Lichtung

Supernova (Revised)

2012-02-14T13:25:00.001+08:00

I have diedeveryday
Waiting for you
Darling, don’t be afraid
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I’ll love you for a
Thousand more

—Cristina Perri, “A Thousand Years”

What makes it possible to say that I haveloved someone for a thousand years, and that I will continue to love a thousandmore?

What makes itpossible for me to stretch time, even break its limits, that is, to destroy it,in order to say and mean that my love overcomes time and its horizon? Atbottom, and I have asked this a thousand times or more: Why can love suspendand more so transgress the universal law and preordained rule of time which canbe neatly but cruelly summarized as “all things come to an end”—even the goodones (especially the good ones), and thosethat at one time seemed would be able to stand “the test of time” and go on tolast forever? At stake here is this: If love be beholden to time, what becomesof it? Can love still claim what it claims and offer what it offers—its unto death do us parts, its alwayses and forevers, above all its promises?Or would admitting its subservience to time’s rule weaken love, and steal awayfrom it the very power and richness it possesses in its ability to offer whatit has now and what it will have in the future? In a word, is it stilllove when love depends on and is bound to time?

Let us see.

I know, in thefirst place, that I exaggerate when I say I have loved you since forever. Ican, to be sure, locate in time when I did in fact begin or “officially”started to love you. I met you this or that day, at this or that place, underthis or that circumstance, for this or that reason, because of this or thatcharacteristic you had and feelings I developed. My love had a beginning, andlike all stories these beginnings are definite: they constitute the first fewpages of our love, the first few chapters of what will be an epic of two livescrossing.

But when I say thatI have loved you for so long, I know that I do not mean that I have loved youfor a long period oftime, whether it be ten, five, or two years. Love’s time and astronomical timeare different; love is a solar system unto itself, it has its own physics. Thatis where love must be sought, not in calendars of days, months, or years, muchless in anniversaries or old photographs.

We always hear ofpeople saying of lovers who are about to marry one of these mindless comments: it’s abouttime, you’ve beentogether for so long, or haven’t you just met him recently? or isn’t ittoo soon? Come to think of it,these words mean nothing to lovers. But let’s not be too rash and discount thewisdom of many. What gives authority to their judgment is the opinion that ittakes time to know a person, and along with this, that it takes time to be certainof who you want to commit yourself to. That I must, they say, first “get to know”who the person I am infatuated or terribly in love with is, find out hissecrets, his desires and his dreams; that I must know so many things about him before I can make the high claim that heis “the one” for me. But in order to do that I need a lot of time. Thus, we aretold, we should “take it slow,” not hurry, not let ourselves “get carried away”by the rush of our emotions.

Butwho can ever know a person? Who can ever say that I finally know him that Ilove, when I cannot even say that I know that tree outside my window or my hand or my father, my friend? More so, who can ever say I know thismystery and obscurity I call myself, this I, whose face I do not recognize in mirrors in some days and whoseactions in others frighten me; this I whichhas its own secrets forever hidden, forever inaccessible to my knowledge, whichhas desires I will never understand. If knowledge be the high tribunal of love’ssentences, it will never assure me that its judgments will hold—be true. To know you is not yet to love you. To understandyou better does not mean I will love you more.

The question oflove’s certainty and knowledge, so unfair to pose much more to answer, hasnothing to do with celestial time or everyday time. We hear of another stronglyput word: I knew I loved you the moment I met you. Clarity and lucidity, so hard to attain in thisworld of illusions and shadows, recover their deserved thrones in the kingdomof the heart. Love revolts against the rule of appearances, it gathers its solemajesty and power by revolving around a sun which is not seen by the eyes. (Andwhat is not visible is not enslaved by time.) Love rules without the aid oftime because it governs not the movements of the stars or the planets but onlythe movements of the spirit, the loob, the will. And when it comes to the force of the will, when it is amatter of decision and choice, it will always come down to a matter of freedom.I may not be free to stop the revolution of heavenly bodies or the rotations ofthe earth, it may not be in my power to freeze time, but I certainly have thepower to choose love without knowledge or certainty for the simple reason thatI am always free to love now. Andall that love has is now,never futures or pasts, only presents, solely presence. Love is like Being:absolute love knows of neither history nor future: it can only give and receivethe gift of presence in the present.

