Cranial

                                                 (cx trining)

Election is an emotional event. People choose the candidates based on what they feel about them. This could be explained why we elect those who do not understand legislation as long as they are friends, relatives or they SMILE a lot. According to Jon Morris: Substance is only part of the equation. How people FEEL plays a huge role in how they respond to the candidates and their policies.

In the field of social research, Psychographics has been applied to the study of personality, opinions, attitudes, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles. With the results of the researchers such as the aforementioned one by Morris, one could directly say that elections in the Philippines are ruled over by what people feel and not what they think. In fact, latest work on emotional responses to communication showed that emotions are twice as good as raw facts in predicting behavioral outcomes. So, for the candidates to really understand people’s support (or disdain), they have to understand people’s emotional responses.

Just try to look back on the recently-concluded barangay and SK (Sangguniang Kabataan) elections. How many relationships got broken due to the emotional outbursts? How many family members led to become enemies? Crime was even committed during the time for the position some are aiming for. There were rumors created to make stains on the image of the candidates so that the emotional responses of the people would be affected.

On the other hand, there are candidates being supported by family and friends NOT by the capability of the one who ran for the position but simply because the candidate is CLOSE to their “hearts”. For them, the basics of making legislation could be learned and all they have to do is to affix their signatures on prepared resolutions and ordinances anyway!

Bernard Golden, Ph. D. mentioned that CHILD LOGIC overpowers most of the people. This is a term coined by him to describe logic that is hijacked by emotion. It emphasizes that regardless of age and intelligence, most of the people engage in magical thinking associated with earlier development. Such logic fuels unrealistic expectations and heightens the potential for destructive anger. It is when the EMOTIONAL BRAIN and the RATIONAL BRAIN are not effectively communicating with each other.

It is in this train of thoughts when one must realize the importance of emotional maturity. This is the time when a person transcends his/her emotional being to become a thinking one. Of course, our emotions are equally important but the whole brain must function well. We easily get hurt and our decisions could sometimes be muddled with the CHILD LOGIC to the point that we then surrender to such emotionally-tainted decisions. Most of them would be regretted.

As adults, we even apply the CHILD LOGIC to our children. We get angry if we they will not conform with what we say. We often forget that they are children, prone to commit a lot of mistakes and we are there to guide them. But we allow ourselves to see them as equals. We turn our backs to them and most of the time, we punish them.

But going back to the elections… We often complain about the way the government is being manned. Yet, we have to remember that it is us who elected the people who manage the laws and governance of the land. We often allow our emotions lead us to elect the persons who we FEEL as able. And it is also us who would then criticize them once they do not adhere to what we FEEL as beneficial to ourselves. The CHILD LOGIC would soon prevail.

The point of this discourse is that we must know how to think and understand our emotions and allow them to be processed properly by our rational brain. It has been a long term discussion among educators that keeping a JOURNAL is healthy since it allows the emotional outbursts be translated into the thinking process.

We understand that emotions drive 80% of the choices we make, while practicality and objectivity only represent about 20% of decision-making (Levine, 2012). But then we have the power to keep a balance once we allow reasons and objectivity to prevail through what we call as the THINKING. By doing so, we could avoid hurting ourselves and others. We could then embrace the road towards maturity.

Thirsty

                                                                         (The Monthly)

Kadaghang! This is a Sinurigao word which literally means thirsty. Ironically, this has a strong connotation of challenging someone for a drinking binge. We all know that alcohol could cause dehydration aside from the intoxication that could loosen the tongue and leads to devolution. Also, the word is muttered to candidates for a political position. Most of the people claim that this is just done for the sake of fun yet this has something to do with values being radiated from a generation to the next. Something which is embedded and could sometimes become a NORM.

If a person runs for a political seat in our land, he will be bombarded with the so-called jokes of KADAGHANG and most of the time, the pressure has its effects. The candidate then spends a lot and considers the event as an investment. In business, it is OK to take a risk since the capital might become a hundredfold in the future. So, would it be safe to say that sometimes, the cause of corruption stems from the people themselves?

There was even a time when someone aired that he needed to have a taste of government money even for a little amount since the soon-to-be elected official will have all the money in the world. But who made THAT person? Isn’t he made by the collective and twisted norms rather than the main point of running to office which is public service?

