Hands tied, eyes blindfolded, feet bound

Passersby talk about where they had gone

Listening is the only way they can travel from now on

            This is a poem by Dr. Vincenz Serrano entitled Bilibid Viejo, a rather descriptive allusion to the Bilibid Prison that was actually my chosen venue for the BINHI program.The first line of the poem is a rather radical description of the state of persons deprived of liberty (PDLs). As we stepped on the barren ground to which the van was parked, we then walked until we reached the prison itself, not being greeted by the insults of thugs or ruffians but warm greetings of people who see us new friends. While we were entering the prison, their eyes were not blinded but shining, hands not tied by waving, feet not bound but dancing with excitement. All were welcoming, all were eager to interact and entertain us, though this seems to be a Janus-faced experience. The positive emotions are coupled that with the descriptions depicted in the poem, as they were describing the state in which they are in, one can truly see that their hands are tied, eyes blindfolded, and feet bounded, not by the prison, but by the society. And the most painful and harsh truth would be how listening is the only that they can travel, listening through their perspective but also the action of listening to their stories on how we can reveal the experiences and characteristics of the people in the prison. The pain and sadness continued with how they describe how they all miss their families, and how this place has been constraining to what they wanted to do, a consequence they are fully aware they deserve. However, this place was not only seen as a place of sorrow and despair by the PDLs but also a place for a second opportunity, most of the PDLs did not have the opportunity to obtain education while they were free, but now with reflecting on what they have done, the drive to be better is instilled within them. For them, this is progress towards a better future which they can have when they are free from their sentence, an achievement that not only they could be proud of, but others as well. The whole experience was complex, some depressing while some are hopeful. Within the context of our lessons, (i.e habitus, social organization, social structure, and agency) shows a difference between these when I compare myself to the PDLs.

Of course, the venue is quite different from what I am used to, this was my first time being in a prison. While the people seemed to be welcoming to us, there are still standard procedures which remind us that we are going inside a prison, the rough inspections as we are going in, and the extra set of eyes watching your every move, albeit for your safety nonetheless still gives off an uneasy feeling. All the while, interacting and talking to a criminal, in my case an individual who committed murder. While we were briefed to what questions are to be asked, and how one should react when they are telling the reason for why they are in prison, it is still not seamless to have a natural reaction of being composed as they narrate their heinous deed. One can not wrap one’s mind on the act so quickly, but we are challenged to do so, and probably this difficulty of prejudice can be rooted to how the society structures structured the image of a PDL in our minds. It creates a hard time for an individual to become truly open to the experience, and this prejudice can still be seen even if they are free from their sentence. This is now the challenge and responsibility for us who have interacted with them, to show the masses that are people, just people who made a grave mistake, but nonetheless people. And a second chance is the greatest gift that we could give to them, a chance to redeem themselves from the actions they have done in the past.

 Not only should people have this outlook towards the PDLs, but the PDLs themselves are trying to change for the betterment of their future. While they are aware of the possible prejudice that may come when they are free, they still have this hope within them that people will see them for who they are now, not the action that they did in the past. Let this action not define who they are, but let the progress they achieved when reflecting on that certain action be recognized. Regret was a secondary reaction to the life of prison, but the most prominent would be the drive to be better, and while they maybe tied, blindfolded, and bound in the eyes of the society. Their wisdom that a sixth grade dropout can impart to a freshman atenean is enormous, that a simple philosophy and outlook towards life can create a huge impact even with the great discrepancy of education. That we are the ones putting on these chains on ourselves, and on others, but we also the ability to free them through what we think and perceive.

            Un deux trois – no – uno dos tres – not quite – isa dalawa tatlo – almost there – how about, one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen and nineteen – now that seems about right. All of us have a certain age, some old some young, and what I enumerated was my own. However, why did I not just say explicitly that I was nineteen, why the need for an “unnecessary” development towards the age that I am right now? Through the explanation of how this development is necessary also encompasses how I would want to synthesize my experiences on the subject, Understanding The Self.

            My initial thoughts with regards to the subject was quite bland, and to be honest, quite confused on the purpose of this subject. Typical thoughts from unaware students like “Why not just reduce the number of classes we have to take for us to have more breathing room?” and it was similar to mine because of what I experienced in the first semester of college, and how I am dreading the difficulty of the second, which is another hell in itself. Confused questions such as: “Will this be another Intact of some sorts?” and “Will it be just a dragged out reflection meeting in order to “free” and “feel” our spirituality?”. Well, I was surprised and quite excited when I read the syllabus of the subject. It’s not a dragged out reflection meeting nor another form of Intact, but a scholarly class which discuss various magnificent concepts and sound theories, which have that supreme goal of, alluding to the title of the course, understanding oneself. The experience has not only left me to understand myself more, but also how to understand the behavior of others.

 Now, we seem to be deterring from the concept of counting the years, so let’s go back to that, starting with the year “Nineteen”. Now we will use the year nineteen as our primary year as this is the year I experienced all of this, but you will be surprised on how the incorporation of the years will unveil. Nineteen is an extremely hard five months, adjusting to the new hell better known as the second semester. Also in Nineteen is the time I first encountered the subject of Understanding the Self, and the first lesson was Bronfenbrenner’s Theory, and an idea within it is the importance of context to the identity of the self of the person. This sort of idea allowed me to perceive myself in my own context, and not only within the context of my experiences encompassed in Nineteen but everything that has happened towards to this event. Everything that I was taught by my mother, father, brothers, cousins, relatives, teachers, and friends. All the good and rough times, those people who have been with me through thick and thin, especially the years I was struggling with my father’s death. All those past relationships I have before, every experience makes who I am today. Every event and teaching has created this self that is identified as Jaycob Bustamante, that I am not merely Nineteen, but also Eighteen to One.

