(Editor's Note: This piece won second place in the Angel C. Palanca Peace Program Essay Writing Contest, professional category, in October 2004; published in Tambuli, Vol. V No.1, March 2005)
“And what are we to say of man? Is he a speck of dust crawling helplessly on a
small and unimportant planet, as the astronomers see it? Or is he, as the chemists might hold, a heap of chemicals put together in some cunning way? Or, finally, is man what he appears to Hamlet, noble in reason, infinite in faculty? Is man, perhaps, all of these at once?
Bertrand Russell
Wisdom of the West
Amazingly they were waving back!
Not really knowing all of them, except as familiar faces that I constantly pass along the covered pathways of the university, it still borders on both creepy and astonishing that they would even bother to wave back. But that’s how it’s always been for me in this university, since the time way back in 1994 when I decided to call the Far Eastern University my home and they decided to make me part of their “family.” While some may have decided to take the lonely “Thoreau-ish” path, head bowed as if in prayer while walking the twisting corridors to get to their respective classes seemingly seeking “inner peace,” I had decided ages ago to take the more socio-culturally relevant path of walking around campus as if headed towards the marketplace, waving constantly to friends, giving high-fives to students (both past and present), smiling and nodding my head constantly at familiar faces. But isn’t that what gives a place warmth anyway? With this simple act of waving, strangers were no longer just individuals trying to get by in a cold four-walled structure, but transformed into neighbors, friends and confidantes, sharing the same dreams, hopes and aspirations for a better world. With a simple gesture, we had all become equals, feeling as if we were sharing the very same over-packed jeepney ride to Lerma. With nothing more than a raised hand and a shake of the fingers we became part of a whole rather than missing pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.
It’s scary to think that we as educators have forgotten to act as educated individuals. Preferring to act like snot-nosed emperors awaiting bows and curtsies rather than brethren braving the wilderness on their way to the Promise land. It still makes me shiver whenever I see or hear co-workers spouting lines like “Trabaho lang ’to, pare, walang personalan” (Don’t take it personally, it’s just a job, man!), in imitation of some cheesy Filipino actor replete with a .45 caliber pistol and a towel draped over his neck. The sooner one thinks of this school as merely a place of work rather than a “home away from home” then that is what it has merely become for them, a seemingly bank-like institution where one draws the money one deposited. How totally antiseptic… How truly impersonal…
Unfortunately for these deposit-withdraw savants, the world is quickly expanding and for some much too quickly for comfort. Finding warmth in such a broad expanse may prove to be too difficult at times. Yet like some metaphorical over-bent Juan trying desperately to fit into such a small blanket, the university has adapted to the call of expansion. Spearheaded by then FEU President Edilberto de Jesus, the university decided to follow in the wake of the Canadian theoretician Marshall McLuhan’s dream of a “global village” and bravely faced a future and a world interconnected to each other by streaming signals of light passing through kilometers of thin plastic fiber-optic lines. It had created in its wake the so-called “electronic” or e-based utilitarianism that this university’s “e-generation” can no longer live without. And with that decision allowed all of us to be linked to so much more than just ourselves. Now, through various computer set-ups within institutes, teachers, students and employees are walking in different corridors… that of cyberspace. Suddenly, with a mere flick of a switch, we had become nothing more than a “mote in God’s eye,” and the realization that we are now walking through a much larger expanse than just the usual brick-paved paths is simply unnerving.
