For many, including myself, the search for life’s meaning seems almost like a perpetual pursuit. Some philosophers would tell us that our lives’ telos—its final cause—is to fulfill what God instructs us to do. A meaningful life, for others, is a life lived virtuously. Some come as far as to claim that life has no meaning and that all there is left to do is embrace the absurdity. But others also forward that our existence precedes our essence, giving us the liberty to carve our meaning and define our purpose.
My pondering of life’s meaning further persisted upon knowing that the military massacred lawyer-turned-revolutionary Hannah Jay Cesista and four of her comrades on Friday. Two days before that incident, two years ago, Chad Booc and four of his comrades were also slain by the military merely for pursuing their advocacy work as educators in Lumad schools.
Hannah was a political science graduate of UP Cebu and a law graduate of the University of San Carlos who passed the bar last year. Chad, on the other hand, was a cum laude graduate with a computer science degree from UP Diliman.
Both could have opted for a lucrative career, but they chose the path not many would have traversed. Hannah made the valiant choice to join in waging a revolution in the countryside, while Chad devoted his life as a volunteer teacher of the Lumad. It’s almost unimaginable how one could willingly choose such a life marred by cruelty due to the state’s aversion to anyone who seeks transformative change.
Chad and Hannah, in their own ways, carved their lives’ meaning and purpose in communion with the marginalized. They, like many others who came before them, molded their life’s cause—not merely out of nowhere, but out of already existing conditions with the aspirations of supplanting them with a better one. Their lives are shared among many others, their purpose hinging on the flourishing of all, especially of those whose prospects for a meaningful life are being deprived by the state.
Their deaths, then, could only be said to be heavier than all of the mountains they went to in the countryside to serve the peasants, indigenous peoples, and other oppressed sectors. Their lives’ cause, even after their deaths, will continue to spread across many more whose lives they touched. This meaning transcends death and one that their killers and oppressors would never get to know.
Perhaps a day will come when, just like Chad and Hannah, I will not only find the decisive answers to the question of life but also live according to these answers. Many, after all, have interpreted our lives already, but only a few pursued to change them. It is up to us to follow the path taken by Chad and Hannah to create the conditions where the communal cause for a just society and flourishing life is finally realized. ●