According to Abraham Maslow (1943) two needs motivate people to do what they are doing: deficiency needs and growth needs. Deficiency needs arise due to deprivation and are said to motivate people when they are unmet. The motivation to fulfill such needs becomes stronger the longer the duration they are denied. Maslow continued that growth needs do not stem from a lack of something, but rather from a desire to grow as a person. Once these growth needs have been reasonably satisfied, one may be able to reach the highest level called self-actualization.

If a person is running so to attain power, fame and money, we could infer that he/she might be doing this because of a deficiency need. But if the individual is doing it for the desire to serve, to make his or her life meaningful through public service, he/she is satisfying his or her growth need.

But what motivates those of us who push the politicians to become the crooks that we project them to become? Freudian theories lead us to ponder on psychological egoism which is the empirical doctrine that the determining motive of every voluntary action is a desire for one’s own welfare. This is a valid reason for us individuals to constantly evaluate our motives and intentions through introspection for us to be able to take a hold on ourselves. Am I doing this for selfish intentions? How can I be of help to make this place a better one? (This could be the time to do a crossover from having a deficiency need to evolve into a growth need.)

Egoism is not bad at all since it also preserves the SELF. Ethical egoism is a theory that we should seek our self-interest to be able to take a hold on it. We need to remember that we are the ones to control our desires and not the other way around.

Parents and teachers really play a great role in making these things be inculcated to the children. It is in the hands that nurture lessons and values where the future of the country dwells. We are making the government function well. We are the ones to propel the future of people to the highest potentials. We need to better understand our selves and our roles to be a harbinger of the BETTER WORLD we are dreaming of.

Meaningful

Burnout. According to Psychology Today, it is a state of chronic stress that leads to physical and emotional exhaustion; cynicism and detachment; feelings of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment. When one is experiencing this, he or she could no longer function effectively on a personal or professional level.

Lifehacker states that it is a common misconception that burnout is simply a result of working hard or for too long. According to Alexandra Michel, a science writer at the Association for Psychological Science, burnout results when the balance of deadlines, demands, working hours, and other stressors outstrip rewards, recognition and relaxation.

The symptoms of burnout are shown by the breakdown of Sarah Geronimo during the American leg of her concert tour. People reacted to the event. Some bashed her for being over-reactive. Others empathized. But then, the poignant part of her speech was when she told the audience that despite the success and material rewards she is having, she feels EMPTY.

One of the reasons why people feel empty is the realization that they are NOT doing things which are meaningful. There is a certain thirst that they feel which sometimes motivates them to work their energy out. This thirst could be an unmet need during their younger years. They then strive to continually work out for the “meeting” of the need only to realize that the thirst is going to be unquenchable. It is for the reason that the need was not confronted and processed well. That is the significance why clinical psychologists and psychotherapists exist. They help people confront the shadow which continually haunt them. Later, people then realize that money, fame and material things do not count. It is love, affection, respect and the connection to the divine which count most.

It has then become the interest of persons who want to have self-mastery to find that MEANING they are craving for. The fact of being human must also be confronted well. There is a continuous debate on what could make a person happy and most of the sages point to the direction of spiritual maturity. A lot of us crave for the worldly things only to realize later that the craving won’t stop unless you go deeper to understand the inner person. The realization of living life simply is alien to most of us since we equate success with the riches that we own.

Mindtools.com then suggests that to avoid burnout, we need to work with PURPOSE. If you embrace the work that you are doing as meaningful, there is a tendency that when you extend your time and energy, you understand their impact to your mission. You might get tired but you know that your tiredness has a meaningful price.

We are individuals. We are driven with different purposes. We might consider money as a good purpose to be able to acquire things which could make us comfortable. But we need to understand how to slow down as well. For the work that we extend might allow us to get tired and lead us to gesticulate: I am not happy! I feel empty…

There are those of us who need others to fill that empty space inside. We think that relationships will make us whole to the point that we embark on one relationship to another to make us WHOLE. Yet, we might be looking for affirmations that we fail to have before. We might not have the parental support and nurturing backgrounds so we leave people behind since we are looking for that SOMETHING which could fill us up.