Life in this university as we once knew it has changed! We brave freezing Antarctic conditions and burning sands of the Sahara, climb oxygen-starved summits of the Himalayas, walk in strange landscapes of far-off Mars and all these while remaining within the confines of our air-conditioned classrooms. With almost the speed of thought, we’ve given a whole new meaning to the word “connected,” and spared the mailman his near-masochistic trips through snow, sleet and hail to deliver your mail. Yes, life has indeed changed! But are we, as educators, meshing well with this new found “network” of knowledge and fount of wisdom? Knowing full well that not only has it changed our views on how we deal with people but it has also brought with it a new set of responsibilities. For as with places we can visit and learn from with just a click of the mouse, we in turn can open up places of both total neuroses and immoralities just as quickly. Filling up not just vacuums of the mind, the net has also dangerously filled up those of lust and decadence as well. Does this not then leave one to call to mind, in eerie recollection, Uncle Ben’s words to his nephew Peter Parker a.k.a. Spiderman? That “with great powers,” he states, “come great responsibilities!” A sociologist once said that man is slowly devolving to this present state of anonymity because it is what he wants. And who can argue with that statement? When all around us is the reality that we are conversing through high tech equipment designed specifically to hide not just our facial expressions but our vocal inflections and physical nuances as well. If the impersonality of life before computers was already prevalent, can you imagine what it would be like right now? With computers, impersonality has gone not only tenfold but probably a hundredfold. And no amount of logging in to the “Friendster” network will ever draw us all back to that same feeling as a face-to-face casual conversation, a tap on the shoulder, a nod, a smile or a wave.
Is this any way to form bonds then? How do we weave networks of life when we never saw the value in the life that was in there to begin with? First we hid in self-made walls of standoffishness and then we buried ourselves in the anonymity of the net. Either way the results were the same, purposeless individuality and complete and utter loneliness. How truly sad… Even the dictionary is very direct in its description of life, that it is marked by the very difference between animate and inanimate or between living and non-living organisms. How ironic that we as living beings would prefer the cold, lifeless face of a computer monitor to that of a flesh-and-blood one, which is living, breathing and (if you wave just right) responding. If it is truly our desire to reach out and form true connections, then we need not reach too far. For all around us is a constant reminder of what life really is. From the moment we enter the high-tech turnstiles, that seem to have a life of its own when the fancy do-hickey is placed wrong side up, to the time we leave them behind, we are constantly bumped, tapped, tripped and touched by a myriad of faces and souls all doing the exact same drudgery of trying to get through the day. While we would like nothing better to do than to just trudge through the day with merely a shrug and a grunt, the truth is this: that man is and always has been a social creature. Not even Henry David Thoreau with his magnificent essays and his Zen-like quest for the “sound of silence”, would ever compare to a smile, a handshake, a buzz, a whisper, a shared secret, a giggle, a high five and a wave. We desire company because we were built that way. If our Creator wanted an oven toaster or a coffee maker then He would have just created one of these. As it stands He created us, complete with frailties, passions, desires, dreams, ambitions and a longing to be with others just like us. Which, if you come to look at it, really isn’t all that bad! And that, as one writer once put it, is that… life in a nutshell.
Life will never ever be a bunch of quotations or clichés; life is a reality as solid as the art-deco architectural structures that surround us or as real and felt as the person right next to us. We have within our midst the greatest example of diversity in all its richness: the Manang who’ll always run a block for you just to make sure your coffee is hot; the Manong in barong who’s always there to make sure your turnstile accepts your magstriped ID; the co-teacher (from another institute) who always shares the same lunch table at Nitz with you just because you happen to look familiar; the older guy who fills you with so much stories of the good ole days that you’ll be wanting to write a book about it someday; the friend who’s wallet will always be an extension of yours especially in lean times; the Dean who’s persistent prodding pushes you to new heights of achievements; and thousands upon thousands of students (quirks and all) with eyes open wide to a future rife with possibilities of what we can impart to them. With such diverse and countless faces to share your life with, can you even have time to be anonymous in the net with a million more?
The university is already bursting at the seams with new faces and with thousands more being added to it every year. With such a vast number of people weaving to and fro and the probability of meeting the same face in an hour’s time lessening, the need for interpersonal relationships become all the more crucial. I firmly believe that while the net is indeed vast and endless in its scope and possibilities, it is also a great way to lose our identity and push us all apart. With its gray cold features, the computer will never ever hope to replace the warmth and compassion of a friendly face. If we truly desire to weave networks of life (and lives) into our great institution, then I say “knit Juan and pearl Toto.” Let us start the process of knitting and weaving this very network of life by reaching out to those whom we see every single day. Let us look upon these strangers and know that we share a bond much deeper than just a winning basketball team or an institution steeped in tradition. Let us allow the dreams and hopes for a brighter future to become the very threads of existence that binds all of us together. And it all starts with a smile, a handshake, a buzz, a whisper, a shared secret, a giggle, a high five and a wave.
