My Socially Constructed Reality

First of all, I’d like to mention that Zeus Salazar was the first scholar that has made a mark on my being, when I was in college. I would never forget how much his idea of “p antayong pananaw ” had sunk into my system. My History professor, during my first year in UP, inculcated in us the value of having history written by Filipinos, and not by foreign authors. That was where the idea of “ pantayong pananaw ” centered on. And of course, I’d always remember this because it was in this subject where I got a grade of 1.0. Well, in UP, students normally say, “Only gods deserve 1.0.” Of course they were only kidding. Zeus Salazar. He knew exactly what Filipinos are like: They would resort to any way just to avoid hurting a fellow Filipino . This is very Filipino, and this is what I sometimes don’t like about Filipinos. In the workplace, when you start voicing out directly how you feel about certain issues, the “normal” ones brand y...

TUESDAYS with Morrie. The Five People You Meet in Heaven. For One More Day. The first one highlights compelling thoughts that Mitch learned from his professor, Morrie Schwartz, whom he met on Tuesdays in his house. Together, they talked about the inevitable realities in life: love, marriage, death, ageing, etc. The second book brings the readers to the so-called heaven, through Eddie, the main character in the story. There, Eddie met five people whom he never thought he would ever meet. T he third story is about Charley Benetto, who, as Mitch describes, has been chasing the wrong things in life. Charley realizes what he is missing when he gets to spend another day with his mom. These three stories are enough to make us fe el that indeed, life isn’t what we see it to be. And sometimes, we need other people to make us realize that there is more to life than just waking up in the morning and going back to bed at the end of the d...