How does one become significant? How does one transform through creation, connection and the courage to exist fully — even when the world feels too vast and you feel too small to matter? These are questions I grappled with throughout my journey as a student, and I continue to grapple with them today.

Learning, to me, was never just about absorbing information or exceling academically. It has always been, and still is, a testament to humanity’s endeavor toward connection and remembrance. All the knowledge we inherit — from the sciences to the arts — is a hand reaching through time, saying, “Come with me and see the world.”

The world is vast. Each of us is a tiny fleck in the cosmos. There are billions of lives we will never see or touch, and yet we try. For me, the arts have been my attempt at leaving a mark. Writing, painting, music and theater became a means of both escaping and being found.

In the Philippines, the arts carry a double-edged perception. On one hand, they are pleasures we cannot live without. From karaoke to teleseryes to chapbooks, we surround ourselves with works that entertain us and stir emotion. On the other hand, the arts remain underappreciated in our capitalistic society. They are often seen as frivolous, unworthy of the same investment as the sciences or business. Worth becomes tied to how much money you can make or how much work you can produce. 

For creative minds — where each project demands heart and vulnerability — it is easy to measure your value against criticism, rejection, or loss. The “mad, suffering artist” stereotype exists for a reason, but it never tells the whole story.

Along the way, I lost sight of why I made art in the first place. I didn’t think I mattered. Yet even in this forgetting, creation remained my anchor amid mental turbulence, uncertainty and a multitude of illnesses. Through art, I realized that perhaps I had been looking at the world incorrectly. Maybe worth and belonging come from shifting your gaze away from the world’s vastness and toward the tiny details nobody notices anymore — even as I remain that “mad artist,” seeing colors nobody sees and hearing music where no one else does.

The sprouting of wildflowers

The afternoon light filtering through an open window.
The tears that refuse to fall from the eyes of someone you know.
The hand that holds yours when you tremble under the weight of the world.

In those tiny, mundane and seemingly insignificant moments, I have become significant. In choosing to pick up a pen or a paintbrush, I became — and did — something worthwhile. Even if it’s just sitting in silence, holding space for people’s stories, or sharing my own in the hope that someone resonates with my words or art. When I chose to listen and act with intention, life slowed down. I remembered how to breathe — even if just for a fleeting second.

Now that I’ve graduated, I am proud of my achievements — but even more grateful for the people who made them possible. Those who understood the longing for connection, who let me touch their lives and allowed themselves to touch mine. Even through the hard times, through the messy parts most people avoid — where friendship and love were met with intentional action and the willingness to shoulder “inconvenience” for the sake of community.

In four years of creating, failing and starting again, the biggest lessons I learned were found in the small moments. I wrote. I painted. I sang. I laughed. I cried. I held space for the stories of others and for my own. Most importantly, I simply existed.

Each act of creation is also an act of becoming. Art is an act of survival, of transformation. Through it, I became not only an artist but a person capable of resilience, understanding and connection. I’m still learning, still making, still becoming. And in this ongoing process, I am grateful to meet this version of myself — a version that, years ago, I wasn’t sure would exist.

Thank you for helping me grow, DLSU. Thank you, Daily Tribune, for seeing past the mess and into my worth. Thank you to everyone who believed in me, who allowed me to be myself, and who found value in the small, fragile and human pieces of creation I offered.

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Amelia Clarissa de Luna Monasterial
is an AB Literature, Major in Creative Writing student who graduated Summa Cum Laude with Jose Rizal Honours and Lasallian Scholar Outstanding Thesis awards.

She is an 11th and 14th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts Awardee, a  36th and 39th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature Awardee, a 15th and 16th DLSU Arts Congress Exhibit Featured Artist and a Writing the Forest: A Critical and Creative Writing Workshop Fellow in the Fiction Category.