We have stumbledupon the word ‘Being’ yet again. Being is both the guardian and destroyer oftime. The presence of someone you love, Heidegger says, makes available to thelover an experience of the totality of beings, of the “whole world.” My belovedmeans the whole world to me; he means everything to me; he is all, and nothingelse—no being, no star, no any other man—is important to me when I am with theone I love. Love mysteriously transforms the one I love into all things. What thusused to be something we cannot grasp mentally or physically, the totality ofbeings becomes an object of experience and a privileged phenomenon for lovers.

But along with theconcentration of all beings into one person, love also gathers all times intothe same beloved. Like a black hole which swallows light and devoursplanets, the ability to reduce all beings to the presence of someone heloves enables the lover to suspend time, or warp it and bend it, though neverto destroy it. Time is never annihilated by love. Love only gathers all themoments of my life, all my yesterdays and tomorrows, my past sorrows and futurehopes, and siphons them toward one abysmal point—or two: in the bottomless eyes of the one I love. My past finallymakes sense to me because I found you. Tomorrow no longer frightens me becauseyou loved me.

To then continue toreceive love, or to give love a thousand years more, is what makes lovers whohad first been fugitives to time find a home in it. By no longer having torally against it, lovers grant time the sole honor of being able to nourish inits days, months and years love and its gradual unfolding. Promises are onlypossible because lovers discern time not as a march to love’s inevitable death,but as the endless horizon that enables them to continue walking as they enjoyeach other ever anew. •

Question to the Reader Two

2012-02-11T12:10:00.001+08:00

http://www.world-nomad.com/

Imagine a room without windows and doors. Someone asks you if there is someone inside.

You do not hear anything. You cannot enter the room to find out for yourself. There is literally no way for you to know.

Is someone there?

Does it make much sense to believe there is someone inside--out of faith?

The Jealous God

2012-02-08T12:06:00.000+08:00

In Scripture, God enters the human drama wearing different masks (persona). To a confused audience he introduces himself by many names: the God of Israel, of Jacob, of Abraham; the Most High and the Mighty One; Yahweh; our Lord, our Master, our Banner. But one name which God takes is a rather curious one. In different occasions He calls Himself the "Jealous God."

One important instance he calls Himself such was when He gave Moses his commandments in Exodus 20:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments.

A jealous God? God instructs Moses to teach all peoples and nations first and above all that they must bow down to and worship Him alone. All other injunctions, such as keeping the Sabbath and the many prohibitions, all these follow after that first order. Idolatry, or the worship of false gods, was the first danger or sin God had wanted to eradicate (at least in order, not necessarily in importance, which cannot be determined by this initiate). And naturally so: this God was a god which people did not yet know, more so understand or yet believed in. The Israelites had previously worshiped many different gods, the gods of their fathers and ancestors, familiar gods that came before this God that "no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived" (1 Cor 2:9).

Thus the necessity for God to first of all not only to introduce who He is, and also what He will do to those who do not accept Him. Like a fearful king who puts to death those who commit treason, those who do not acknowledge God and serve him shall be meted out a punishment that will also be inherited by the children of their children. In other instances the penalty for the worship of other gods is more descriptive: God describes Himself to be "a consuming fire" (Deut 4:24), and his "anger will burn against [idolaters], and he will destroy [them] from the face of the land" (Deut 6:15).

At pain of annihilation, his fire and his wrath, one would be wise to not test the patience of this Jealous God.

What could God's jealousy mean?

