Dark Chocolate Fudge (150). Each slice comes with a cup of complimentary coffee.

Overall, the cakes tasted superb especially the caramel and almond cheesecake. One can really distinguish its quality compared to others. The prices might be a bit expensive but it's worth a try. Aside from their main menu, Osvaldo's also accepts orders for customized cakes.

1. 
   

A Valentine date with Love & Philosophy

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

- Socrates

February 14 - Valentines Day, a day where people feel the aura of love everywhere. Restaurants are fully-booked, cinema queue lines are so long, and roses and chocolates are very in-demand. Everyone seemed so busy especially those who look forward to a date planned with a loved one. Yet, for us, it's not just a day for dates, it's the best time to know more about love and philosophy through the 3rd Philosophers' Rally.

From L-R: Omar Manigo, Jessa Velle Ituriaga, Jenessa Jao and me :)

The Philosophers' Rally is an annual event organized by the Philosophy Department of Ateneo de Davao University which started last 2013. It's always held on Valentines Day. One might be wondering why it is called a "rally" rather than just a forum/conference/seminar. According to my Philo prof., it's actually called as such 'cause the Philo dept. is striving to arouse the people's (esp. students) enthusiasm to philosophize through talks about love, philosophy and other fields. It's a campaign that they want to continue since it showed positive results for the last two years: more students submitted their papers for presentation and more have attended the rally and began the process of philosophizing afterwards.

This year's Philosophers' Rally was held at Finster Auditorium. Although it was Saturday and most of all Valentines Day, many have attended and showed enthusiasm for the event.

The program started around 9am and the talk commenced afterwards. This year's speaker was the chair of AdMU's Philo Department - Dr. Agustin Martin Rodriguez. His talk was entitled "Love at End of Life as we know it". 

He emphasized many points in his discussion including how the world as we know will soon come to an end because of the current threats of global warming, end of oil, and water scarcity. He also pointed out many ironies in our world such as how civilizations were made for our aspirations but how these same civilizations also end them, how the Philippines experiences increasing economic growth now but fails to address the prevalent problem of poverty, how people are too "westernized" that they don't seem to see the problem of consumerism, and how people became so addictive in taking selfies as a way of showing their existence to the world. 

"Kakainin mo na nga lang yung cupcake, pipiktyuran mo pa."

He then discussed the subject of the day - love, defining it as simply 'opening to the other as other' and how we can find our self by forgetting about our self. He stressed that the kind of love we need today is not the romantic/valentine one which is obsessed with the "I" (e.g. "I bought her roses = I'm so thoughtful"), the kind of love we need is the pure, genuine love that opens, responds and serves the other. Dr. Gus ended his talk by challenging everyone to "relearning love".

After the talk, a concurrent session followed wherein some students presented their philosophical papers. The concurrent session was a disappointment for me because some of the presenters were not that prepared, evidenced by their poor presentation and lack of answers for the moderator and the audience.

Despite of this, overall, I truly enjoyed the Philosophers' Rally. Celebrating V-day will never be the same, for now I know that it gets more fun by learning more about love and the self through philosophizing.

Hope to see you next year! ;)

The Value of Being Alone

"No man is an island."

Cliché, yet it's the closest depiction of our society today.

We human beings are scared to be alone. We are scared of people leaving us or singling us out from the crowd. In today's society, the number one fear is actually not death.. but rejection. 

That's why people are always looking for ways not to be alone, be it in the company of people, a pile of books, a stack of DVDs or even just a playlist in their phones.

We don't want to be alone because we know how it feels like to be alone; and because we already know how it feels, we don't want to experience it again. 

On the contrary, according to Anne Morrow Lindbergh in her article "Moon Shell", we must be alone. There's an innate desire for solitude in every person - no one can escape this reality no matter how one tries to surround himself/herself with human company or with things or tasks to be just "busy".

We are fooling ourselves if we think that we can run away from the solitude we don't want to experience. Being alone says Lindbergh, is necessary. 

Despite the deafening silence we don't want to hear, and the aching void in our hearts that we don't want to feel, there is actually a value in solitude.

What do we actually get by being alone?

1. Truth

    They say that truth has many faces. It manifests different masks in various situations. By being alone, we can search for the 'truth' that manifests from our core.

    Our personality is just one instance. We show different sides of ourselves to different groups of people such as being jolly and talkative when with friends, but very serious when with family. 

    By being alone, we can actually find our 'self'. The one who need not display so many masks. It's in solitude that we find our lost self who drifted away and was broken to many pieces. It's in silence and distance from the crowd that we begin to understand the interplay of our self. And when we find out about this truth, we cannot be a stranger to ourselves anymore. We get to know who we are; and others will also begin to understand us more.

2. A different angle

   It is also in solitude that we begin to notice things that we failed to notice before; it might be signs in the road or a flock of birds passing by. When we isolate ourselves from the demands of society, our visions expand from merely seeing what 'one wants to see' to what 'one needs to see'. We are freed, in some way, from the enclosed dreams that we made. By being alone, we can look at the world in a different angle, and this angle would make one closer to the world.

