Another Social Experiment, and Here It Goes!

Another Social Experiment, and Here It Goes!

            When I was reading through the iExamin 2, my heart sank to the bottom of my body. The reason why I felt so uneasy is because I am never a nice person. Everyday, I enjoy being a little evil and misbehave a little. My favourite jokes are making fun at other people’s appearance and poke a little fun about their life in general. I know it may not be the nicest thing to do but I felt bored being the “nice” guy all the time. Occasionally, I just have to be a little bit mean to balance my “good deeds”. As a result, communicating with other people with kind, useful and true is like trying to chug 50 hotdogs into your body within a minute, which is impossible. However, I am not going to let this task slip through my hands that quickly. I created a “genius” plan.

            The day that I am planning to be kind useful and true is on a Sunday. Therefore, at Saturday night, which is hours before the “BIG” day, I went to Night Hounds to buy a stockpile of food, couple different light snacks, a gallon of milk and water each and couple buckets of ice-cream. I dragged my pile of heavy groceries back into my room. It was uneasy as each of my fingertips were stretched to the maximum angle in order to fit into 5 or 6 fully filled plastic bags’ handle. The path was hilly and the wobbling bags were very much of my concern. However, I finally made it back to “base”. After I unloaded my “precious cargo” all under my bed (except the ice-cream, which is in the freezer), I locked myself in to my room immediately and kept the door shut. I looked at the clock, it was 11:45 pm. Perfect! there was 15 minutes for me to execute my phase two of my plans. On my second phase, I took out my phone, iPad, Fitbit watch and my laptop out and maxed out the brightness of every electronics that I own. All those electronics, without any electrical charge, soon died out and turned dark. Success! Now with everything gone, at last, I just needed to deal with my roommate. I just needed my roommate to leave me alone for 24 hours straight, then I would have no difficulty at being not kind or vulgar in any means as I shut down all possible ways of communication. Fortunately, as it turned out, my roommate was gone for the weekend. He went back home and gather with his family for Halloween weekend. Things were going as planned.

            On Sunday morning, there was peace and serenity upon the Campion parking lot. Then, there were closed drapes that sealed all of my windows. Behind the drapes, I was lying inside my cozy bed with a Frankenstein book on my hand and I started to read. I got a bag of chips and a cup of full fat chocolate milk in reach and time seemed to go off slowly. Moreover, all my electrical appliances were dead so there were no alarms and whatsoever. I was thinking not acting badly in any kind of way will eventually ended up in a “kind, useful and true” behavior. However, as time passed by. There was one place I have to go on Sundays, and that is mass. I am so grateful to God that I was playing cello in mass that day and I did not have to interact with any sorts of people. It was sort of ironic that when I played through the hymns one by one from my cello, my notes were a little bit shaky. That means that my right hand, which is holding the bow, was shaking in such a degree that it was affecting my performance. The reason was not because I was nervous of performing but I was focusing so hard on being “kind and true” in front of the whole mass that I was distracted. Luckily, everything ended up really well and I did not suffer any major issues. Thanks be to God!

            The turning point of the project came when I need to play “One Heart, One Mind”. This piece was chosen in order to show our support and love to Gary Valinoti, who injured himself on Friday after felling two floors. That moment, when you were 25 feet away from Gary’s family and friends, seeing them starting to weep and cry as they loved their beloved ones so much was heart melting. The emotions, the feelings that I saw was incredibly powerful and it made me released my emotions bit by bit throughout my playing. I suffered less and less hand shaking and I paid more and more attention to the music that I was producing. Moreover, I was less and less agitated on the matter of being “true, kind and useful” but actually recognizing that I have the innate ability to do so. To be compassionate to others is already a deed that shows your affection and worriedness to the people you love within this community. I never recognize that I have such emotions under my heart until the others made me have a deeper understanding on these virtues. Till now, I genuinely sincere that Gary will be awake soon and start to enjoy the last and happiest life that he is going to have in Loyola. As the community becomes “One Heart, One Mind”, I am sure Gary will feel the power and love from us and eventually he will get a full recovery.

            The whole process is touching and emotional and I felt like my heart just rode a roller coastal ride on the ups and downs. Even though I did not pay that much attention to the rest of the experiment anymore as it went pretty calmly and straightforward. I found out that I learnt such an important lesson. In order to be kind, true and useful, nobody had to stress too much or be too agitated about being good. In fact, everyone already contained an affectionate heart and it was the love we bear that made us great people. This innate nature of human love would only come when we were in our natural state. Therefore, just be natural, be yourself. It was being oneself made one beautiful. It was because of one that made Loyola such an excellent community.