Often misconstrued as a process of romanticizing the mundane, or simply looking too

hard into a reality which contains nothing more than as it is, philosophy has become a discipline
and an art rarely practiced and immersed in by the modern man. For a large percentage of the
world’s population, philosophy holds no significance in the capitalist system, which implicitly
tries to assign a monetary value to every object in existence and explicitly demands the
exhaustion of all forms of resources in an individual’s possession. Status quo may be a vicious
cycle of slavery, one which most of the working class is coerced to surrender to, and perhaps the
only way out is the constant assessment of one’s own status quo. A criticism of where one
stands, what he or she amounts to as a person detached from the demands of circumstance, and a
reminder of the things which are truly essential for oneself. Thereby, requiring the modern man a
systematic yet liberated method of understanding the constructs which hold him captive.
Every good student understands and adapts to the mandates of each subject. For some,
biology simply requires a keen memory, mathematics establishing organized short term, long
term memory systems, and for language classes maybe hours of grueling familiarization of
phonemes and calligraphies. However, for most students philosophy is but a plus one subject, an
additional requirement, a few deadweight units which perhaps won’t matter to everyone in the
block a few years after from the present. The author, having been one of these individuals, was
apparently in for a revolting surprise in his anticipation for sophomore year. Barely reaching half
of his freshman year’s second semester, classes were cut short. The pandemic took place and
changed most of how the world previously was. This meant altering study habits which students
have built through years, restructuring daily routines which helped get through the day, and
relearning how one works best under all sorts of drastic circumstances forced upon.
Unlike any literary analysis, philosophizing requires an insight that transcends personal
biases. By transcend however, this does not mean disregard, but to draw greater rationale beyond
the current material. It is not only an assessment of a single element in one’s life, but the entirety
of the experiences and those which contribute to it. There is no predetermined plot towards
which the details being assessed have been carefully manipulated to lead into the climax, in fact
philosophizing assumes that every instance is the climax. A sense of continuity, so to speak, is
necessary as each day alters the spectacle by which we observe our own lived experiences. While
philosophy might just be another biology class as it is a study of life, it is not perceived through
the microscope. After all, the reality which we experience are all shared experiences, allowing us
to constitute a reality with others, hoping to reveal all facets of the truth by each encounter, or in
a scientist’s words, experiments. The only difference is, the variables taken into account are ever
changing, and that is exactly what makes philosophy unique, autonomous, but just as equally
important. It is because of this that no one dares say that an individual’s claim to what life is is
invalid due to varying circumstances of his or her lived experience.
This particular facet now becomes the fulcrum for philosophy’s necessity and relevance
during these times. In the last millennia, humanity had trodden a path which resulted in giving
birth to the following generations with an obsession towards tangible accomplishments and
output. Successes are of course much easier to highlight when there are concrete manifestations
of the theories we have ascertained and applied into practical use. Our hunger for knowledge and
capability has brought us far from the infancy stage of the race. Infrastructures built and
demolished, vehicles developed to operate on all surfaces, sources of energy more efficient and
accessible created, these are but a few of what comprise our toil for progress. If there is however
one aspect of humanity’s development which we have shied upon despite all these advances, it is
in the assessment of the process we have undergone, the nature of our growth which immensely
influences the direction of our future endeavors.

All these things point toward a lack of introspection, of a greater understanding of what
constitutes the being and how the being impacts the greater collective. The divide and disparity
represents the incoherence between men and nations. As much as every nation grows at its own
pace, the only competition against growth should be time and natural calamities, not another
member of the same race ironically working towards the same goal. It is as though the nature of
moving forward for humanity is that which continually exploits the existence of another. To
embrace and confine ourselves in this type of growth means to give in to the model of devouring
which life was most intuitively born to. Had humans been born the same way as animals who act
primarily on instinct, then this settling for the system which the creature was born in may have
been justified, but for a being who possesses the ability to comprehend and rationalize, this is
morally abhorrent. It is in the establishment of values and mutual interests that humans have
come to realize what humanity truly is. Both the demands and capabilities of the race are now
greatly different compared to its early years, this means further development must then be tailor-
fitted to what status quo requires and what humans are now able to provide. In contrast to the era
of the dawn of civilization, humanity’s growth is now focused on specific advancements be it in
technology, ethics, et cetera. Far from the original struggle of standardizing a model which
prioritizes the race’s survival, there has been a shift in what humanity is in pursuit of. It is no
longer concerned with just being able to produce enough for the world to consume, it is now
after more efficient ways to produce, to harvest, to operate in general. The greatest concern is not
simply to exist, but to live. Humanity has gotten a taste of life’s flavors and is now trying to
explore the undiscovered flavors life has to offer.

After getting to know and indulging in satisfaction, gratification, and the more preferable
things in life, the pandemic placed everyone back in a similar spot. The mutual interest is once
again survival. Despite the gap between the privileged and the poor, all sectors of society
suffered crippling losses which would take time to recover from. With massive restructuring in
economies, there had been more efforts directed towards reestablishing a more practical and
inclusive standard of living. This does not mean to say that the pandemic has cured the disease of
the current system, in fact it has merely exposed and exacerbated its flaws. These realities are
much more identifiable as people are forced to remain indoors, allowing every person to
recognize all the privileges and disadvantages at play. It is under these circumstances that people
are obliged to ponder on the point of merely existing. More than the achievements,
shortcomings, and external motivations which previously fueled most individuals' daily efforts,
humanity finds itself in a junction that demands an appreciation for the singularity yet
connectedness of every being. Constricted by lockdowns and health protocols, every person is
desperate to fill the void of the social aspect of the human that is currently being deprived,
redefining the phrase “together apart”.

Perhaps the greatest demystification the pandemic has offered is that the world functions
in ironies and paradoxes exceptionally well. In the modern era humanity has created where
efficiency is at its peak, days went by awfully fast. Oftentimes too fast for one to even realize the
worth of every conscious and lucid instance robbed from an enslaved routinary mindset. In
contrast to the lockdown era, time passes by agonizingly slow, but everytime one looks back it
seems as though time has slipped away just as quickly. At the moment, lives could be likened to
that of a person under a comatose. Uncertain of waking and whether or not one would wake up
to the same capacity to exist as he or she did once before.