A Flower In Bloom

I made this reflection paper for my Peace Education class.. crazy stories will have to wait, serious matters first! LOLZ!

A single still image can convey a thousand moving meanings. That's exactly what I realized the moment I've been able to view the 60 photo entries competing for the prestigious Angel C. Palanca photo contest with the theme "FEU: Sustaining a Culture of Peace" My impression is that each and everyone of us has an idea of what peace is. I don't know much about photography but there's one entry there that really caught my attention, the picture of a flower with the blurred administration building's facade as its backdrop.

Since I was born, I've been told about how dangerous the world is. When I was a child, my parents would tell me not to talk to strangers or accept things offered by people I don't know. I've been told not to go to some places. I've been told not to do things because they are bad for me. Unfortunately for my parents, their only daughter seems destined to grow stubborn and disobedient. I've dealt with the wrong people and got hurt, physically and emotionally. I've been to places I never should have gone to and got lost, literally and figuratively speaking. I did things that got me into seriously messed up situations, to the point that what has been at stake is my own life. I felt like I'm a soldier going through battles with the complexities of this world. I'm at war… at first, without actually knowing the whole point of what I was doing or what the fight is for. Should I just regret all my previous actions and blame myself if I find my journey pointless and unproductive? Or should I go on, because maybe, I'll come across enlightenment in the end.

Then a bitter-sweet realization struck me – whatever I did, wherever I've gone to and whoever I met, however lousy the people and the situations were, they helped me in my search for the real meaning of peace. We can only appreciate silence only if we've known noise. We can only recognize beauty if we've seen in our own eyes ugliness. We can only be able to understand, bare and heal the inequalities and injustices in the world if we'll see them in the standpoint of a person who has actually experienced them all. Maybe I've met the wrong people, but isolating myself from them wouldn't pave way for my growth. Maybe I've been to all the wrong places, but because of that, I discovered the things most people are afraid to find there, and trust me, they aren't that bad (and believe me, the most interesting people are in the wrong places) Maybe I did the wrong things, but surely enough, they taught me life's greatest lessons. World peace can only be possible if individuals who advocate it are at peace with their inner selves and sadly, it isn't inherent but can only be developed.

So, what does a flower got to do with it? Simple. Our world is in a blurry condition because chaos and confusion reign. People should be like that flower in the picture. It continued to grow and bloom into beauty despite the chaotic environment that surrounded it. The flower offers itself as an inspiration for people to see things in a different light.