Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu

Tonight, I have come to a point in my philosophical life that I strongly detest any forms of dogmatism and absolutely hate exclusivistic or particularistic claims of people regarding Truth. I am now very allergic to dogmatic claims of people that their viewpoints are the only truth to the exclusion of other perspectives. For me, this claim is just an excuse for totalitarian hegemony and fascistic imposition of their own brand of truth upon others.

At this stage of my life, my thoughts turn to the all-inclusiveness, universality, openness, and inclusivity of Truth. For me, Truth is so vast, so unfathomable, so comprehensive, so all-inclusive, that I consider it sheer arrogance to say that one or one’s group has the monopoly of Truth. Truth is Life, and like Life, Truth is so extensive and so all-embracing that when one pontificates or arrogates that he/she is the sole “knower” of Truth or of Life in its entirety, such a person is clearly an intellectual charlatan who thought of himself/herself so highly—such a one is surely deceiving his very own self!

I have come to a point in my reflective life wherein I consider any philosophy or theology, ideology, or any viewpoint for that matter, which advocates universalism, inclusivism, holism, and monism to be likewise my own philosophies of Life. I detest very strongly the fundamentalist, particularist, and exclusivist claims of some religions and philosophies. Let me reiterate: I believe in the essential unity and synthesis of all views and the holistic universality and ecumenicity of Truth and Life as opposed to the dogmatic, fundamentalistic, particularistic, and narrowed claims of groups of people to a monopoly of Truth.

Truth is a “seamless robe”. We may possess an aspect of the Truth, and it is sheer “ka-hambugan” or crass arrogance to hold that we or our very own creedal systems know all aspects of the Truth. Everyone holds an aspect of the Truth and therefore it would be best for all of us to listen to the views of others so that a unitive synthesis, epistemic mutuality, and dialectical consensus of truths can be reached through authentic listening and dialoguing with others.

No matter how hackneyed and commonplace the “Parable of the Six Blind Men and the Elephant” has become for many, yet this parable contains a relevant insight that we all need each other’s views of truth to be able to effectively construct a paradigm of Truth that includes and transcends all our narrowed and conditioned views concerning Reality. Truth, the Cosmos, Life—these are Whole and Seamless, although we only see a small part of these in our views and perspectives. If we have this kind of pluralistic, yet enlarged perspective of Life, the Universe and the Truth, then it is an unforgivable sin to monopolize our “truth” as the only Truth there is.

Only by holding the Truth as something that we do not possess completely and that others may also possess aspects of It, that we will be open to share with others our viewpoint in order that we may learn also from the viewpoint of others. It is only when we are ready and available to dialogue with others that we can truly respect that aspect of Truth that is likewise possessed by others. If this will be our approach to Life, then we will be able to live with peace, amity, serenity, tranquility, and harmony with our fellow humans—and what a beautiful and tranquil place will our Earth be for all of us! I hope that this dream will soon be a reality for everyone. Amen, a thousand times Amen. And Blessed Be!
(Written by Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu on March 23, 2017 at 8:54 PM. Re-posted with minor modification and editing in his page on June 17, 2026 at 8:14 PM.)

(Photo Credit: Accompanying Photo courtesy of Quantum Thinker Website.)

In this fleeting, fragile, and ephemeral journey we call Life, I have come to understand one simple, yet soul-anchoring sure truth concerning my existence, and it is this: I deeply feel that I was born to teach. I teach not merely to instruct, or to pass on facts and figures—but to give myself away, piece by piece, heart and soul, day by day, even night after night, to what I consider as a supremely sacred act of teaching. I do not simply teach; I exist through teaching. My existence and my whole way of life are defined by my being a teacher. In my 34 years of teaching, more and more, I am deeply convinced that teaching is not just a profession I chose, I now honestly feel that teaching chose me. It called my innermost being—not with noise, but with a tender whisper that only the heart can hear. I consider this the "tug-of-the-heart" deep inside of me inviting me to teach right at the very start of my life as a new graduate in college...