It is easy (though instructive) to interpret the jealousy of God through our own experiences of jealousy. We can only think in human terms, and this because we can only experience human experiences. The instinctive charge of "anthropomorphism," or the warning against the reduction of what is not human (in this case, the divine) to the human, has to be admittedly accepted. To be sure, it is often held that to attribute to God such a banal and all-too-human trait like jealousy is to commit a gross error in thinking. But is not praising his glory, goodness, generosity, power, and unity--do not these words also come from our vocabulary, which being so can be traced back to our own experiences? Let us set aside such a charge which closes doors prematurely. We wish to understand slowly, and to do so at times means starting with what is at hand and available to everyday experience. This, at least in this instance, is a matter not of interpretation but of description. Perhaps, after all, one always has to begin from the banality of the human in order to ascend to the celestial heights.

So what do we experience when we experience jealousy?

For the most part jealousy is that rush of emotion that overcomes us when we are threatened by an other who may appear to be claiming what is properly (or what we think to be) ours. Jealousy requires a third which enters the fray from nowhere, disrupting the peace and clarity of understanding between two individuals who have mutually consented to being called one another's. No third, no threat, then no jealousy worth the name. Now the threat by no means has to be real, that is, the third does not have to in fact be claiming by explicit words or brave actions that the beloved is hers; a moment of doubt is all that is required for the majestic fall from happiness, the ugly comedy to ensue. A "green-eyed monster" (Shakespeare), jealousy transforms the hitherto secure world into one which threatens me from all corners. No small detail, however innocent or meaningless, escapes the precise gaze of jealousy. Jealousy usually begins with that suspicion of infidelity, that spark of doubt, a dangerous what if?: I fear that someone else loves you, or that you already love someone else; what if this means the end of our love? Infidelity breaks the law which I held and kept, and which I assumed my beloved also submitted himself to. I believe that it transgresses my right to love and be loved--alone. Thus any violation must be found out and the violator persecuted. All are summoned to the unjust court of doubt, where the judgment has been settled in advance, or at least all are assumed to be guilty until proven innocent. To a doubtful lover the world conspires against him.

Whence the questions, the interrogations, the trials and prosecutions love suddenly has to submit itself to. If love undergoes many tests one of the most trying is the test of fidelity sparked on by doubt and suspicion. An ugly sight: what had previously been believed in with pristine faith, here in this occasion is submerged in the thick mud of doubt. What had had the stability of a rock or the security of a fortress is now suddenly shook or under siege. From happiness to doubt; from outward gazes to solitary introspection; from lover to a "green-eyed monster" (Shakespeare); and from love to its possible acquittal--jealousy redirects the gaze of the lover, reverses love's passions and inverts its charge. It is said everyday: The greater the love, the greater the jealousy--and the more bitter the hate. Also, says everyone: Where there is no jealousy there is no love. All of a sudden, in a cruel science, jealousy becomes the accurate barometer of the intensity of love's passions.

To think jealousy by reflecting it against love and its passions may still remain insufficient. For one, there are times that my beloved can in fact be pursued by another yet I may remain constant in my faith that my beloved loves me and I alone. There are loves that are not shaken by threats, as there are faiths that are invincible to doubt. Thus love can for the most pert be immune to jealousy. And in contrast to everyday opinion, the deeper the roots of love grow, the more it can withstand the storm of doubt. Whence the immobility and tranquility of some lovers, especially those of long-married couples who have seen many seasons together, enjoy.

Secondly, one can be jealous without having anything at stake, that is, without actually loving or being loved. Like being loved, jealousy must be earned. This kind of jealousy, however, is intensified by deep green hues of envy. I see a man I am envious of because he has the possible lover I desire: I am jealous of him because he is the one she chose and not I. One can experience the whole concert of emotions--from desire to love, from love to jealousy, from jealousy to hate--without really playing a tune. In a sense, as in watching melodramas, the distant lover participates in the game of emotions without affording to pay or without having to surrender anything of value. The spectacle I do seek because it sets into play all those emotions of desire and love and jealousy that are dormant within me and previously without an intentional object. Upon focusing on an apparent object of love, I train those emotions toward the beloved who is unaware of the whole exercise. But since I cannot claim her who does not even know my name, I know perfectly as well that this love is doomed from the start; and perhaps, that was what I wanted to experience all along. In this instance, at least, I am able to retain the colorful garment of emotions while discarding the very substance that gives shapes to it: I like to feel love and go through the train of emotions that follow it, while I do not have to even love the person as such.

