flickr photo credits: (1) bionicteaching (2) bionicteaching (3) krutscjo (4) bionicteaching (5) cogdogblog
Five Card Story: Real Time Self Projection
a Five Card Flickr story by kevinCNX2 created Oct 19 2021, 09:11:08 pm. Create a new one!
about this story
I was assigned to use Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s perspective about the “self”. Ponty pointed out that the physical body is an important part of what makes up the subjective self. According to him, the physical body is part of the self. The perceptions of the mind and the actions of the body are interconnected.
For this story, I have detailed five images from the 5-card flickr learning tool which I believe has a good representation on how I project myself.
The first image is a billboard. A billboard is a good way of projecting or advertising ourselves if we truly intend to be visible to others. This is the same case for me. A few years back, my image and reputation were something that I considered to be very sacred. In my youth, I never had the privilege of being the best in my class, or the most brilliant in terms of skill. I was in a private school filled with privileged individuals coming from wealthy families. I was from a middle-class family. The one thing that I always leaned my back on in order to project a good image to others, was nothing more than looking as good as possible. I didn’t really have the looks of what you would call “artistahin”, but I wanted to my uniform to be perfect, without any creases, and my shoes as shiny as possible. I had a slicked-back hairdo is which my classmates referred to as “Jose Rizal”, which somehow became my trademark.
The second image is what I believe to be a storefront or façade. My façade was always being the happy-go-lucky, Jose Rizal hairdo, neatly dressed kid. This was during the early 2000’s, kids were still very active on the playground which means I had to double my efforts to keep my pristine image clear. When I finished my elementary life, my façade was about to be challenged in the upcoming events.
The third image are two laptops. One seems to be an older model and the other a newer model facing each other. This represents me comparing myself to others. The children I interacted during my elementary days were my first and closest friends up to this point. They were my classmates since grammar school. High School is different monster, however. When I stepped foot in High School, it was a whole new ball game. People hung out with certain types of groups, and you really had to be self-conscious. My façade was no longer my best trait, as it turns out that being the good-looking nice guy in school was no longer going to cut it. On the very first day I found myself being ridiculed by the upperclassmen, and it seems they already pre-judged who I am this early in the game. So, I had to gather myself and think. What do I have to do to fit in? Then I started to study others. Comparing myself to others, how can I find common ground with these people. It came to me that sports were a big deal for that school. For a thirteen-year-old, I was already quite tall. Standing at 5 foot 11 inches, I knew I had an advantage over my smaller peers. When I became a varsity player for the basketball team, I excelled. I was good. It seems that I no longer needed to keep up my front as a good guy in order to be part of the group. Comparing myself to others was a good way for me to catch up with the new environment, as it had led me to one of the greatest moments of my life. Being able to hit a game winning shot on my freshman year.
The fourth image is all about my later life after High School, and when things really started to go on a downward spiral. The image is about man sitting on the curb alone with a colorless picture. This is literally me after High School. My friends always ask me, “What happened to you after High School?”. I always explained that I peaked during that period and came down fast. At this point I find myself alone, thinking about my glory days in High School, living a colorless life. After High School, I had the best opportunity to be accepted into the Philippine Military Academy, but it all went up into flames due to an accident during the training course.
The Final image shows a fireplace. This image tells the story of how I used to be a promising individual, showing tons of potential. Everything just went up in smoke after I fell 17 feet from the air during our rappel exercises in the PMA. When I was sent back to Davao, being no longer fit to be a cadet, all my plans and dreams burned away with the fact that I can longer be the person I used to be.
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flickr photo credits: (1) bionicteaching (2) bionicteaching (3) krutscjo (4) bionicteaching (5) cogdogblog