And don’t worry I know for a fact that they’ll always wave back! ©
Not really knowing all of them, except as familiar faces that I constantly pass along the covered pathways of the university, it still borders on both creepy and astonishing that they would even bother to wave back. But that’s how it’s always been for me in this university, since the time way back in 1994 when I decided to call the Far Eastern University my home and they decided to make me part of their “family.” While some may have decided to take the lonely “Thoreau-ish” path, head bowed as if in prayer while walking the twisting corridors to get to their respective classes seemingly seeking “inner peace,” I had decided ages ago to take the more socio-culturally relevant path of walking around campus as if headed towards the marketplace, waving constantly to friends, giving high-fives to students (both past and present), smiling and nodding my head constantly at familiar faces. But isn’t that what gives a place warmth anyway? With this simple act of waving, strangers were no longer just individuals trying to get by in a cold four-walled structure, but transformed into neighbors, friends and confidantes, sharing the same dreams, hopes and aspirations for a better world. With a simple gesture, we had all become equals, feeling as if we were sharing the very same over-packed jeepney ride to Lerma. With nothing more than a raised hand and a shake of the fingers we became part of a whole rather than missing pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.
It’s scary to think that we as educators have forgotten to act as educated individuals. Preferring to act like snot-nosed emperors awaiting bows and curtsies rather than brethren braving the wilderness on their way to the Promise land. It still makes me shiver whenever I see or hear co-workers spouting lines like “Trabaho lang ’to, pare, walang personalan” (Don’t take it personally, it’s just a job, man!), in imitation of some cheesy Filipino actor replete with a .45 caliber pistol and a towel draped over his neck. The sooner one thinks of this school as merely a place of work rather than a “home away from home” then that is what it has merely become for them, a seemingly bank-like institution where one draws the money one deposited. How totally antiseptic… How truly impersonal…
Unfortunately for these deposit-withdraw savants, the world is quickly expanding and for some much too quickly for comfort. Finding warmth in such a broad expanse may prove to be too difficult at times. Yet like some metaphorical over-bent Juan trying desperately to fit into such a small blanket, the university has adapted to the call of expansion. Spearheaded by then FEU President Edilberto de Jesus, the university decided to follow in the wake of the Canadian theoretician Marshall McLuhan’s dream of a “global village” and bravely faced a future and a world interconnected to each other by streaming signals of light passing through kilometers of thin plastic fiber-optic lines. It had created in its wake the so-called “electronic” or e-based utilitarianism that this university’s “e-generation” can no longer live without. And with that decision allowed all of us to be linked to so much more than just ourselves. Now, through various computer set-ups within institutes, teachers, students and employees are walking in different corridors… that of cyberspace. Suddenly, with a mere flick of a switch, we had become nothing more than a “mote in God’s eye,” and the realization that we are now walking through a much larger expanse than just the usual brick-paved paths is simply unnerving.
Life in this university as we once knew it has changed! We brave freezing Antarctic conditions and burning sands of the Sahara, climb oxygen-starved summits of the Himalayas, walk in strange landscapes of far-off Mars and all these while remaining within the confines of our air-conditioned classrooms. With almost the speed of thought, we’ve given a whole new meaning to the word “connected,” and spared the mailman his near-masochistic trips through snow, sleet and hail to deliver your mail. Yes, life has indeed changed! But are we, as educators, meshing well with this new found “network” of knowledge and fount of wisdom? Knowing full well that not only has it changed our views on how we deal with people but it has also brought with it a new set of responsibilities. For as with places we can visit and learn from with just a click of the mouse, we in turn can open up places of both total neuroses and immoralities just as quickly. Filling up not just vacuums of the mind, the net has also dangerously filled up those of lust and decadence as well. Does this not then leave one to call to mind, in eerie recollection, Uncle Ben’s words to his nephew Peter Parker a.k.a. Spiderman? That “with great powers,” he states, “come great responsibilities!” A sociologist once said that man is slowly devolving to this present state of anonymity because it is what he wants. And who can argue with that statement? When all around us is the reality that we are conversing through high tech equipment designed specifically to hide not just our facial expressions but our vocal inflections and physical nuances as well. If the impersonality of life before computers was already prevalent, can you imagine what it would be like right now? With computers, impersonality has gone not only tenfold but probably a hundredfold. And no amount of logging in to the “Friendster” network will ever draw us all back to that same feeling as a face-to-face casual conversation, a tap on the shoulder, a nod, a smile or a wave.