3. Connect-the-dots

    Solitude allows us to think. It's the starting point of our reflection. We are brought back to the various happy and exciting moments, or even the sad ones that we have forgotten or tried to forget. This allows us to pick different experiences from our memories and join them together to create a unified album of ourselves which might answer our "whys" and "hows". This interlink helps explain the questions that baffled our minds for days, or even a longer period of time.

Being alone does not mean that we do not fit in the group or we don't have social skills, as opposed to what society labels us nowadays; neither does physical separation from the rest entails our solitude.

Being alone is a way of replenishing one's self because we have been giving too much to society by abiding to their dictates. We need to be alone to pause and make way for ourselves' desires.

Being alone is not actually scary. Being left behind does not always mean that we are unwanted and rejected.

Think of the values that we can achieve by being alone. It's actually worth the experience.

Somebody needs a break

Exhausted? Stressed? Demotivated?

Honestly, I can't even identify my feelings right now.

I know I easily get down, but these days, it seems that they occur too often.

"FAILURE IS NEVER AN OPTION"

-NASA

Since I'm a big fan of NASA, I promised myself that I too will live by this mantra.

Ever since a kid, I developed this competitive attitude that wants to excel in possibly all fields that I have the capability to enter. Because I simply don't want to be brought down by anyone, I did my best in my studies and participated a lot of extra-curricular activities just to be on top. Thus, I graduated Valedictorian in grade school and high school and also earned various awards and recognitions local and even global.

This mantra of mine was truly lived by during those days; however, when I entered college, things were very different.

Of course I already expected college to be difficult, but believe me, I didn't expect it to be this difficult.

I did what I usually do during high school: study ahead, complete the requirements and ace the test. As usual, I got high grades during the first year (mostly A's) and was awarded as top 3 highest QPI during the next sem.

When second year began, and Financial Accounting was introduced, I experienced my first 0 score in a quiz, 75 rating in an exam and 85 final grade.

I thought I was the lowest in class and I'll be out in our section by the next semester; yet, too good to be true, I was still part of section A.

I told myself that I should focus and put more effort into my studies (esp. FinAcc) no matter how much I despise the subject so that I can attain a higher grade and QPI. It turned out that it was never an easy undertaking.. From B, my grade went down to C+. Ouch. 

But then, I moved on from the hurt I felt. Good thing that I was still part of section A the next semester. It was a new school year and a tough one for us because of our 5 major subjects. But we managed it so far. Although there were also ups and downs (mostly downs), we did survive as a class; no one failed. I'm thankful that I'm still a Dean's Lister despite the pressure of the 5 major subjects although it was really so close.

I vowed to myself that I have to get back up even if it means that I need to force myself in loving my course, which up to date, I still don't. But then, no matter how late I sleep at night, no matter how many books and reviewers I read and no matter how many questions I answer, I still failed.  60, 70, 80? Are my efforts actually justified by these numbers? I don't think so, and they will never be.

Accounting and me? We're never meant to be.

Just like how couples need a time to "cool off", I think I also need a break from my course because I'm forcing myself too much, I'm comparing and belittling myself too much and I'm pressuring myself too much nowadays.

Seriously. I do really need a break.

Looking back

Blogging? It's been such a long time.
My last post was November of 2012 and I haven't written a single entry since then.
Probably one of the reasons why I quit was because of time constraint.
"There's no time for that" or "Time is of essence, I need to utilize it for studying" were my thoughts back then.
But how did I ended up going back here in my blog?
Probably because of our activity in a certain class.

Last week, the class was divided into groups and was tasked to organize a talent show.
Our group was probably what you can call the "non-visual" talent group.
We are the writers and artists. The few people (we were only 5) who loves to write and draw.
And how can you even perform writing or drawing in front of the class within 5-10mins?!

Because of the difficulty of the task, I was forced to think of creative ideas/plots/stories to write and at the same time, to present to the class.
Forcing myself to create a piece was a bad idea. I tried so hard but kept experiencing writer's block. 
I hate that feeling when you couldn't find the right words or rhymes..
That was the moment when I realized that I need not force myself, I just need to find my past self.

That's when I remembered my blog.
I opened the link and read my entries way back.
I couldn't help but laugh as I scrutinize my works back then.
There's wrong usage of grammar, incorrect spelling and punctuation marks, and even the absence of parallelism.
Yet, no matter how much I scrutinized them, I still love them.
Those were the products of my passion for writing; and every single one of them was made with inspiration and love, compared to my works today which were only made for compliance.

I slept early that night without bothering myself to write a poem.
Then I woke up at 3 am and found myself already composing a poem!
I realized then that if you love what you do, it will come to you naturally, just like breathing.
If you force yourself to do something, then that's not love at all :)

I just looked back in order to find my past self who's passionate in writing.
The me who loved to create poems beside the sea, the me who loved to think of short stories in the middle of the night.
By looking back I did found my lost love and passion -- writing, and bonus, I even found happiness.

Realization?
Sometimes, we only need to look back, because in looking back, maybe there's more to what we seek that we can find ;)

Happy February!