Scholars are fond of reading.  They read lots of books on their own interests…Some people like fictions, others want nonfictions, and there are also few who read philosophy.  You! My friend, what books do you read?  In reading, we oftentimes encounter words which cannot be easily understood, some are bombastic while others are hypalothic .  To decipher all these, we browse our best friends Webster’s and Merriam’s so that we can understand what we are reading.  However, there are still some words which are very hard to understand, for Webster’s and Merriam’s cannot give their definitions…the essence of the words…the “whattness”.  They simply give their description.  When we say meaning or definition of words, it should be understood per se.  “What makes this particular word, this particular word”. The word definition for instance, we can understand this simply by looking to its etymology, from its Latin definire which means to enclose with limits.   But the sad reality is that, we are simply trying to understand things through their descriptions, isn’t it? Again, let’s go back to the basic, try to understand word as it is, and not simply by describing it.  Morphology is of course, of great help. 

Nota Bene: I am not claiming that dictionaries are not reliable, because they are.  I am just stressing that understanding the meaning of word through its etymolgy is essential.  Or else you will just agree with the meaning of the word Filipina, in the New British Dictionary that says, a prostitute, or a woman who sells her body for pleasure…

Filipinos, I hope you comprehend!!!

There are lots of people who are unemployed…In every job fair that I have attended to, there were thousands of people who were applying for a job to earn a living… Life is really difficult isn’t it? We really need to work hard so that we can survive in our daily living…But the thing is, when we are hired by a certain company and then we are performing our tasks, we oftentimes complain for a thousand-file of works in our table…  We ask for a rest, right?  And we are always looking forward for a holiday.  What an irony…Look!  If we don’t have job…we will search high and low to look for it…We will even offer novenas on bended kness and ask for God’s providential care so that we could find one…But then again, when we got a job, we complain almost everyday…Instead of giving thanks to the Almighty One for the job that He has given us, what we give in return are lots of complains…Have you ever imagined that you are still blessed for you have a job and then you earn a living…?  There are millions of people who are jobless…They even do unethical things just to sustain their lives.   But here we are, every fifteenth and 30th of the month we received our salary.  And still we complained?  Oh my Lord! What kind of individuals are we?  Let’s give thanks to God and offer Him prayers and thanksgivings, for despite difficulties, pressures, critiques and struggles in our life, we still survive, and earn a living.  As what St. Francis says and I quote, it is in giving that we receive…Thus, Give thanks to God to Whom we owe all things that we have….Express our gratitude…a sincerest gratitude…and God will never let us down.   Gratitude is the memory of the heart, if the heart remembers, it always remembers in the spirit of gratitude.  

Friend is someone who can sing your song in your heart when every time you forget the lyrics.

How can you really know that your friend is a true friend?  It appears as an ordinary question of teens…right?  But somehow, it is deeply related to us “twenteens” hehehe.  Friend is someone whom we can share our whole beings…our inmost thoughts…our memories and experiences…  The laughter and tears also play an important role in any amicable relationship.  But the question is?  What makes friend a friend?  Whew! Philosophical isn’t it?  It is really hard to find out a true friend…a friend who can understand you despite your individual differences…a friend who is always there with you even in the poignant pangs of grief in your life…A friend who is sincere with you…who will appreciate you if you have done good things…A friend who will uplifts your heart when you are in trouble… a friend who will tell honestly that what you are doing is wrong if your act is against the moral principles… and a friend whom we can lean on…no matter what…without conditions…and a friend who keeps his/her promises…If your mind tells you that you have not yet found your true  friend, just visit Him for once, He is just waiting…waiting for your profound appreciation…Then, He will help you for He is your friend… Jesus.  

I wonder why students are always complaining about their studies…They always say that, there are lots of pressures…lots of assignments…projects…subjects…  My goodness, try to go back to the etymology of the word student.  But wait!, I would prefer to use morphology, intended for those who are not familiar with etymology…(Etymology refers to the origin of the word while morphology refers to the root of the word, [salitang ugat]. In morphology, you may trace the root of the word “student” from its infinitive; to study.  From the very word itself you can observe that as students you may legitimately call yourselves as students, if and only if you are studying your lessons in school… This is very basic, isn’t it…no philosophical explanation is needed to prove this fact.  If all your subjects…assignments…projects…and of course exams are stripped out from your “student-ness”, you can no longer be called yourself as students.  The problem with you is therefore…the development of your habit…specifically your study habit…  If you already possess that habit of studying, you will no longer experience pressures, in spite of ample stuffs to do.  No extra effort is needed when exam comes…Now, call your self as a student and be responsible to accomplish your task, i.e., to study.