The great Reformer of Christianity, the Revd. Dr. Martin Luther, once made a profound distinction between “work” (arbeit) and “calling” (beruf). Work, he said, is something we do. A calling is who we are. This insight from the book "Table Talks" of the Revd. Luther has never left its profound impact and deep impression on me. For me, teaching has never been just a job, or simply a career, or even a mere livelihood. Teaching is the gentle thread that binds my waking days and years of life together. Teaching is my heartbeat, my very breath, my very soul. It is my very reason for being—my "raison d’être"...

Even as a young teenager, I had strongly felt it; this "tug-of-the-heart" or "Ziehen des Herzens" as the Revd. Dr. Martin Luther termed it—that quiet, sacred pull toward something far beyond myself. I could not name it then. I just knew that classrooms, blackboards, books, my volunteering to teach in a children's catechism class in our parish, and my love to shape and give direction to curious young minds were somehow part of my future. There was no great revelation from God and from His angels, prophets, and saints telling me that I take to teaching as my life—no thunderclap from the heavens, no sacred dreams, no divine audible voice—just this tender certainty slowly blooming and gradually shaping inside my most inward spirit. Even in my very early teenage years I somehow have this strong inkling that I was meant to be a teacher. Nothing else made sense, and nothing else ever would make sense except that I will pursue the life of a teacher and fulfill my calling as a teacher.

That gentle certainty of my calling to be a teacher grew with me. It matured alongside me as I navigated the halls of UP Cebu, took exams, read books late into the night, and imagined the faces of future students I had not yet met. And when I graduated in 1992, there was no hesitation, no second-guessing. In March of 1992, I walked straightway to the halls of UP Cebu, my alma mater, changing my academic role within its intellectual portals: from its former student to its newest teacher—and I never left my being a teacher since Day 1 and up till this very moment.. It is because somehow, somewhere along the way, I strongly feel that the classroom has become my true abode.

Thirty-four (34) years have passed since then, many seasons have changed and more than three decades have flown by in quiet gusts of Time; but I am still here, still standing before my students, still writing on the board, still speaking with the same hope in my voice and the same ache in my chest—that somehow, these things that I taught my students might matter to them in their lives as mature adults.

And oh, indeed, how my calling as a teacher really matters to me. For it is teaching that gives color and significance to my days. It gives purpose to my pain, meaning to my struggle, and joy to my life's onward journey. When I teach, I feel alive—not just biologically, physically, but emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, and more fully. Each and every student I meet became a part of the mosaic of my nostalgic memory. I remember their names, I remember their eyes—how they lit up with understanding, or dimmed with sorrow. I remember the quiet ones, the troubled ones, the brilliant ones—every single one, and in their own way, taught me something back. I came to give, but I received so much more from my students present and past, and I know that I will also receive immense insights and lessons from my students who I will encounter in the future...

Yes, there have been hard and difficult moments in my teaching life, days when the weight of the world sat heavily on my shoulders. There were also times when I questioned whether it was still worth it. But even then—especially then—teaching and my profound love of teaching held me together. When life felt too heavy, the classroom and the unique faces of my students reminded me that I still had something to give. That I still had some amount of love left to pour out...

Now, as I sit in my office as an Associate Professor—older, greyer, perhaps a bit more tired, weaker, and easily fatigued physically—I look back not with regret, but with a soft, gentle, and bittersweet gratitude. I chose this life of teaching with my whole heart. And if Life were kind enough to offer me another chance—another turn at this fragile and frail thing we call living—I would still choose teaching again, and yet again: without question and without hesitation. I would still choose white board, syllabus, textbooks, lesson plan notebooks, and the laughter of my students echoing down the hallways. I would still choose the tears, the triumphs, the quiet victories of my students in and out of the classroom...

I would still choose teaching. I will still choose teaching—this tender, heartbreaking, bittersweet, poignant, and beautiful calling called "teaching"—again and again, for as long as I have breath, and for as long as my heart still beats. Because in the ultimate finality, it is neither the titles, the ranks, the promotions, nor the accolades that define a life well lived. It is LOVE. And I have loved teaching—with all of me, with all my very being: mind, heart, body, soul, and spirit. I love teaching with all I am and with all that I will be...
(Written by Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu on July 6, 2025 at 6:34 PM. Re-posted in his page on June 16, 2026 at 7:58 PM.)

