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Sunday, January 27, 2008

Sunday, January 20, 2008

art class

Cultivate a wide range of interests in the arts.
-Miyamoto Musashi, Go Rin No Sho
















Sunday, January 13, 2008

secrets

One of the important financial and spiritual books I read last year is Bo Sanchez's 8 Secrets of the Truly Rich: How You Can Create Material Wealth and Gain Spiritual Abundance at the Same Time (Shepherd's Voice Publications, 2007). I first heard about Sanchez in Christ's Youth in Action (CYA) while in undergrad, but this is the first publication of his that I read.

A blogger has compared the principles in the book to those in The Secret, but it also has echoes of Napoleon Hill, Robert Kiyosaki, Jack Canfield and Larry Gamboa. The 8 secrets that Sanchez explains in the 60 Didache-type chapters of his book are:
  1. Be Totally Responsible for Your Success
  2. Enlarge Your Psychological Wallet
  3. Get Rid of Crazy Religious Beliefs
  4. Be Totally Committed to Your Dreams
  5. Raise Your Financial IQ
  6. Ride Something to Wealth
  7. Have a Bias for Action
  8. Win in All Areas.
What makes Sanchez's book unique is its reassessment of common assumptions on money and business that many Filipino Catholics hold. Some of them may sound familiar. Money is evil. Businessmen are greedy. The rich won't enter heaven. Sanchez says,

Your religious beliefs determine your wealth more than you think...
One of the biggest monsters that keep us poor is that we don't want to be rich. And we don't want to be rich because we've got crazy, insane religious beliefs about money.
Religious beliefs are so deep, so wedged to your core identity, you follow them even if you're not aware that you're following them.

Even the beliefs of certain progressive, socialist groups seem to be underpinned by these deep-seated cultural assumptions- they are simply expressed in secular, rather than religious, terms.

German sociologist Max Weber wrote that Protestant peoples have performed better economically than Catholic ones because the former have traditionally regarded self-assurance due to material wealth as a sign of God's grace, in contrast to the latter who have emphasized the redemptive value of poverty (this is changing in predominantly Catholic Ireland, as well as Portugal and Spain, however- read this). If some of our religious beliefs have indeed created friction on the road to development, then Sanchez is making an important contribution to cultural and religious transformation and national progress.

Read the foreword of Sanchez's book here.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

resolutions

New Year, new resolutions. Here are my main public concerns for 2008:

1. Microfinance-



It was in 1946 when Carlos Bulosan declared that America is in the heart. But up to now the Filipino heart is still ambivalent about- capable of feeling both love and hate for- the US, notwithstanding the amount of aid its government has given through the years. It's a lesson that Maguire's Wicked Witch of the West learned too late: in a relationship that isn't rooted in equality, "no good deed goes unpunished." To change this unhealthy situation, our motto should be: Trade, Not Aid. This begins in the micro level. If there is one word that best describes the American spirit, it is enterprise; to survive and prosper in the era of globalization, we need to assimilate this entrepreneurial spirit into our own. It would be great if everyone, even those who already have jobs, managed a business as this enables us to profit from work that we love and achieve self-sufficiency and security. Microfinance is one tool that has helped thousands of small entrepreneurs and even entire communities achieve these goals. Above is an educational video we produced for Alalay sa Kaunlaran, Inc. (Support in Progress) or ASKI, a microfinance non-profit. Find out more about ASKI and microfinance here.

2. Asia-Europe Culture Capsule-

Take a look at this map. See how Europe is actually a peninsula of Asia and understand why, as Seneca said in 1 BC, Asia has been able to claim people in Europe as its own; if we define a continent as a large landmass, Europe and Asia actually constitute just one. The division is a historical accident: the ancient Greeks, viewing their land as the center of the world, named lands to their north Europa and those to their east Asia. It's important then that we seek a better understanding of our neighbors in this exciting geographical area, the birthplace of the modern state system and diplomacy: they are mirrors upon which we can more clearly see ourselves and our culture. While clerking for the Supreme Court, I helped organize a cultural exchange between Manila Science High School and a European school- this has evolved into the Culture Capsule project of the ASEF University Alumni Network. Register a class or school in the Culture Capsule website here.

3. UP Sundial-

This picture is from a pre-loved 1954 book Around the World in 1,000 Pictures. It shows a sundial, the oldest icon of the University of the Philippines (UP), which is set to celebrate its centennial on Tuesday. As my contribution to the celebrations, I joined a group of alumni seeking to transfer the UP Diliman Sundial to a more sunlit location (it is now surrounded by buildings). The Sundial is an example of what French historian Pierre Nora calls a lieu de mémoire or site of memory, an individual, institution, place, or cultural phenomenon on which our historical consciousness as a people has focused and which over time has received incremental incrustations of collective memory. This project paves the way for the consecration of UP as a national heritage site. If you'd like to join this endeavor, write to Engr. Amado San Mateo at asanmateo@i-manila.com.ph.