Our Inner Beast - Life of Pi Reflection
Mark Christian M. Reyes PHI 001
2BSA-1 9:00–10:30 [MW]
Our Inner Beast
“Life is unfair.” This is the most malevolent lesson I have learned and yet the most consistent of all the ideas I have encountered by far. Life can bring to existence anything that could push us, break us or shake us. It can wreck us to our very essence – injure us to our very locus – scar us to our very center – and weaken us to our very core. And yet it does not give us the permission to strike back. Ending it is the hardest pang, but living it is also a one-sided sting.
I have always lived with this fact and, believe it or not, the way the stars light up the night sky is as good as a proof to me. I have always thought that the stars were placed there not to guide us or give us hope but to mock us – to stay indifferent and unconcerned as we wish for our needs and to wink right at us as we weep in pain.
Shipwreck. Hunger. Pain. Thirst. No matter how big or small, all these have one thing in common. They are all forms of struggle. They all make us taste pieces of hardship. They waste every bit of life within us. They bring us to our knees and drain our strength until all that is left of us is just enough to see ourselves fail.
We are all Pi Patels in life. We always encounter obstacles that make us feel like we bear all the burdens in the world. The feeling is as if we picked a hole in the sky and the universe fell right through. It is as if the planets have aligned to damn us - as if fate itself is telling us that we are on our own.
Sometimes we think that we should give it up. And then we do … we give it all up to God. Yes, God is viewed as something abstract. He cannot be perceived by the senses. He is portrayed differently and comes in indefinite forms. But all these qualities are immaterial to me. To me what matters is what He can do for us – the Divine Masteries that can only be stroked by His brush.
Others might be seeing God as an insensitive or
2BSA-1 9:00–10:30 [MW]
Our Inner Beast
“Life is unfair.” This is the most malevolent lesson I have learned and yet the most consistent of all the ideas I have encountered by far. Life can bring to existence anything that could push us, break us or shake us. It can wreck us to our very essence – injure us to our very locus – scar us to our very center – and weaken us to our very core. And yet it does not give us the permission to strike back. Ending it is the hardest pang, but living it is also a one-sided sting.
I have always lived with this fact and, believe it or not, the way the stars light up the night sky is as good as a proof to me. I have always thought that the stars were placed there not to guide us or give us hope but to mock us – to stay indifferent and unconcerned as we wish for our needs and to wink right at us as we weep in pain.
Shipwreck. Hunger. Pain. Thirst. No matter how big or small, all these have one thing in common. They are all forms of struggle. They all make us taste pieces of hardship. They waste every bit of life within us. They bring us to our knees and drain our strength until all that is left of us is just enough to see ourselves fail.
We are all Pi Patels in life. We always encounter obstacles that make us feel like we bear all the burdens in the world. The feeling is as if we picked a hole in the sky and the universe fell right through. It is as if the planets have aligned to damn us - as if fate itself is telling us that we are on our own.
Sometimes we think that we should give it up. And then we do … we give it all up to God. Yes, God is viewed as something abstract. He cannot be perceived by the senses. He is portrayed differently and comes in indefinite forms. But all these qualities are immaterial to me. To me what matters is what He can do for us – the Divine Masteries that can only be stroked by His brush.
Others might be seeing God as an insensitive or