To project or to pretend who you are not is tantamount to existential su***de and existential nihilism. All efforts to imitate others, to copy-cat others' ways, to envy what others have achieved, and to abandon who you truly are, are serious cases of neurosis: in fact it is the ultimate existential inauthenticity and the ultimate fakery one can ever commit in one's short life. To desire that you become who you are not, is the most serious form of idiocy, delusion, and inauthenticity for it causes one to be the most unhappy and the most discontented person in this world. Living our life by envying others, coveting others, and obsessively comparing ones' achievement with others is like living in the deepest and darkest realms of hell.

Let us neither envy others nor covet their achievements for these will be the cause of our frustrations and disrespect of our very own existence as unique, unrepeatable, irreplaceable, irreducible person who can never and will never become another. Let us chase our own dreams and not borrow the dreams of others. Let us not be a poor imitator of another, instead let us be the best versions of our true selves. Competition need not be between us and others. Competition must be confined to ourselves only; that is whether we have produced the better version of ourselves today than yesterday. I believe this is the only way to live a life of contentment, peace, sanity, mental wellbeing, and happiness.

“You are you; therefore be you!”; so said the existentialist sage, Soren Kierkegaard. We are who we are. But the saddest thing in our ephemeral existence is that we want to become who we are not. We want to become those people we idealize thus resulting to our own discontent, depression, delusional neurosis, and existential madness. Envy others and desire that you be like them and then you go round and round in aimless circle of obsessing, wanting, and hankering other's achievements that will be unending and ultimately futile! Let us come to truly realize this simple and crystal-clear truth: YOU ARE YOU AND YOU CANNOT BE ANOTHER! God wants you to be you and not to simply mimic others! That is why God has created you, otherwise God would have not created you as you. YOU ARE YOU, THEREFORE BE YOU! BE WHO YOU TRULY ARE AND NOT SIMPLY A POOR COPY-CAT OF OTHERS!

Our real achievement in life is when we become the best versions of our own selves at the end of this all too short ephemeral and temporary life. God does not want us be the best copy-cat of our own heroes and of our envied ideal persons. We can never be like them no matter how we try; we can only be ourselves: the best version of ourselves. God has not created another to be on this earth in place of you—you are unique, the unrepeatable, irreducible, irreplaceable, the incommensurable YOU: in the words of our beautiful Tagalog saying: “ANG NAG-IISANG IKAW AY IKAW AT IKAW LAMANG!”.

Please, let us together reflect and survey our cosmos: only we humans have this tendency to be idiotic, to be neurotic, to be fake, to be existentially inauthentic because it is only we humans who torture ourselves and force ourselves to enter into this most pathetic, most depressing, most unrealistic, most self-inflicting hurt, the most painfully excruciating itch, and the most irrational compulsive lust of wanting to become someone we are not! Animals are not neurotic, they just let themselves be. Plants cannot become idiotic because they are contented of who and what they are. It is said that angels can fly because they are not weighed down nor burdened with those false, illusory, and mythical masks that we humans wear to conceal our true and genuine selves. They are not obsessing to become somebody else they are not. They are simply enjoying whatever they are. They just let themselves be, with no hang-ups of comparing themselves with others and with no regrets of who and what they are. Therefore, let us learn to accept ourselves of who we really are for this is the ultimate key to our existential freedom and ultimate release from all unnecessary stress and unreal expectations.

If we can truly accept ourselves: our beauty, our ugliness, our warts, our virtues, our vices, our hang-ups, our capacities, our handicaps, our limitations, our brilliance, our darkness, our lights, our shadows, and all of who and what we are, then we have learned the greatest virtue we can ever learn from Life: contentment and gratefulness to Existence for creating us just as we are. So let us just be ourselves. There is really no need to pull our self up and bring others down. There is really nothing to covet or envy from others because we cannot be "the other", we can only be ourselves, and hence competition against another must not be the issue; but the real challenge in Life is to make ourselves the best version of our true selves and not to allow ourselves to become poor, shabby, shoddy, and pathetic imitators of another's lives, lifestyles, and accomplishments.

