The Psychology Behind The Literato’s XVI Theme: “Panhik-Panaog”

 

The idea behind this year's Literato XVI theme “Panhik-Panaog” was conceptualized by a psychology student Ma. Roanne Cantre. It tackles between dreams, past, future, resiliency, and decretive will vs. free will. It depicts that in every step that we take, we have stories that we make. The symbolism behind the dreamcatcher represents catching the dreams of people despite being in the state of sleeping, awakening, or reawakening. For instance, for us to be able to chase our aspirations in life, we need to panhik (ascend) to cinch our wishful thinking and given that the road is quite bumpy or at least the staircases towards our dreams might be fragile and shaky at certain points, we need to do the panaog (descend) to redeem the mishaps during the journey and start to elevate our feet once more.

Panhik-panaog is not just as simple as stepping into cemented and cramped staircases, it also portrays the idea of an endless venture of people who enslaved themselves on striving too much while bagging heaviness in their back as if they don’t slowly getting crippled under pressure to please their perseverance while knowing there’s no guarantee to achieve one. This theme also dives into the tickling clock or the time spent in striving for success, the desire and greed to seize their eyes on the prize of wealth with the return of feeling immortal as it is an endless loop of going up and down ‘til one is satisfied or have reached self-actualization (climax).

“Even if they lost their wings or feathers, the “fate” believes that they shall keep their wings flapping graciously as they ascend to the heavens; the sky’s the limit, test your faith with that of the God who holds your destiny and he soon will entrust it upon you.”

Writer: Mono

Graphics by: Mono 

Elements by: Jhanese Sotto