Story time!

Journal screenshot #1

A few nights ago I decided to do lead a community night around story telling. I love stories. I'll let a more eloquent writer describe stories better than I ever could:

You are your stories. You are the product of all the stories you have heard and live - and of many that you have never heard. They have shaped how you see yourself, the world, and your place in it. Your first great storytellers were home, school, popular culture, and, perhaps, church. Knowing and embracing healthy stories are crucial to living rightly and well. - Daniel Taylor

That night got me thinking of how many stories we carry everyday from our first memories, our  feared traumas, and our whimsical dreams. I began wondering why at once these stories are so easy to hide but also so easy to share. What makes us fearful and needy in letting others see our vulnerabilities or our inspirations? Let me tell you about the first artist I met.

I love art. I like to write and to draw. My writing is so-so, but if I could show some brashness, I think I'm a damned good artist. I wish I could play the piano or the violin, but I'll have to accept my inadequacy and listen on in jealousy. I don't think I realized until this year why I was so drawn to notions of creativity. I can give some very pretentious and idealistic blabber about Plato's Symposium or Romantic poets like Yeats. Fact is, that doesn't really touch on a few things.

Journal screenshot #2

I am lucky enough to call myself a LaSallian (I didn't graduate as one, but I grew up as one so I win). Funny story on my path becoming a LaSallian: I was a dumb kid. Like really dumb. I spent most of my time watching TV as a child. I remember a lot of Flintstones and maybe some show about other cavemen and dinosaurs. School was never a priority. To start kindergarten in La Salle Greenhills, a prospective student had to pass an initial interview. I remember my mom's anxiety over the fact that I barely knew my colors and didn't care about letters or numbers. We were driving to the school and I didn't even know what colors were on the stop lights or what they meant. Again, dumb kid. There was another kid at the interview with flash cards and one of those fancy educational computers. Yep, I was gonna bomb that interview; I believe I did. But, as with most things in the Philippines, my mom had a friend whose friend was friends with a school administrator. Dumb kid became a LaSallian! Nepotism for the win! Not proud of it, but I believe I made the best out of it. (Side note, what's the point of interviews for children? I didn't care then, but I eventually blossomed into a damned good scholar. Just give children the opportunity to achieve!).

The school was amazing. Not only did they give me a foundation that allowed me to succeed once I moved to the United States, but they taught me to open my eyes. As part of my schooling, we went on several "outreach" trips. As a kid, I took this as a break away from the monotony of grammar and math. As an adult, I cherish these trips because they taught me what being human means.

Journal screenshot #3

The trips took on many different forms. A few trips involved going to retirement homes. In the Philippines, the norm is for the elderly to live with their children. Generally, if an elder lived in a retirement home it would reflect the reality that they may not have a family (I'm generalizing, but that's how I perceived it as a child). From these souls, I learned how to listen.

Some trips involved going to public schools and orphanages. In the Philippines, the school system was/is(?) terrible. Going to a private school with the social capital that a student had automatically meant that they were set for a better paying job down the line. Public schools were underfunded. Also, there is a huge population of homeless people in Manila. When worst comes to worst, a lot of these children would be orphaned and funneled into a terrible school system. What was I to think of this reality as a child? I had a driver to drive me to school, a maid to cook my meals, AC to keep me cool, and a school to truly educate me. It would have been so easy to shut myself off and believe in my socioeconomic and therefore "intrinsic" superiority. No. My school refused to let that happen.

The value of those outreach programs were to say, "hey, before you get a big head, meet these kids first!" How I loved it. The magic of children is that they don't care who they play with as long as they get to play. Money, education, "class," and status don't matter. I got to see them as children that laughed and played rather than what children of privilege might see: poverty, dirt, and disease. That was my first memories of meeting people where they are at rather than seeing people with how society has been trained to perceive them.

Journal screenshot #4

The main reason I'm writing this is because of my experience with a school for the blind. So what do children think of people with disabilities? Well, some would say people with disabilities are broken, or missing something, or incomplete. Kids can be really mean. I remember sitting there and thinking "I'm lucky to be able to see!" I could not imagine a life without eyesight and I was afraid. I probably pitied them deep down. But, what would you expect from a sheltered and privileged brat?

Well how wrong I was! At that school, I was taught how to read braille. I was showed how the blind can develop their senses to be sharper and are better able to doing more things than I could have imagined. My imagination was severely lacking in the power of human creativity and will. I remember one experience brought me to tears.

We came to a room with a man sitting next to his piano. He explained how he had nubs on the keys so that he could align himself when he played. He proceeded to wow me with the music that he created. I have no musical bone in my body and am jealous of any that can play an instrument. There I was, a kid who thought he was better because he was healthy and I was floored by a blind man playing the piano. To this day, I still remember the feeling of being lifted up and nearly brought to tears by that man's creativity. What I learned that day and have kept on learning throughout my life is that creativity doesn't give a crap about what's "wrong" with people. Nothing's wrong with anybody. People are people and creativity just does what creativity does: it creates.