Needs, emotions, and X - August Column

Needs, emotions, and X

A colorful election and at least 22 padded resumes later, it is finally time for our frosh student leaders to work. But what should be expected? I’m no prophet, but this I believe will hold true nonetheless: a leadership that will focus on students’ want rather than need will achieve nothing but inherit the wind.

I use my favorite analogy, religion. (As early as now, think from the student perspective – Who is the leader? Who are the followers?) Jesus was the best leader who ever walked the planet. But He was not popular or rich. Being a carpenter’s son and living a simple life, one should wonder how He managed to completely convince twelve people to give up everything and follow Him and much later, millions of people as well.

Simple: Jesus addressed a need that no one else could address, and that is spiritual peace. The disciples may have wanted money, power or fame – Jesus had none of these – but Jesus pierced these superficial whims. Jesus offered the disciples what they needed, not what they wanted. It is not necessary that the disciples knew what they needed, it is enough that He knew.

People naturally flock around a leader who offers what they need. There is no hype, just a simple desire.

There is a fine line between need and want. The world’s economy relies on it. Does one really need an iPod? Does one need to buy a Lacoste shirt over an exact shirt sans only the brand name? Does one need a pimped-up ride a la Xzibit when the money could be given to NGOs?

Governance that addresses only want is no different from entertainment, even without media coverage or Lupita Kashiwahara. Is this probably the reason why actors could ascend to high governmental posts? The student version is only a more innocent mirror.

What do our freshman students need? Need is always very hard to distinguish, but I believe that need could be realized when you filter out the wants, the same way that political parties filter out aspiring candidates. The filtering process is extremely tedious, it involves an observant eye. It involves thinking: it should keep leaders lost in thought when others should be relaxing their minds. It involves receiving criticisms and reacting constructively. (unless you believe you’re perfect) It involves taking fire for your constituents. It involves unexpected circumstances. It involves time. Leading is more than managing.

I bet GMA’s political survival, our fledgling leaders must’ve thought of that. That’s why they seemed so energetic during the campaign.

* * *

It turned out that the initial suspect in the issue we had when we were working on our July issue (that we did a follow-up on this month) turned out to be wrong. I think this is rather normal, as police investigators normally have many suspects which they eliminate one by one.

The whole process of investigation seems pretty much a pseudo-Josephus problem to me, only this time there is no formula to solve it.

My apology to Roderick Salita for it had been made clear to me the article had made such a negative impact on him.

That “Eric” was not him. It had never been him.

* * *

It is quite saddening how innocence could easily be drowned by utters of dubious nature. It could be a beacon of light piercing the darkness, and yet now it seems to be utterly useless. Only three possible scenarios fit: the light is insufficiently bright, the darkness eats up the light, or the light is hidden under the table and not on the lamppost.

* * *

As I write this, the real “Eric” is still frolicking. I confirmed that he still used the name Eric at least once. Males need to be alert.

* * *

My mother likes reading romance pocketbooks and watching romantic movies. In one particular instance, I had nothing to do and seeing the book lying around, I thought of skimming through it. These books and movies could be full of very cheesy lines. Snippets of the infinite list would go: I won’t be able live my life normally if you do this to me… I have not slept well after you left me…

It is very interesting why people from all walks of life resort to emotion to get their point through. It could be the research topic of psychology majors.

* * *

Professor X did it again. If X had read my last column, some changes should have been effected. Maybe X’s so psyched up X hadn’t read, and so X reruns X’s students through X’s seemingly orchestrated debacle. X has been flaunting X’s inefficiency efficiently.

There is a reason why X is called X. X is the 24^th letter of the alphabet. If you add the order (in the alphabet) of the first letters of X’s first and last name(s) together you will get 24.

* * *

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the fire espoused by the DLSU community regarding the Gloria controversy is getting weaker.

Like a piece of firewood that has been exhausted, it will turn to ash and be blown away by the wind. Will we let this happen to us?