There is really no need to have another face, there is really no need to put one's best foot forward so as to gain a nice impression from others, there is really no need to copy-cat others since by doing so we cancel-out our very own true selves in the process of our coveting and envying others... Simply be as you are, and in deep acceptance of it, a deep flowering, fruition, and ripening of your true self will happen and you will go on becoming more and more yourself, becoming more and more a unique, unrepeatable, irreplaceable, irreducible, and incommensurable individual rather than being part of an herded crowd or being an unthinking cog of today's extractive capitalism and greedy consumerism of wanting, desiring, and obsessing to be someone we are not...

Once we drop the idea of becoming somebody who is not us, then there is this deep and abiding peace with our self and with others, there is this deep serenity within our innermost being, there is this true and abiding JOY in the innermost depths of our authentic and genuine existence! Suddenly all tensions brought by mad, idiotic, and covetous comparison with others and envying of others disappears. When you cease to envy and stop comparing yourself with others and their achievements, then you have finally arrived in the very portal of Transcendence, Serenity, and Tranquility: the most beautiful you, is achieved and happening right now right at this very moment! And there is really nothing else to do in our all too short life but to love, cherish, celebrate, appreciate, and enjoy WHO WE TRULY ARE! So how about it? Something to contemplate and ponder tonight in our upward and onward journey to Life. Amen! May it be so. And Blessed Be!
(Written by Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu on September 28, 2019 at 8:31 PM. Re-posted in his page with minor modification and editing on June 14, 2026 at 7:04 PM.)

The flight stewardess’ constant reminder to "put on your own oxygen mask first before putting it on others" takes on a new meaning for me these past days... Self-care should be our first priority. Before one can care for others, one must do self-care first. "Charity begins at home", the old English adage says. Our capacity to love is shown firstly in our caring for ourselves since our capability to love others is measured by our capacity to love our very own self.

This is indeed very strange! We are our own harshest critic. And yet, it is so easy to show compassion and understanding to others: however, we are so harsh, so very stringent and too much hard on ourselves! Therefore tonight, I firmly vow to give myself more grace, more allowance for my limitations, more tolerance for my imperfections, more forgiveness to my shortcomings, more acceptance of who I am and of what I can and of what I cannot do...

It is part of our self-care, that sometimes, we need to parent and to cherish ourselves with love, kindness, and understanding the way our fathers and our mothers love and care for us. There are times that we need to be a mother and a father to our fragile inner child and show to ourselves the unconditional love, empathetic understanding, and absolute acceptance that loving and caring parents give to their beloved child. In our self-care, let us become the parents we badly need for the traumatized child within us...

We grow through what we go through. What we run away from pursues us. What we face bravely transforms us. The components of our transformation are found in the ruins and in the breakage of our presumed comforts and securities. It is in the rubble of grief, in the tears from our pain, in the struggle to face the difficulties and the challenges of life that we are renewed and transformed. Let us not run away from pain, grief, and suffering. Let us face them! Here lies the secret of our post-traumatic growth, psychological maturity, and spiritual transformation...

Our mess is our message. Our scars are the trophies of our character that is redeemed and renewed through our sufferings. We must embrace our own mess, our own shadows, our our own quirks as the very parts and parcels of our very own fragile, broken, yet beautiful humanity. We must honestly acknowledge that we are not light all of the time; our shadow is part of who we are and we ought to befriend and tame our shadow for us to become truly an integrated person: to be a person of wholeness, to be an authentic human. Our mistakes, once acknowledged, learned from and transcended, can be the means of our self-overcoming, self-transformation, self-redemption, and self-liberation. Amen. May it be so. And Blessed Be!
(Written by Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu on July 11, 2024 at 8:51 PM. Re-posted with some minor modifications and editing on June 12, 2026 at 7:32 PM.)

This German word—Herz—means heart, but not merely in the sense of a blood-pumping physical organ. The Revd. Dr. Martin Luther, the great Reformer of the Church, once used this German word Herz to speak of something infinitely deeper: one’s calling, one’s purpose, the sacred center of one's being. Herz is the place within where the soul whispers, “This is why you are here.” Until one discovers their Herz, they are lost, drifting, like a song looking for its melody...