But these things all boils down to contentment. We need to accept the things that we have and share them to others. Humility would be attained once we stop comparing ourselves to others. We could be happy with what we have and do not kill ourselves to work hard to be at par with our contemporaries.

In Luke 18:22, On hearing this, Jesus told him, “You still lack one thing: Sell everything you own and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven. Then come, follow me.” But when the rich man heard this, HE BECAME VERY SAD, BECAUSE HE WAS EXTREMELY WEALTHY.

It is in these lines where we could infer that the craving for more wealth could oftentimes become our source of being sad and empty. We could not detach our SELVES from our riches to the point that we forget the sole reason why we are here in this world: to be connected with our brethren through love, respect and affection.

It Matters

There were people discussing if there is a correlation between the school and the performance of the alumni. If given the chance to research, some of the social scientists will not agree with the direction of the study for it may sound bias and subjective. But Statistics tells us that the number of passers in any board or bar exam is synonymous to most of the renowned universities in the land. Lately, we see the schools redundantly paired with topnotchers to the latest result of the Bar examination.

It seems that the conversation was pointing at standards and school culture. The two are always great factors in making good outputs once the school adheres to certain standards and project a culture of excellence. These would cascade to the learners and their attitudes towards the learning process would be the things to propel them towards academic success.

It has been repeatedly mentioned that skills could be acquired if they are practiced constantly for a period of time. In college, I was  introduced rigidly to the basics of Mathematics since we were told we could not proceed to Physical Science unless we master Algebra, Calculus, Geometry and all the mathematical disciplines. We were surrounded with professors who constantly bombard us with math equations telling us the importance of them in construction, transportation and even in daily life. This was in a school being monitored by the Augustinian Recollects.

When I took my diploma in Physics at Ateneo de Davao University, I realized the strict standards of gaining competencies in all the topics learned. I need to reach the mastery level of each subtopics with a rating of 85% before I could proceed to other subtopics in the syllabus. Else, we need to take remedial lessons to be able to reach the cut-off grade. We need to put a lot of our resources to the subject so to attain the desired goal.

Most of the school I studied are sectarian schools. They always adhere to the values and mission of the institution  to the point that strict self-monitoring of attitudes  and behaviors were instilled.

But this could not be considered as a sweeping theory since generalization is a fallacy. There were those who thrived and wilted. It is the individual’s reaction to the stimuli that count. And that is the main point of this discourse. There are those schools who offer a lot of stimuli and there are those who are lenient in giving the learners the exposure and opportunities they need. That is the reason why the learners could not expand their horizons. They are limited to the belief that what the teachers are giving them are enough to face the cruel and challenging world.

There is this school which pride itself of having teachers who are good in the English language. The teachers are so good in pronouncing the words to the point that the students think that an intelligent person is that who could speak the English language. The teachers indirectly communicate this idea. They failed to realize that they are also offering business courses and the tech-voc tracks. They do not care if the concepts given are shallow and trivial. They laugh at those persons who mispronounce words but they do not laugh at the banal ideas presented to them. They draw their confidence to the mastery of a borrowed language and not on the mastery of expressing ideas using a borrowed language. Their syntax could sometimes make an amateur writer die a natural death.

When I had my two-week stint in UP Diliman for Science teaching and a week at UP Los Banos for Cultural Education, I realized how important it is for these schools to develop progressive thinking linked with the love for country. The professors do not care how you deal with the lessons as long as you get the point. They do not label persons through uniforms and social status. They grimace on status quo and push you to discover many things. They stretch your mind and make it a point to utilize your learning for your roots. They are so Makabansa/Makabayan to the point that they will leave their classrooms to rally for a cause since the point of their learning is to make the Philippines a better country. So, if there’s a threat to national stability, they leave the classrooms because they will then ask: What is the point of these concepts and knowledge when we do not have the freedom to apply them soon?

The foundation of competencies comes from the school you studied. You might not notice it but the culture you embraced was the same as what you have witnessed and experienced as you mold your being and becoming.