Is this any way to form bonds then? How do we weave networks of life when we never saw the value in the life that was in there to begin with? First we hid in self-made walls of standoffishness and then we buried ourselves in the anonymity of the net. Either way the results were the same, purposeless individuality and complete and utter loneliness. How truly sad… Even the dictionary is very direct in its description of life, that it is marked by the very difference between animate and inanimate or between living and non-living organisms. How ironic that we as living beings would prefer the cold, lifeless face of a computer monitor to that of a flesh-and-blood one, which is living, breathing and (if you wave just right) responding. If it is truly our desire to reach out and form true connections, then we need not reach too far. For all around us is a constant reminder of what life really is. From the moment we enter the high-tech turnstiles, that seem to have a life of its own when the fancy do-hickey is placed wrong side up, to the time we leave them behind, we are constantly bumped, tapped, tripped and touched by a myriad of faces and souls all doing the exact same drudgery of trying to get through the day. While we would like nothing better to do than to just trudge through the day with merely a shrug and a grunt, the truth is this: that man is and always has been a social creature. Not even Henry David Thoreau with his magnificent essays and his Zen-like quest for the “sound of silence”, would ever compare to a smile, a handshake, a buzz, a whisper, a shared secret, a giggle, a high five and a wave. We desire company because we were built that way. If our Creator wanted an oven toaster or a coffee maker then He would have just created one of these. As it stands He created us, complete with frailties, passions, desires, dreams, ambitions and a longing to be with others just like us. Which, if you come to look at it, really isn’t all that bad! And that, as one writer once put it, is that… life in a nutshell.
Life will never ever be a bunch of quotations or clichés; life is a reality as solid as the art-deco architectural structures that surround us or as real and felt as the person right next to us. We have within our midst the greatest example of diversity in all its richness: the Manang who’ll always run a block for you just to make sure your coffee is hot; the Manong in barong who’s always there to make sure your turnstile accepts your magstriped ID; the co-teacher (from another institute) who always shares the same lunch table at Nitz with you just because you happen to look familiar; the older guy who fills you with so much stories of the good ole days that you’ll be wanting to write a book about it someday; the friend who’s wallet will always be an extension of yours especially in lean times; the Dean who’s persistent prodding pushes you to new heights of achievements; and thousands upon thousands of students (quirks and all) with eyes open wide to a future rife with possibilities of what we can impart to them. With such diverse and countless faces to share your life with, can you even have time to be anonymous in the net with a million more?
The university is already bursting at the seams with new faces and with thousands more being added to it every year. With such a vast number of people weaving to and fro and the probability of meeting the same face in an hour’s time lessening, the need for interpersonal relationships become all the more crucial. I firmly believe that while the net is indeed vast and endless in its scope and possibilities, it is also a great way to lose our identity and push us all apart. With its gray cold features, the computer will never ever hope to replace the warmth and compassion of a friendly face. If we truly desire to weave networks of life (and lives) into our great institution, then I say “knit Juan and pearl Toto.” Let us start the process of knitting and weaving this very network of life by reaching out to those whom we see every single day. Let us look upon these strangers and know that we share a bond much deeper than just a winning basketball team or an institution steeped in tradition. Let us allow the dreams and hopes for a brighter future to become the very threads of existence that binds all of us together. And it all starts with a smile, a handshake, a buzz, a whisper, a shared secret, a giggle, a high five and a wave.
And don’t worry I know for a fact that they’ll always wave back! ©
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