Thank God—I found it: I found my Herz right after I graduated from college! Or rather, it found me, quietly and without fanfare, like the way the morning light slips through my window curtains. My Herz is in teaching. It always was, it always is, and it always will be.

I was not drawn to teaching because of a job listing, a paycheck, or even a plan. I was drawn to it the way roots reach for water—instinctively, necessarily, and intrinsically. Teaching is not my profession: it is my very being. Teaching is my very own telos: my end, my ultimate finality, my Life-purpose. In June of the year 1992, the moment I stepped into the classroom to teach to my class for the very first time, the questioning about my Life's meaning and significance that had haunted me for years fell silent. There, among the eyes of my very first students hungry to be seen, known, understood—I found my peace and joy... And I also found myself.

But calling is not always comfort. There is so much that teaching asks of the heart. It demands faith—the belief that what we plant now, in broken soil, will bloom in time. Hope—that even the quietest student, the most rebellious soul, carries the seed of self-transformation. Love—of course, love—the kind that hurts when your students are hurting, the kind that keeps you up at night worrying about the ones who hide their pain too well. And patience—most and foremost of all, patience, because nothing about teaching is immediate. You give, and give, and give, and sometimes, you wait years to see the smallest fruit.

Sometimes, I have failed at the above criteria of teaching with a heart (Herz); more than once. There were days I showed up, but I was not present. Times I looked at my students, but did not see them. Moments I was so drained, so bitter with exhaustion and fatigue, so hardened by frustration, that I forgot what a sacred act it is to teach. I forgot that I am not just imparting knowledge—I am shaping and molding souls. I am standing between silence and voice, between despair and possibility. And in those moments, I strongly felt that I betrayed my calling.

I sincerely repent for the days I did not care. I carry them with me like small stones in my chest. I remember the student who always looked down, who needed someone to notice—and I did not. I remember the one who was nonchalant and apathetic all the time, and I responded with coldness instead of real concern. I remember when I started counting days when the semester ends, instead of making them count...

When teachers stop caring, they are no longer a teacher in the real sense of the word. They may still wear the title. They may still write on the board, hand out exams, and sit through consultation meetings, etcetera etcetera. But something essential is terribly lost—something vital and unseen. You cannot fake caring, for students know and will eventually know! They can always intuit whether you truly care or simply acting as one who cares.

And so I write this not as a declaration of my mastery in teaching, but as a humble confession and as a sincere reminder to myself. I am a teacher because I believe in my students. Because I believe that even one word spoken with kindness can save a life and can alter a destiny. Because I believe in redemption—not just for my students, but for others just as well, including myself.

Teaching is not simply a career. It is Life. It is joy, heartbreak, wonder, grief, patience, and grace—every single day. It is falling down and standing back up. It is keeping your heart open when it is easier to shut it. It is saying, “I see you,” even when the whole world does not...

I solemnly promise that I will strive, every day in my life as a teacher, not to become jaded and apathetic, not to close the door of my Herz to my students and to teaching. Because once you find that your calling is to be a teacher, you must never let it go, not to let go even when it hurts, especially and most importantly not when it hurts. My calling as a teacher is my very own heartbeat, my very breath, and my very own Life. My Herz is in the classroom. And as long as I still care—truly, deeply care—I will remain a teacher: in mind, heart, soul and spirit—IN MY WHOLE BEING!
(Written by Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu on July 11, 2025 at 7:55 PM. Re-posted in his page with minor editing on June 9, 2026 at 7:11 PM.)

I must honestly confess that there are times when I ask myself why I continue to love teaching with the same enthusiasm I had more than three decades of years ago when I started teaching in UP Cebu. After all, teaching is not an easy profession: it requires patience, preparation, intellectual as well as emotional investments, and an immense amount of energy. There are deadlines to meet, papers to check, reports to submit, and countless responsibilities that extend far beyond the walls of the classroom. Yet whenever I find myself reflecting on my life as a teacher, I always arrive at the same conclusion: I genuinely enjoy and immensely love what I do as a teacher. More than that, I cannot imagine myself being as happy doing anything else...

Whenever I teach general philosophy, ethics, or Asian philosophy, I experience a kind of happiness that is difficult to express adequately in words. It is not simply satisfaction, it is not merely enjoyment. There is something almost deeply personal and intimate about discussing philosophical ideas with my students. The moment I begin talking about virtue, human flourishing, ethical responsibility, justice, freedom, suffering, compassion, or altruism, I feel a certain excitement awaken within me: I feel passion and ecstasy whenever I teach. The classroom suddenly becomes a place where ideas are no longer imprisoned within books. They become alive. They begin to breathe Life, Light, Insight, and Wisdom. Ideas and concepts enter into conversation with real human experiences, real struggles, real hopes, and real intellectual as well as spiritual virtues.

Sometimes, while I am discussing a philosophical concept, I become so absorbed in the conversation that I lose track of time. I find myself speaking not because I have to speak but because I genuinely love the concepts and ideas that we are exploring together. There are moments when I look at my students and silently wonder whether they realize how much joy they are bringing into my life simply by their presence, of their being there, and participating in the discussion. In fact, if I am completely and thoroughly honest, I often suspect that I enjoy the lectures and discussions that I gave even more than they do. There are days when I leave the classroom feeling intellectually energized and emotionally fulfilled, carrying with me a happiness that remains long after the lecture has ended. The joy comes from realizing that I have imparted knowledge to my students, from discovering that they have likewise reflected and benefitted from that knowledge, and from seeing that I also learned from the sharings that my students gave during my conversations with them during classes.

This is perhaps why I always feel a quiet sadness whenever classes are suspended or classes ended during semestral breaks. Many people celebrate holidays and welcome unexpected class cancellations. They welcome the opportunity to rest, to stay at home, or to enjoy a break from their usual routines. I understand those feelings because everyone needs rest. Yet there is a part of me that cannot help feeling disappointed whenever I learn that there will be no classes, especially if I am scheduled to teach ethics, philosophy, or Asian philosophy on that particular day.

The disappointment I feel is difficult to explain to those who have never experienced it. It is not that I dislike rest. It is not that I am incapable of enjoying a holiday. Rather, I find myself thinking about what might have happened inside the classroom. I think about the discussion that will never take place. I think about the questions that will remain unasked. I think about the insights that might have emerged from our exchange of ideas. There are times when I find myself imagining a particular topic I had prepared for, a particular argument I was excited to discuss, and I cannot help feeling as though something meaningful has been postponed or stopped.

Perhaps this feeling arises because teaching has never been merely employment and occupation for me. I know that I am fortunate to receive compensation for my work, but the truth is that what I receive from teaching cannot be measured in monetary terms. Every class gives me something that no salary can adequately compensate for. Every discussion enlarges my understanding of myself, of others, and of the world in and around me. Every interaction with my students reminds me that education is not a one-way process but a dicursive, dialectical, and dialogic conversation...

For many, many years, I have followed a simple practice in my classes. During the first part of the class session, I deliver a lecture. I explain concepts, analyze arguments, introduce philosophical perspectives, and explore the praxis dimension of the concepts I discussed. However, I have never wanted my classroom to become a place where only one voice is heard. After the lecture, I ask my students what they think. I invite them to speak. I encourage them to agree, disagree, challenge, question, and reflect. Then, before the class ends, I ask them something even more important: I ask them how they feel about the discussion. I ask them what touched them, what troubled them, what inspired them, what remains unresolved in their minds, and how the lecture is relevant to their lives. Those moments are among the most meaningful moments of my life as a teacher.

It is during those conversations with my students that I encounter them not merely as learners but as fellow human beings. Their responses often surprise me. Sometimes they see dimensions of a philosophical problem that I had overlooked. Sometimes they offer examples drawn from their own lives that illuminate a concept more effectively than any textbook or primary reading ever could. Sometimes they express uncertainty, confusion, or disagreement, and in doing so they compel me to think more deeply about ideas I had long taken for granted.