Hormones

Kris Aquino was airing her disgust and dismay over Korina Sanchez’s feature of her former husband talking about Kris and James’ child Bimby. The sister of the former president said: The feature that the wife of Mar Roxas came out with today is a slap to my face. Yes. I am talking this personally because I put my and my children’s future on the line without expecting anything in return. And the apparent payback for me and the children is a feature on the deadbeat father. The Queen of All Media then lashed out those who accused her with overreacting. She then reason: I am a mother, I need to protect and find what is good with my children. She even said that Korina could not empathize with her since the former is not a mother.

In another scenario, there was a time when a heated discussion erupted when all of a sudden, the other side burst out: You do not understand! I am a woman and you are not! Women must be understood since we have hormones! The discussion ended since the main theme was muddled with concepts and stands being misused.

Commission on Population defines Gender and Development (GAD) to the development perspective and process that is participatory and empowering, equitable, sustainable, free from violence, respectful of human rights, supportive of self-determination and actualization of human potentials. It seeks to achieve gender equality as a fundamental value that should be reflected in developmental choices and contends that women are active agents of development, not just passive recipients of development.

The policies and laws recognizing the participation and contribution of women as equals are not anti-male. It must also be understood by women that these are  mandates that could be abused or misused by them. For reasons of making these laws and concepts as an excuse of lashing out to males and justifying shortcomings to female hormones is not acceptable. When a mistake is committed, hormones could never be an excuse. And motherhood could never be a valid reason for being rude and “unbecoming”. Being a mother is not reason enough to lash out hurting comments online. Why not do heated and mature confrontations in person?

Of course, we need to understand the physiological changes and activities on women. But we also have to do the same with men. What about fatherhood? When a relationship would go adrift, could we point directly to the men as the culprit? There are lots of relationship astray being caused by women as well!

The thesis and dissertation of this writer are focused on women and children’s rights since it is really true that gender inequality and child abuse are rampant in our society. But it was also discovered that there are women and children who abuse these mandates to the point that crime and injustice are being committed since there are laws protecting them. In fact, legislators are now fine-tuning the laws for them to be of equal benefits to both gender and humanity in general.

There are two sides of the coin. And it is always true that it takes two to tango. Maturity comes when the person evaluates his or her side first on a certain event and consider the other side as well. Selfishness will always be a main reason of division.

Korina could have just acted as a journalist. She could have thought about the side of James Yap as the father of Bimby. Her intentions might not be malicious but done for the sake of being a broadcast journalist where every side must be considered. She could have asked Kris to air the feature…but what for?

Friendships and other relationships are bound with respect and understanding. We could never be a good and better person unless we open our minds to the things around. We could deny ourselves but not forget our rights. By being true to what and who we are, we might be freed from the chains of selfishness and looking for justifications on our mistakes and even misfortunes. We are equal. We are humans with being. Our gender is not an excuse nor a reason for not being able to love.

Green

We have them around. They are pervasively present in our society, in our circle of friends…and even in our families. There are people who could drain out your emotions and positive energy since it is their nature to draw out the positive light from you. They envy your positive disposition to the point that they would like to make you like them: bitter. They will constantly complain, see the world negatively, accuse people of being innately bad and critique the minutest detail in everything. They were not able to develop the value of appreciation and living on the positive side of life. Being with them could be considered as hell on earth.

Most of them create a facade of being happy and friendly yet they are not. They will then look for your mistakes and pull you down to the pitiful lives similar to what they are living. Their words are patronizing in front of others but could be very poisonous once you are out of sight. These things could be from their turbulent backgrounds or the uncontrolled evil inside. They were not able to nurture the person within to the point that most of them have the incapacity to love, serve and give. They turn out to be selfish and clanish. They could not connect to the bigger communities since their perspective is on the micro level only: That is focusing on their own selves and the people they consider as “theirs”.

There are older people whom you see as fixated to the material and worldly things. They equate success to clothing, cars, fame and power. They adore people who are moneyed and powerful neglecting the values and contributions of these people to humanity. Their vision of success is superficial to the point that they will do illegal and immoral things since they VALUE the aforementioned materials than the universal values. Most of them strive to acquire property and things which they feel would fill in their incapacity.