 

 The philosopher is in love with truth, that is, not with the changing world of sensation, which is the object of opinion, but with the unchanging reality which is the object of knowledge. (Plato) 

Nowadays, people base their chosen action only on opinions.  As a matter of fact, they have their own opinions in all aspects of their life. But the question is? How can we know that our opinion is right…or let’s say true?  What a philosophical question isn’t it?  All individuals are entitled for their own opinions but the problem is, not all opinions are correct…philosophically speaking.  An opinion based on one’s feelings or emotions maybe true or correct…subjectively… for an opinion nowadays lies on one’s subjectivity.  But how can we say that their opinions are correct or let’s say true (truth)?  Here, it questions the basis of truthfulness of one’s opinion.  If the opinion is based on mere emotions, it is true only for the subjective individual and not for all persons.  That’s why opinion must be based on the universality of the truth and not on the mere subjective person.  The problem with the people nowadays is that, they based their opinions on what they have felt…on their feelings and emotions and not on the knowledge based on truths…on the power of the intellect that will tell us through the process of critical thinking.  If your opinion would be acceptable to everybody…or would pass to the criterion of the universality of truth, there we can claim that our opinion is correct…true (truth).  People do possess a freedom to express their opinions but it does not follow that their opinions are true…For some, it is possible but for everybody, it is a big question.  Our opinion must be based on the objective reality so that it maybe become (true) truth.  Our opinion is therefore, an objective opinion. 

 

It takes time to forgive. Yes that’s true! It’s not that easy to forgive especially the one who caused the pain is someone whom you really really love…But the thing is despite the fact you really feel bad about what he has done, it does not follow that you hate that person, but rather you still love that person no matter what… The feelings or emotions are still there but they simply faded away…gradually…But the love itself still remains. Try to reflect on this, it is true and tell me if I were wrong. If you really love, you always love no matter what…It is based on the infinity of love…a love that does not end. Because if your love lost for someone, what you have felt is not real love. But rather a feeling of infatuation…or merely affection…that overflows from the blood of your veins.  The truth is…the more you claim that you hate someone…the more you love him/her.  The more you hate…the more you love.

I wonder why there are lots of individuals who claim that they fell in love when they first met.  How come? Is it really possible?  Let’s find out…Man is capable of loving because of his intellect.  It is from this intellect that he becomes rational, i.e., he can think, known, learn, love, give and forgive.  Most probably, the love that they felt is not the real love that is manifested from the inmost self of every finite being, but rather a simple infatuation…a feeling of mere gratification that overflows from their veins…but not the love per se.  Loving requires knowledge…knowledge on someone whom you know.  Before loving someone you have to know that person, after this activity of the intellect, and then love follows.  You can really claim that you love someone if you know that person.  The absence of knowledge is the absence of love.  Now, after thorough assessing yourself and then you already know that person, and despite the negative qualities possessed by your “love”, and still you really feel that you are truly in love with him/her…that’s the right time to profess that your love is such a real…a love that is unfathomable…unfathomable love.

There were times in our lives that we found ourselves in the middle of nothingness…But due to our reflective thinking we come up with our self-realizations that we were just living in the midst of the so-called complicated life. As human beings virtually composed of body and soul, we have the innate capacity of loving. Despite the ultimate happiness that we experienced when we are in love, a big question mark will arise in a single moment of our beings.  But as our thoughts were trying to fully grasp the indecipherable answers from the deepest recesses of our hearts, the more we cannot understand the unidentified cause of our action…the act of loving per se.  When we traced from the genesis of our loving action the reason why we fall in love, we ended up following the undying wit of Shakespeare’s axiom that love is really blind…From then onwards, we failed to enter inside the real domain of  love.  As time swiftly passed by from the intimate existence of our beings, we felt a poignant pangs of grief in our lives, simply because we were unsuccessful in our infinite search to find the real reason of love.  Why don’t we look on the other side of the cause of love?  Loving is a sacred act…a commitment…and it requires a great responsibility.  We cannot really find out the reason of love from the material existence of every finite being, for the love itself is immaterial.  After exerting all our efforts in finding the reason of love, we were disappointed and unsatisfied with our answers.  Love is infinite…for its final and ultimate cause is infinite.  This syllogism proves this claim. God is love. God is infinite.Therefore, love is infinite.  If that is the case, it follows that, love has infinite attributes and from these infinite attributes we cannot find the reason of love using our human reason, we even failed to see its cause through our human eyes.  Thus, we became very pessismistic when we said that love is blind. But the truth is that, it is simply supersighted for through love can see metaphysical realities.  It sees what is beyond things perceived by our senses.  It is therefore morally justified if i will claim that we cannot really decipher the entirety… the “whatness” of love,  if the only means of finding it, is simply our intellectual abilty or just infatuated emotions.  Love comes from our heart, it is only our heart that can understand love.  FOR THE LOVE HAS ITS OWN REASON THAT THE REASON ITSELF DOESN’T KNOW… Love without reason… 

pradz

(Inspired by the song of Hilera…RHYME WITHOUT REASON)

N.B. regardless of my literary license that gramatically justifies the construction of my sentences, I used past form of the verb mostly to express my “I-ness”.

 

“People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains,
at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars,
and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.”

— St. Augustine