How then to proceed? If jealousy be both captive to and indifferent to love, what can jealousy on its own therefore mean and say? Setting aside questions about possession and security, its anticipation of hate and preparation of judgment, what does jealousy hide but nevertheless confess?

If jealousy is for the most part directed against the third, it must nevertheless be traced back to the second, that is, to the beloved. For all that fire and fury, jealousy is only possible because there is something valuable at stake, not only for me (not possession, my security, or own pleasure), but valuable for and in itself. What do we mean here? Only this: I am able to be jealous because I do not wish others to hurt--mishandle, betray--my beloved.

I know the beloved and his value, worth, and own beauty, I know her so much already, and this is a knowledge another person, this stranger or newcomer may not have. In other words, if I do mark my territory, it is not because I feel threatened, but because I feel that another may threaten my beloved. To be sure I want to protect my beloved out of love; but in certain cases the love here spoken of is no longer that kind which begins and returns to itself, or loves in order to be loved in return; it happens that we love with a love which looks out for the good of the other. Protecting its cubs, the lioness guards off danger by showing the very claws by which she grooms her young. The actions born from jealousy, while differing in intention and emotions, still look similar with protective love: at bottom the lover only wants (and wills!) that the beloved be kept safe from harm.

But by what right, it must be objected, do I have to ordain and judge what is best for my beloved? More so, with what prescience can I say that the third will not love my beloved as much as I do, or better than I can? Obviously, I cannot know these things with certainty without lying to myself. That is why the best way still, if ever there be a best way, is to finally ask the beloved herself what would she have of it, that is, who does she want to love. The dance of jealousy is quickly cut by an honest beloved. And before the beloved who freely chooses another, I lose all my claims, and ultimately I have to withdraw--but not without a fight.

The Hebrew word for "jealousy" used in the passage above was qana (or qanna, qina). And aside from this word referring to jealousy itself as we know it, the word also refers to its often forgotten etymological synonym "zeal,"or "zealousness." It is the same with the Greek zelos, closer to our Filipino selos, but it will be caricatured later as "rivalry" (after which they named a god). But Sappho originally took zelos to mean as being in "hot pursuit" of something. These other possible meanings of jealousy tell us that it was not originally meant to describe the lover's relationship to a third, but first of all indicates how he pursues the beloved--that is, with burning desire, spirited fervor, and rabid love. Through time zealousness and jealousy came to be divorced from each other. But before this fateful break, the jealous lover was nothing else than an aspirant who with all his might wanted to love even if that meant losing to a rival. And if we had eventually painted the jealous lover as a green-eyed monster, Sappho originally drew him as a weak victim to love's cruel game.

In fragment 31 Sappho describes the emotions of a woman as she sees her beloved with another man:

. . .

Question to the Reader

2012-02-06T12:08:00.000+08:00

What is the difference between a silent god and a god which does not exist?

Qi Baishi, Fly a Kite, 1932

A Love Sooner than Later

2012-01-23T12:27:00.000+08:00

BROWN PENNY
William Butler Yeats

I whispered, 'I am too young,'
And then, 'I am old enough';
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
'Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair.'
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

One cannot begin to love too soon--conversely, one should not love too late or in life's demise. That waiting for the "right time," or the "right person" to love, what are these but the cries or sighs of an unready, even tired, heart? One becomes ready only when one begins to understand love slowly (or again), and one understands love progressively when one, simply, performs the act of love. Love, like most other acts, also requires a certain techne, or technique, in the Greek sense that is an activity which is performed with skill or knowledge, and conversely, it is a skill or knowledge which is, and requires to be, performed. No knowledge, no activity worth the name; no activity, no knowledge worth knowing.

For example, there is no point for an athlete to practice his skill and sport if he does not join a race or a competition. One readies one's love because one has to love "sooner or later." When it comes to love however, most of us read, imagine, and know about it, yet seldom "put it into play," or act it out--like an actor who has memorized all the lines that he will never deliver.