But then, according to Harvey Jackins, the person in the grip of old distress says things that are not pertinent, does things that don’t work, fails to cope with the situation, and endures terrible feelings that have nothing to do with the present. That is the main reason that these “persons” are actually unsuccessful in their fields. Most of them are actually being left behind by their contemporaries in terms of power and fame and money. Instead of defining success to what they are right now, they continue to be driven with things which won’t actually quench their thirst for craving for the material things they desire.

Thus, they are bitter. Their presence could then become toxic and energy-draining since their words and actions reflect their insecurity. They try their best to sound pertinent but they are actually wading on shallow waters.

So why linger on them? We have lots to enjoy in life. We need not be influenced with what we consider as unhealthy things in our Being and Becoming. We could stay away from these people since they are actually NOT our friends. Friends unconditionally give love, affection, respect and even resources to us and not instruments of self-destruction and defeat. It is a decision with the inner person to severe relationships which could not make the outer being a contributor of pain and negative energy to the universe. Life is better than that.

With the readings we get, we see that reflective people have lesser companions and so-called friends since they understand how to separate themselves from the toxic ones and keep the best ones whom they could nurture compatibly. We treasure these people since they help us with our missions and enhance our strengths to pursue the purposes of our lives.

We then continue to keep our quiet and appreciate the things we have. We believe that their is a greater force guiding us to reach our destinations. We define our own happiness and not be mandated by the pressures we see in different platforms. We reach out to people not to use or abuse them. We do this since we are like them: human with beings.

Incapacity to Love

He wept. We could directly see him since he was conspicuously seated in the front row. He was crying for the whole duration of the Thanksgiving Mass. Then during the graduation ceremonies, while almost all his classmates painted beautiful smiles on their faces, his was the epitome of sadness etched on all angles of his being. These events are supposedly victorious moments! There is something wrong with the picture he is projecting! What was it?

It was later learned that his parents are not around. They were not there during one of the most important phases of his life. They separated due to their own reasons…Reasons that a child could not understand. He even bargained that they could separate as long as they are there during that moment. But they were not. Probably, they were doing justifications on their actions. Still, in the heart of the child, they are simply selfish.

Relationships could be nurturing or toxic. It takes two souls to find the level of maturity for them to nourish each other and the EGO to turn situations into poisonous encounters to the point that the two must separate for self preservation. Maturity is the name of the game since mature individuals seek to find themselves first before connecting to another soul. That is the main point of the word “soul mate”. One has to discover the things he/she is thirsting first before quenching another person’s thirst. The person must strengthen the inner being so that when the being he/she is connecting to needs more energy, there is something to offer, to fill in. But, what if both of the partners have inadequacies? What is there to give?

Is it good to enter into a relationship to make the partner as part of a rehearsal? You see, there are those of us who claim that we are into a relationship to have an inspiration. That could be dangerous since we are making the person as a representation of what we need than accepting his or her totality. The best thing is to be THE inspiration to the other. We could do that once we attain all the needs that we have and address the things we desire. That is why relationships could be suffocating since a lot of us enslave our partners and label them with what we lack. We make them as the scapegoats of our incapacity and blame them of our weaknesses. We do not like to bend on our knees since we are too proud to accept who we are. We insinuate on our being good only to conceal our being NOT good enough!

And what happens to the children - the “fruits” of our love? Most of them become a consequence of a relationship gone bad. They are not considered since the parents are licking their own wounds and concentrating on themselves rather than others. The parents were not able to reach the maturity of forgetting themselves for others… not even for their own flesh and blood.

The incapacity to love and serve could be traced to FEAR. A lot of us did not overcome the fear of being rejected. We might had the experience of being shortchanged of love and affection from our loved ones when we were young we eventually became emotional vampires. We demand to be served to be pampered and to be always the “apple of the eye” not realizing that these things are so adolescent. We failed to grow up. We forget that the sole purpose of growing up is to SERVE not be served.

The crying graduate is just a micro-representation of the children who became victims of the incapacity to love by his parents. This could be terrifying since it might become a vicious cycle where the child is placed in the future. He might be a harbinger of toxic relationships too.

We might as well look into our own selves and be a positive force to overcome the negative one gnawing in the midst of our society.