Furthermore, during this time we also tackled defense mechanisms, the psychosexual stages theorized by Sigmund Freud, and Psychosocial stages by Erik Erikson. While the two prominent theories tackled how the person develops in different formats, it showed similarity on how the person develops, by achieving a certain objective which then signals that the individual is developing. However, while there is progress within the theories, it is more explicit in the latter the negative responses to progress, and therefore having regression. Most of these regressions are simple actions, but this can be enhanced with the topic of defense mechanisms, these topics made me understand on what a person could experience when faced with excessive amounts of stress. And this can be applicable to my context of feeling tired and restless with progressing with this semester, that an individual can regress so that they can seek the comfort of the previous stage. However, while comfort is necessary for maintaining the individual’s well-being, progress is equally important, maybe even more important. While being important, it also demands from the individual a great deal of effort in order to progress, it requires one to break the boundaries between the stages. We can then allude to the enumeration I have done, why stop at Nineteen? Well, I am not yet Twenty, I have not achieved what it takes to be in that stage. I understood that progress is needed, and the process is crucial to formation of the self for it gives the individual the necessary tools to live in the context of the stage.

Lastly, is the topic of emotion. Being Nineteen can be pretty hard with the constant demands of the society and institution from you. And these excessive amounts of stress can contribute to a build up of negative emotions which can surely have great effects to one’s mood, experience, and maybe even well-being. The lesson of emotion put my thoughts and notions towards emotion straight. Before, I was blinded, that one should emit positive emotions constantly, as I should be mature about things. However, with that logic, what is then the use of the other emotions. Through the lesson, I understood that the other emotions serve a purpose, tools for you to express feelings and reactions towards a certain event. It releases a great deal of stress from the self, while also bringing humanity to the individual. In my experience, some people say “You cry like you’re nine”, or “You get upset like you’re seven”, even “Don’t get too excited, you look like you’re five”, through the lesson I can see that these are imposed by society of being stoic as one grows up, again I’m not only Nineteen, I am also Eighteen to One, but being Nineteen makes me understand my emotions in a deeper context, and how it affects me and my well-being, not from expressing it.

In conclusion, I am not only a nineteen year-old Atenean, I am so much more than that, every experience, every relationship, and every story up to this point has created the self that is identified as Jaycob Bustamante. And while the past has an effect on how I perceive myself today, the future holds the same, maybe even more, potency to the culmination of my entire being. Understanding The Self has created so much avenues for understanding what I am feeling, while also giving reminders on how one person can deal with life. Important takeaways would be: Reminding myself while comfort is necessary, Progress is equally important, emotions are tricky but never forget to understand and use them, and how I am the culmination of all my stories up to now, and stories waiting to happen. I’m Nineteen, and I can not wait to progress to the best that I can be.

Within the week, we transitioned from the concept of globalization to the thinking self, an automatic or intuitive and alternative or deliberate processing of stimuli. From the concept of globalization, we learned and understood how the self develops as its own society of the mind, that it is a culture in itself. And through this do we transition from understanding and recognizing the developments that the self can make and what constitutes the self to how the self thinks, hence the thinking self. It is differentiated into two systems, System 1 and System 2. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional while System 2 is logical, effortful, and slower thinking of the mind. Through these concepts can we see how one thinks, how one perceives a situation from different lenses, when one just uses their System 1 it generally leans towards the intuitive definition of the object or person being presented which leads to a bias in the part of the one perceiving. When System 2 is at work, it generally makes the decision more sound and logical, reflecting the person’s ideas and thinking more compared to System 1. When we recognize the existence of both systems can we now perceive and understand how one can think.

The week was not just about the thinking self but also two additional types of the self: experiencing self, and the remembering self. What I learned the most within these two concepts is how one processes experiences. For example, with experiences that cause pain one will more likely choose a longer duration of lower pain than a shorter duration of higher pain, given that the longer duration has more pain overall compared to that of the shorter one.

Throughout the week, we studied about globalization and how it affected the contemporary identity. Four groups presented on the topic, and it generally all had the same idea, that globalization has a janus-faced nature, meaning that it can positive and negative impacts. Nonetheless, it helps develop the self as the self is as in its own a society of the mind, in its self is its own culture. And with interacting with different people, different “selves” are interacting with one another, introducing ideas and their own culture to possibly have an influence to that of which he/she was interacting with. At present, the Philippines is a hub of various cultures, evident in our daily lives, laws, educational system, and interests. Multiples situations were presented to show globalization in the Philippines and the self, and the self in globalization. As members of society,  it is vital that we acknowledge how rampant globalization is nowadays. With a variety of cultures embedded in the activities and lives we live, it affects the self, as it develops, as it can either bring a union of different cultures, promoting diversity, or a confusing mess of ideas and experiences.

We started with a rather ambiguous question, our teacher asked us “What is the self?” An important question, if you think about it, because that’s the course in its most basic form. The course is about understanding the self, and what constitutes the self. Few answered the question, but most were murmuring like everybody had at least some idea what the self is. After a few minutes of silence, our teacher finally have us an idea on what the self is. The self is an embodiment of what is and what is with in, and it is not only limited to itself but is also able to extend itself to form relationships. Not only that, he then drops another idea of the self being what the mind creates. Now further deepening the complexity yet still highlighting the simplicity of “the self”. I am thrilled with this new perspectives and ideas coming into play, it gives a fresh take to understand not only oneself but also the environment and individuals surrounding it.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton