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Nikko Angelo S. Carisma

Senior - H

English IV

Journal Theme

A Paradoxical Use of The Past

AIM: The aim of this paper is to discuss how I see myself 10 years from now.

The future is a very bleak thing. Its uncertainty boggled mankind for millennia that its
study has been incorporated in so many of the world's cultures. This uncertainty also leaves us
fascinated, since its nature is formless: it may become favorable or otherwise. However, the past
and the present give us clues on what the future may present to us. In this regard, I would
illustrate how I see my future in a paradoxical manner: I will relate it to events in my past.
Seeing the future through the past: it, for me, is both a fear and fascination.
The idea of writing a future for me is nonsensical, all the less, relevant. The things one
may write about the nature of their future in a physical, almost tangible manner is a very
dangerous thing. It may be true in one's imagination or psyche in the current frame of time, but it
may become a cogently utter lie in another one. I prefer to approach and discuss this in a much
more realistic manner. Despite this, there are situations in which I would want to see myself in
the future. Therefore, in this regard, I would like the discuss not how I simply see myself 10
years from now, but how I desire to see myself 10 years from now.
Firstly, I would see myself playing music. Actually it was an accident that I ended up
becoming a student-musician for the school orchestra. It was a brainchild of my jealousy for my
cousin, who started playing the violin before I did. After I began playing and studying the violin,
I started liking it, and it helped me with getting in touch with my artistic--and philosophical-side. Music became my avenue in helping understand things and the world from a different, less
practical, but more truthful and meaningful perspective. Composers of great works of music

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often speak a different language, and see the world differently. In my case, the great works of
music continue to give me a deeper insight to the inner emotion that mankind creates. Simply
put, it serves as the "chicken soup" for a soul like mine, wandering in a fast-paced, moralloosening, money-sucking, overly-dominated society: it guides me to keep in touch with myself
and see the world for what it really means without the success that so many want to gain. In this
respect, I would still continue to play music, for it keeps my realism in check.
Secondly, at the very least, I would like to see myself employed, if not owning some
business. I need to face the reality of the world: we really do need monetary objects to survive.
However, my mother taught me that money is something we use to survive on, not splurge on.
Coming from an economic background not as well-off as other kids my age at my school are, I
survived on scholarships ever since grade school, and even in college, I will continue to reap the
benefits of scholarship. Furthermore, historically, I can say that I've worked for all of my
scholarships since the types of scholarships I got do not depend on financial need, but on
academic ability and participation in school activities. In the same sense, I need to work for the
money I'll be using to survive and continue living on the world that we know today. I have
recently read that today's world, the degree that a person will be getting in college has almost no
correlation to the job that he or she may end up in. With this in consideration, the question of
what my profession will be is an unanswerable one, as the future is never certain.
Finally, I would want to see myself travelling. Being a child, I lacked the financial
capability to travel since it was a very expensive thing to do. However, with the expansion of the
access to information that I have received, I have read a lot about the exciting exoticisms that the
idea of travelling gives. Rather than learning solely through books, I see myself as an individual
that learns more from experience with the support of books. As I travel, I see myself

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experiencing so many dimensions human diversity that it will help me develop better respect for
people of all backgrounds. Particularly, I would like to travel to Asian countries. This choice
stemmed from the fact that the culture I already am exposed to has become over-Westernized.
Therefore, going to Western countries, particularly the United States, may not be at all
stimulating or diverse. There is a unique distinction that sets Eastern from Western cultures: I
feel that the ideas of the East with regards to freedom and liberalism are their own special style,
one which was never shown in any Western portrayal of Asia I have seen in my entire lifetime.
Travelling to these countries may help me not only become knowledgeable about other ways of
living, but also assist me in being socially relevant to all the people that I meet. Travelling is not
about the destination, it's about the journey, and it's that journey that I aim to use in learning life's
lessons from different sets of eyes. In a few years, I hope that opportunities to travel will be
presented to me so that I can collect ideas from other places, and make them meaningful for
myself.
Although the topic of foreseeing oneself in the future is something that employers
require of their applicants during interviews, I choose to show them the real desires that I want to
achieve based on the experiences and lessons I gain from the past, at least when writing about
myself and for my expression. In my own, and in anyone else's mind, it is relatively easy to say
that one may become successful at a job or at a specific goal in ten years, but how I see myself in
ten years does not necessarily reflect a person with achievements in an industry, but an
individual who has learned more about the world that he lives in and contributes to than the
person he or she was ten years before. It is with these things that I may then build on to create
and stack specific experiences onto, so that the achievements that I will be getting, if ever there

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will be any, will be built on whole, meaningful experiences that I may share with others in the
years after.