Something to leave humanity

I have spent much thought on nothing recently. However, these countless hours were not wasted at all. I have recently proven to myself that there is indeed a desire to leave humanity with something great and grand.

There is a hunger in all of humanity to leave something great and grand. It may not necessarily be good in the usual sense, but in the eyes of the one who left it it may be good. Take for example genocide, it's not really "good" and in fact falls in the category of "morally reprehensible" but for those who have committed it, especially for those who planned it and ordered it, it may be good. Thus some people continue to do what are widely considered innately evil things, with a possible view that such acts are in fact good and will better humanity in the long run.

This now takes me back to what I want to do.

I just want to leave a legacy that will make all the university students go "that's someone who I want to be." I want to leave this world smiling and leave the world something to smile about as well. In the past I was able to witness several of my school's distinguished alumni entering the hallowed halls to discuss something important with the dean. I was joking around with a friend that ten maybe twenty years from now students will see us walk through that entrance and say "napaka-corrupt niya." We were making light of the situation but this is what normally happens to people who aspire to be "great", they end chasing paper instead of their dreams. So I'm pretty sure I don't want to fall down the wayside while I'm looking for something to give to the human race.

Several years prior to that day, I was back in college, I was having my final examination in Organizational Behavior. I kept blabbering on what I wanted to be, my teacher Father Candelaria, S.J., cut me off and said "you have what most college students have, a goal, but you do not have a plan." He continued to expound on what the problem with that is. I still remember that room in the Jesuit Residence to this day.

Still, I have no plan on how to become great, just the goal of becoming great and leaving the future generations with something. That's still a step in the right direction I think. More later.

Conscience

I had a rare moral dilemma today. It consisted of me having to choose between a free meal and ponying up. Having convinced myself to go for the free meal after much verification that the failed delivery would result to none being charged for it back at the outlet.

This all sounds a bit cryptic, if not a gem of how not to write so...

I'll just lay all the facts out.

I ordered via a pizza chain's delivery hotline. I was given the time and at least an hour from that time for delivery. This means that my order will be handed to me and paid by me within an hour from my call.

The minutes turned on the face of our grandfather clock. The minutes turned into an hour and then into way beyond an hour. I called up the hotline again and inquired as to the status of my order. They informed me that the order still had 4 minutes. I turned my timer on to 4 minutes after that call. But they did inform me that it was unusual that the delivery would take the whole hour.

The delivery man came (rider as the contact person from the hotline corrected me) about ten minutes after the hour given to me. Apparently he still had 8 minutes on his watch because the phone call from the delivery hotline to the branch came say at 330 instead of my call at 318pm.

I said well the hotline told me you guys were late, please call up the branch he said. I called the hotline again and was again (yes they informed me from the very first time that I called that the branch will be calling me) informed that the branch will call. The branch didn't call so I took the branch number from the rider and called them up and laid my case.

I told them that the time difference wasn't attributable to me, and that I didn't need the order anymore because my father and brother (the two persons who'll have to eat it) left already. So there we go, the pizza is something that I wouldn't accept because (1) it was late, (2) I didn't need it anymore. So the woman on the other end told me to just take it and sign on the receipt (much like what the delivery hotline guy said).

I took the pizza!

But I took it after asking from the branch if the rider will be made to pay for this. It's not his fault, why should he be made to pay? It was glaringly obvious that the branch and the hotline center didn't do their respective jobs. So I took it and signed.

Did I do the right thing by accepting something that I didn't need? I initially wanted to return the order and be rid of it all. But the allure of free was too great. Besides I also suffered something equivalent to hurt feelings (if that'll qualify for damages) because I couldn't feed my sibling and parents (yes parents my mom was also here) for the afternoon. I took the failure to deliver on time personally. My wounds were soothed but a new one was torn open, had I just sentenced an innocent rider to be made to pay for something he didn't do?

I also checked with the rider if he'd be penalized he said no. I said yep they told me at the other end that it was production who'd get hit with the blame on this one.

Anyway, I won't rest until I finally come up with something on conscience (I'll look into Aquinas and some other philosophers for conscience) and a piece on conscience and a free meal due to the error of the other.

Please refer to my other post on A friend of wisdom on my other musings on who has to pay.

A Brave New World

Speaking of New Stuff. I still haven't managed to read A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. That book is really one of those books that I really, really would like to read. I also would like to get a copy of the Analects and Tao Te Ching, I feel that these last two works would really give me a wider perspective on things. I'm still looking for a perspective with which I can tackle the problems of daily life using only that perspective. I want it to be all-encompassing, yet non-containing. I want to be like water, the water that Bruce Lee told all people to become.

I have read snatches on the concept of Bruce Lee, specifically Wu Wei and Wu Hsin. (I doubt I spelled both correctly) Doing without doing and not thinking or non-thinkning I think. In any event, I think that Bruce Lee's application of his views, on Chinese philosophy and philosophers, to martial arts is a very concrete way to distill these abstractions. If you were just going to read the books without trying to even apply it in "real" life then it would be just like any book. It will affect you temporarily but will not cause a stretch or growth in your person. Bruce Lee's Martial Arts philosophy can be extruded from the narrow (I say this in the sense that not all people are martial arts practitioners) field of martial arts and redrawn into a wider backdrop for people to readily accept it and apply it to their own lives.

More on this soon.