So I at times do not understand what we mean (doubtless, I've said it also before) when we say "I am not yet ready to love." What does that mean? What does the "not-yet" indicate. Setting aside the common interpretation we have, the "not-yet" means having to "rest" a heart, or letting it "heal," which, one can see, are negative deductions. But from the negative we can draw a positive charge.

For example, the "not-yet" in "I am not yet ready to love" by definition assumes that the time to love once again is an event already foreseen now, already at hand, that is, paradoxically, already here. Like the darkened clouds signaling the coming of an imminent storm, or a messenger or herald announcing the arrival of a special guest, a love which is "not-yet"--precisely not here now--is paradoxically already here in the form of a coming, or arriving, which I already anticipate and expect, as if with certainty. "Not-yet-being-ready" then implies that its goal is to be ready "sooner or later," as we say. But the when does not matter here as the certainty of the foreseen event, because, as fore-seen, it is already seen, that is, already known.

Yet the question to be asked is how do we already know, especially with a kind of certainty, that love is to come soon, later, or ever. A future love is much unlike a future death: death is the only possibility which will have to be actual, it is the only "not-yet" which is certain, that is, it is the only possibility you can actually foresee, envision, expect, anticipate, and at bottom all these mean that death is the only event you can prepare for. "A future love," there is strictly speaking no such thing, or at least, it does not have to be, that is, it is unnecessary. The world does not owe each one a lover. No one guarantees that one will find love once again.

The argument that it is usually the case that most of us do in fact find someone to love "in time," or "down the road," as we say, does not weaken the possibility that we can "end up" not finding someone to love or to love us. Love is not a matter to be determined by statisticians or oddsmakers, as if love can be made an object of calculation or turned into a game. For one, I don't "care" whether this stranger of that fool finds a lover, or that everyone else eventually finds happiness. My own love concerns only me: love is a soliloquy, a war I wage alone, a solitary endeavor, a solar system unto itself. Like Atlas, I carry the whole responsibility of love on my own shoulders. Or like death, only I can undergo love. Again, like death, "Love makes you an individual" (Woolf).

What can be drawn from these rather crude, simplistic, and nowise hopeful descriptions? The premises do not matter as much as the conclusions which can be drawn from them. All that drama will find no meaning if we do not reach a decision, one which settles the whole matter. So if we are wont to say "I am not yet ready to love," or "I am not ready for a serious relationship," (what that means is a whole other comedy), and given that it is true (there is psychological, physiological pain, trauma, etc., all valid reasons, all too human), perhaps we can at least take it to mean something else, say, positively.

We can reframe the statement to mean thus: "I am not yet ready to pursue or to want or to find love." There seems to be only a minor change in the statement, however there is an essential change in accent or tone in it. The statement now takes love to be a pursuit I must make, an aspiration; it even can indicate lust, desire, and a craving.

A passivity can be hidden in the ambiguity in being "not yet ready to love." Such a disposition is usually imagined as a relaxed state, like being "open" to the possibility of love, or waiting for "the right person to come," a kind of tranquilized expectation without desire or gravity, just like walking around in the park and "playing the field." The reformed attitude for us now means that love is a decision, a search, a setting sail into open seas instead of "testing the waters," an exploration aimed not at viewing the scenery but aimed at discovering something totally new. Love seldom falls before our feet, and even if it does, one still has to pick it up. And one needs to want wanting. Even that is a decision I must make alone. I ultimately have no excuse for being passive when it comes to love.

Camus prescribed a life not of "quality" but of "quantity." Never mind his having mistresses, that is not the point. Quantity of love naturally does not have to mean having many lovers. It means quantity of experiences, may they be of quality or not. The many, in order to be many, naturally requires having more than a few. The intensity, depth, or durability, security, of a love, these are all nice and fine and necessary because we grow old and weaken and want peace, "stability." But to have only one kind of experience (I repeat, not lover), deep or intense or happy it may be, puts into shame a world which offers an infinite amount of possibilities.