Untitled - July Column

Untitled

The way I see things, there is a connection between social apathy - particularly student apathy - and spiritual apathy. I say it now, and my explanations and sidetracks follow: There is apathy because there is lack of a clear threat jeopardizing your current lifestyle or beliefs.

Way back several centuries, when Christianity was at its infancy, the Christians' very lives were at stake. The mere act of calling on the name of the Lord had gotten many people killed. But then for the early Christians, there was a clear distinction between what was spiritually right and wrong. Either you stand up for your beliefs and die or you live, but forfeit your faith.

One group called the Anabaptists had preached the Gospel in Europe. In exchange, their members got decapitated and had their heads displayed on street posts. Some believers who died due to torture suffered extreme pain for their faith. Imagine a human being crushed at every joint by a mallet, and having his now flimsy and blood-dripping body threaded through the spokes of a wheel like an octopus and hung to die. Imagine a person hung upside down for hours (so blood rushes to the upper body) and having his groin displaced towards his torso by a wood saw (since blood is accumulated in the upper body, lesser blood is lost as the saw cuts, and the longer one suffers).

Given the situation, no Christian could profess and be apathetic. He was deeply involved in what was happening around him, because there is a threat that keeps him on his feet, completely alert and watchful.

By the way, as for the Anabaptists, their children continued to preach the Gospel. Many people were awed by this exceptional courage and converted to Christianity.

Fast forward. As the years passed by, the threat level gradually subsided from life threatening to "trivial" problems of interpretation. Now, Satan attacks Christians with the weapon called subtlety. Sins are sugarcoated to look innocent, but inside are rotten as ever. This happens because the evil image has been whittled down to look docile and harmless. Sometimes, blatantly bad things are made to look as not that bad. Not going to Church is excusable because you are busy. Anyway, you can make up by cutting down on your sins the next week. Viewing pornography is alright because it's a sign of manhood. Besides, it may help you in your future relationship.

Although Satan is busy chopping you down, it's hard to see because the immediate threats are not there, only the long term ones. Most often, people only realize when they have sunk deep into the quicksand, but from there, it’s hard to recover.

In the same way, I think that issues in the University have always been whittled down to look harmless to the student body. The fact that an ordinary student could not identify any campus issue that can significantly affect his life as a Lasallian is proof. Although the issues are there, they have not been presented to him as something he SHOULD know about.

Swing over to the national picture. Any public official who has said sorry (it’s safe to assume that you say sorry after doing something bad), and yet acts as if that “bad” thing is not that “bad” to merit a punishment (resignation should only be the beginning) should be immediately questionable.

In GMA’s case, her promise to atone for her “lapse in judgment” by working doubly hard is a rip-off of a child’s excuse of studying harder after she failed in a test to avert being spanked by her parents. If I was the parent, I would not buy this excuse – my child should be punished – because this is how love works.

Some students do not care about the issue because of the fact that it seems there is nothing he can do. The issue is distanced from the students: students don’t think their lives could be directly affected. In effect, students are tolerating GMA’s lapses in judgment.

Using the religious argument, this is exactly what Satan wants: tolerance of sins for more sins to pile upon. In fact, why corruption crept up to the top ranks of government is because seemingly nonessential faults in the grassroots level of government were tolerated. Mere “cutting of corners” as Br. Armin said, like our sometimes not following traffic regulations.

Lastly, the thought that there is nothing one can do to influence change degrades the humanity of a person. Are Lasallian students, professors and administrators fully human?

* * *

I wonder why professors whose forte is supposed to be improving efficiency could not handle a quiz efficiently. X comes to the test site 15 minutes late, and suffers from the seeming misfortune of having insufficient test papers to distribute to students. Another 15 minutes is shaved off the 90 minute exam. Was the test extended? No. What’s intriguing was X’s final comment made during the last minutes of the essentially 60 minute exam, and it went something like this: you can always guess the answer. Speaks a lot about how some professors see students.