There have been many occasions when I entered the classroom believing that I would be the one teaching, only to leave the classroom humbly realizing that I had learned something important from my students. The older I become, the more convinced I am that genuine education is impossible without humility. A teacher who believes he has nothing left to learn has already ceased to be an educator in the deepest sense of the word. This is why I often tell myself that my students are likewise my teachers.

Indeed, I truly and strongly feel that it is in the classroom and in the class discussions where the reversal of roles between the teacher and the students happen: through the mutual sharing of insights, I become a student to my students, and they are my teachers! Some people may regard this as a poetic exaggeration, but I mean it sincerely. My students teach me through their questions, through their experiences, through their doubts, through their struggles, and through their insights. They teach me because they allow me to encounter perspectives different from my own. They teach me because they remind me that wisdom is not confined to age, status, or academic credentials. They teach me because they reveal dimensions of human experience that no amount of solitary reading could ever provide!

Perhaps this is one of the reasons I love philosophy so much. Philosophy begins with the recognition that no one possesses complete wisdom. Every genuine philosophical conversation starts from a position of openness. It requires the courage to admit that one's understanding may be incomplete and that another person may illuminate a truth one has failed to see. In this sense, my classroom often feels less like a place of instruction and more like a shared journey towards understanding.

When I listen attentively to my students, I do not hear mere answers to academic questions. I hear human beings attempting to make sense of their lives. I hear young people wrestling with questions of meaning, morality, happiness, suffering, love, and life's purpose. I hear voices trying to understand what it means to live a good life in a complicated world. There is something profoundly moving about witnessing that process. It reminds me that philosophy is not an abstract discipline detached from reality. It is deeply connected to the hopes, faith, fears, dreams, and struggles that define our existence.

As the years pass, I find myself becoming increasingly grateful for these experiences. I am grateful for every class discussion with my students. I am grateful for every thoughtful question my students asked. I am grateful even for philosophical disagreements because they force me to reconsider my assumptions and refine my understanding. Most of all, I am grateful for the privilege of participating in the intellectual and personal growth of my students while simultaneously experiencing my own.

There is a certain melancholy, pathos, and bitter-sweet sadness hidden within this gratitude. Every semester eventually ends, students move on, new classes arrive, faces that once filled the classroom become merely memories. Yet even after my students leave, they remain with me in ways they may never fully realize. I continue to remember their questions. I continue to reflect on their insights. Sometimes I recall a comment made years ago by a very perceptive student, and I find that it still influences the way I think about a particular philosophical issue. In this way, my students accompany me through life and through memories long after the formal educational relationship has ended.

When I reflect upon all of this, I realize how extraordinarily fortunate I am. Many people spend their lives searching for something that gives them genuine fulfillment. Somehow, I found that fulfillment in the classroom. I found it in discussions about ethics, philosophy, and the human condition. I found it in conversations with my ever-dearest students whose brilliant insights continually surprise me. I found it in the realization that teaching and learning are not opposites but two dimensions of the same human activity called "education". For this reason, whenever I enter a classroom, I do so not merely as a teacher delivering a lecture. I enter with anticipation, curiosity, gratitude, zest, and hope. I know that I have prepared lessons to share, but I also know that there is a strong possibility that I will leave having learned something unexpected. That possibility fills me with excitement every single time whenever I enter my classroom.

And so perhaps that is the deepest truth I have discovered about teaching. The greatest gift that teaching has given me is not the opportunity to speak, but the opportunity to listen. It is not the privilege of being regarded as knowledgeable, but the privilege of continually encountering new forms of discourse and wisdom. It is not the authority associated with standing in front of a classroom, but the humility that comes from realizing that the people seated before me are helping to educate me as much as I am helping to educate them.

That is why I truly and immensely love teaching, that is why I look forward to every class, and that is why, whenever a class is unexpectedly canceled, I feel as though I have missed an opportunity to encounter something beautiful. For every lecture, every discussion, every question, and every exchange of ideas is more than a professional and academic activity for me. It is a reminder that human beings grow through dialogue and conversation, that wisdom is born through shared reflection, and that some of life's greatest joys are found in the simple act of learning and reflecting together.
(Written by Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu on June 6, 2026 at 6:43 PM.)