"The world is deep, deeper than day can comprehend" (Nietzsche). Having one and the same lover for years, this is no excuse for those who long for someone different, having mistresses, wanting divorce. Each one is "deep, deeper than day can comprehend." The depth of the world is hidden in a life; it is up to both lovers to explore those depths, experience each one. One can never comprehend another person completely. The paths you must take in order to find the true beloved are as numerous as the loops of her hair.

But to begin exploring the mysteries of each other, two lovers must necessarily decide to disclose one another. One decides to either hide or reveal oneself; and it is so much easier to hide. That decision requires time, and requires it forever. And perhaps wanting to disclose oneself to a possible lover is precisely what we are afraid to do or to rush; thus we take time to be ready. At bottom we experience being unready to love because we are afraid to trust another lover. Or entrust our selves to a new lover by disclosing who we are.

But do not worry. Whether you open yourself up to a possible lover now or later or in the future--these do not matter. No one really ever knows another. What a waste then to have introduced yourself later when you could have done so sooner.

*

I've been told these crushing words before: You should have known me sooner. Nothing paralyzes you more. Regret, remorse, guilt--these are all understandable because you know what you did and you should really be sorry for your cruelty or stupidity. You should have known then as now. You were just being stupid.

But missing your one true shot at happiness with full innocence, or without knowing, without choice really being possible at that time, that just breaks your heart.

You have no one to blame, not even yourself. Or precisely, because you cannot blame anything, you start blaming the quiet stars for their conspiracy. A dumb friend tells you, "It wasn't meant to be."

Listen: But you still could have then, as you now see that you should have then. If it were really out of the realm of the possible, then you should not be feeling sick about not being able to pursue her then. For you to experience that gnawing question "what might have been" means, in the first place, that it could have been, that it was really possible. And what else could have stopped me from wanting her other than, well, me? It is so easy to try.

From the MET, New York.

The Tears of the Magdalene

2012-01-21T19:15:00.000+08:00

There are numerous paintings about the Virgin Mary in any art gallery. Nativities, Annunciations, Mother and Childs, Madonnas, Assumptions, among others, are often depicted in religious art, especially in the Medieval period. And like in galleries, an icon or statue of the Virgin would usually adorn churches or chapels. And doubtless, for good reason: apart from being the Mother of God, we also call her our own Mother--our intercessor, our guide, our counsellor.

Aside, however, from the Mother, there is also another woman often portrayed in art, another Mary, this one hailing from Magdala: the Mary Magdalene. The story of Mary Magdalene has been revised many times in Church history. She has gone from being possessed by the devil, condemned as a sinner and a whore, only to transform into being a model of repentance. She has likewise been erroneously confused with the woman who washed Christ's feet with her tears, dried them with her hair, and perfumed them (Luke 7:38), as she also at one time was thought to be the same Mary of Bethany, sister of Martha and Lazarus. For the more cinematic of mind, the Magdalene was in film or on stage cast as Christ's mistress and seductress, and, as it is in fashion nowadays, rumored to even have been his wife. She is also supposed to have been a writer of a Gnostic gospel, whereby revealing her to be an important figure in spreading the good news after Christ's death. In spite of all this confusion, she has been officially declared a saint by the Church (feast day is on July 22).

Who is this mutable and masked woman who has worn so many faces and has been dressed with different garments? More still, why has she intrigued us so much, becoming a plaything of our imagination, able to speak for different walks of life? (Her resonance with many people is evidence by her being the patron saint of repentant sinners, hairdressers, glove makers and the contemplative life.)

One reason for the many retellings that have been made about her life is the scarcity of information in the Gospels about her person. She is mentioned only fourteen times in the New Testament. The first mention comes in Matthew and Luke where she is described as being exorcised by Christ because "seven devils" had reportedly possessed her. The two other instances where we hear of Mary are, however, explicit and important--the Crucifixion and the Resurrection of Christ. Mary, as we see in art, was at Christ's feet weeping when he was hanging on or was being brought down from the cross; she also was there at his burial, and it was to her that the risen Christ first appeared after the third day. She figures at the end of Christ's life and in the beginning of that most crucial event in the Christ story, his Resurrection, with which also began the fulfillment of the promise and the salvation of all the faithful.

