intramuros

Preserved

What makes people immortal are the things that they do while they’re still here, alive and privileged enough to be given the opportunity to inspire others by their works and their deeds. What have you done so far, that you think can make you immortal? Does it matter for you at all to be remembered and emulated? What defines your existence if there is nothing in your life right now that holds enough meaning to be remembered and treasured by others? If what other people think about you doesn’t matter to you at all, then that is not just arrogance, but indifference and utter disrespect for life and to the one who blessed you with it. You are not here by some freak accident. You are here for a reason, a purpose that is not for your sole benefit but for others, too. You are not here so you will live and do as you please and then die and vanish to forever. You are here because there is something that you have to do to fulfill your mission. What have you done so far?

Our existence as human beings is continually fueled with the desire to find meaning – in our experiences, in our survival, in our aspirations. In the pursuit of meaning, man explores all possible causes and effects, all possible reasons and answers. He has to see why, to know why, and he actually needs to elaborate it, to actualize it, make it more tangible. There has to be a proof of his discoveries. That’s why legends were born, folklore, traditions. These are proofs of man’s capacity to conceive ideas, to dream, imagine, eventually to invent – stories, plans, technologies. To quote George Eliot, “The world is full of hopeful analogies, and handsome, dubious eggs called possibilities.” These possibilities provide opportunities for man to discover new things everyday, and also probabilities for him to fail.

From these experiences of man, his successes and failures, his realizations and disappointments, despair and hope, histories are being woven. These are man’s cultural history, its laws, religions, norms, standards, tenets. They become landmarks along the road to man’s civilization. They are signposts that would lead to the next bend, to the next curve. History then defines the person, the society, for that matter, and this would attempt to determine its future, to build the character of the people.

However, we are unique individuals, with unique minds. One can look at a flower and say it’s beautiful while the other one can look at it, smell it and say it smells bad anyway. Conflicts are born out of this — people reacting to different stimulus, different situations, interpret them, name them, make their choice whether to live them out, practice them, or refuse to do so and behave otherwise.

Society’s tenets are supposed to be designed to make people behave in a certain way, this is in the view of bringing about peace and harmony. But because of our individual differences, this doesn’t prove to be plausible. They’re like bandage on the bruise. Nevertheless, I don’t think a society without a commandment is possible.