LIT 3

HEIZEL

When we walked past the foyer, we met some of Sam’s elite friends, as I call them. But none of them are true to her anyway, well, they’re more of like a group rather than friends. Whenever they got the chance, they backstabbed each other then act like they did nothing wrong when they’re together. They tattle a lot about other people and a lot more about their peers.

We’re just in time for the Philosophy class when we finally arrived in our respective classroom. Gladly, our professor hasn’t started his lecture yet. Sam and I took our seats as Mr. Peters’ greeted us.

“Our topic for today is about the inevitability of death,” he said and scribbled words on the whiteboard. And here comes my life’s darkest hour.

“Who in this class can give me their definition of death?” he asked yet none of us responded. I can even hear my classmates saying that the topic’s too boring and I am certain that Mr. Peters heard it, too. But, just like the usual set up, he ignored it.

Death. We all have our definition of death. Some of us thought of it as awareness, rather than fear, but the majority do otherwise. As for me, that is the place where we're totally made a beeline for. We’re all surrounded by people with transitory presence. It is inevitable in the sense that it gives embodiment to the idea of living and is a part of our life. It is a phenomenon capable enough to make us understand the adage, “everybody dies but not everybody lives”.

At some point in life, we all have this instance where we envisioned the possible things that may happen when we died. We thought of demise and the notion of not existing in a fascinating manner. We thought of how people would mourn for us or the manner in which we will be recalled, and a lot more things that may appear morbid to other people but is compelling in a sense.

Above all, death motivates us to live rather than merely exist.

“Death is the life’s ending, all of you knew that,” Mr. Peters said and sat with his tailbone against the edge of his table. “But to fully get a hold of it, you have to understand life or the essence of living.”

“We’re living if we’re alive, breathing and having fun and death’s the absence of those three,” said Mark. “How about we’ll finish this topic right away, Mr. Peters?”

Our cohorts concurred and seconded what Mark has stated.

“I wanna be a doctor, not some insane philosopher who can explain death and life,” said Tyler, Mark’s friend, and giggled.

“For the record,” said Mr. Peters as laughing subside a bit. “Mark, will you tell me how you knew you’re alive?”

“Because I am breathing, old man,” he answered, full of sarcasm.

“And how you knew you’re breathing?”

“Because I can feel it!”

I knew it, Mark’s losing his patience.

“How you knew you’re feeling it? What governs your body to think and be able to feel those processes?”

Mark couldn’t answer. And for the first time, I am enjoying my Philosophy class.

“To define death, you must first comprehend the idea of living,” he said, “and living is not just about breathing and existing. It is the manner by which your consciousness administers you and how your body goes through what we call as the imperative cycles, and by your capacity to think and use your capacity as a human justifies your existence. That’s when you knew you’re alive.”

Silence enveloped the room we’re in. Mr. Peters stood up and scribbled something on the whiteboard and it says, ‘greatest evil’.

“Death is the loss of life. It is where you lost your capacity to be conscious and get a hold of those vital processes essential to life,” he said and pointed up his marker on the word he wrote on the board. “It is the greatest evil because death doesn’t just end our life but also renders everything, especially living, meaningless.”

Nobody dared to speak, well, for a few moments.

“This is boring,” Mark said and stoop up to leave the room.

I glanced in Mr. Peters’ direction and he’s just there, sitting, watching his students left the room one after another until none of them was left…except me.

“I knew you don’t like Philosophy class,” he said and stood up to clean the whiteboard. I did not answer. I didn’t know I was that obvious. “I saw you wrote it in one of the test papers I handed in a month ago.” Oh.

I did not respond as I don’t have any idea about how I should respond to what he stated.

“Why did you stay?” he asked as he got back to his position earlier. “This class is boring, isn’t it?”

It took me a few seconds before I built the courage to answer. “It’s not.”

“You think giving meaning to life and death isn’t boring?”

I nodded.

“Do you agree with what I said earlier?” he asked, “where I mentioned that death renders life meaningless.”

“No,” I answered, hesitant. “They co-exist…but dying doesn’t render life meaningless, rather, it is the concept which makes living more meaningful.”

Mr. Peters crossed his arms. “How did you say so?”

“Absence of death will make us unmotivated to take action, to defer whatever activity for who knows how long and there would be no consequence whether we accomplish something now,” I replied. “But, in the face of death, realizing we have limits to possibilities, we will utilize our lifetimes to live life more fully.”

“But death is uncertain,” said Mr. Peters. “Would you think our lives would be more significant if the endpoint of our lives was known as opposed to it is obscure?”  

“I think, yes,” I stated, he did not answer. “In school, what persuades us to finish whatever we have on our plate is the deadline. In life, death is our deadline, perpetual deadline rather. Knowing that you have a restricted measure of time will rouse you to act immediately because you knew that it isn't only a cutoff time about something yet is a closure of everything. Much the same as the maxim, ‘it is now or never’. It’s either you’ll achieve your goals today or never achieve them at all.”

I looked at Mr. Peters and I saw how his lips rose. “Good job, Heizel.”