In John's account of the Resurrection we read that Mary goes to the tomb on the third day to anoint Christ's body. But she discovers the tomb empty, and quickly reports the news to the disciples. Mary goes back to the tomb with the excited apostles (Peter and another apostle ran to the tomb as if they were racing each other) and they again see the tomb without Christ's body. The disciples go back, but Mary stays--and starts weeping. What follows from John 20 is both powerful and perhaps a bit comical:

Correggio, Noli me tangere. c.1522-1525
Oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. 13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. 15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

As we can gather from the account by John, perhaps another reason why Mary Magdalene has captivated us is because of the emotions she was not afraid to exhibit. In the short passage above, the word "cry" is mentioned four times. She was inconsolable upon discovering that her Master's body appeared to have been taken away from the tomb. She is asked twice by the angels and Christ (who she had first mistaken as a gardener) why she was weeping. Not even the angels could stop her tears, and when she realized that the man in the garden was Christ, she again cries, now in joy, "Rabbi!" The intensity of the Magdalene's emotions is also often depicted in art. If the Virgin bathes in light and shines in glory, and usually has stoical, wise, and knowing countenances, the Magdalenes in art are either sombre or in rapture, pensive or in remorse, alone and in the dark--and, again, in tears. And the most remorseful and tearful Magdalene I have seen with my own eyes is Paulus Bor's Mary Magdalene.

Paulus Bor, Mary Magdalen, c.1635

Oil on wood panel, 65.7 x 60.8

The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

What immediately catch our gaze in this Magdalene are her eyes. The eyes are what we look at first when we encounter an other. Here, one is embarrassed or should be apologetic for seeing her eyes: She has just finished weeping--that moment of greatest vulnerability, that painful instance when we are not yet ready to see an other much more to be seen by him. Her left eye remains pink, more so the area surrounding it. What betrays her most however is not the redness of her eyes or cheeks but their swelling, telling us on the contrary that she has not just finished weeping. It has been a while, perhaps hours or even a day has passed. The marks are still there. The remains of sorrowful remorse that do not vanish as quickly as tears.

Remorse takes time, or better, it takes its time precisely because it needs it or relies on it. But like grief, time is both the cross and salvation of remorse. Apologies, "I am sorry," these are given and said initially and for the most part rather easily. Yet the word "sorry" itself still contains the marks of its initial meaning: you first must pass sorrow before you are able to ask for mercy and forgiveness. This passage through sorrow, the insomnia of conscience, the suicide of the mind--we once called these by the name "valley of tears." That long depressed strait one walks alone that sometimes seems has no end. Upon reaching its end, after bearing the twin weights of sorrow and remorse, only then can any talk about repentance and forgiveness be spoken.

Mary has often been described in art as "The Repentant Magdalene." Repentance in its root comes from the word penance, an amendment pursued or punishment endured before one is finally granted forgiveness. But what was the Magdalene's penance? By what ways was she able to gain forgiveness for her sins (vanity, alleged sensuality, worldliness)? Did Christ even require from her certain acts so that she may gain entry to heaven? Mary, to recall, became a companion of Christ and the disciples; and if she were exorcised by Christ from devils unknown then that meant the transition from sinner to apostle (like most of the other disciples) happened rather fast.

Did the Magdalene's sorrow and remorse take the necessary time required by authentic conversion? Was the change in the Magdalene one that can be called a metanoia, a favorite word in the literary arts and so easily portrayed in film, which means a sudden change (meta) in thought (noesis) and way of living--truly a conversion (literally a turnabout, like an about face), one which is, some say rather lightly, the change from sinner to saint? (It has been said, with jest, that the fastest way to sainthood is to first be a fabulous sinner.)

Probably not. The Magdalene harbored and cultivated inside her heart her sorrow and remorse while being a companion of the Christ. She loved Christ when he was alive while she was in agony for her sins, in agony she loved Christ when he died, in agony still in his Resurrection--and in agony until her own death. Legend has it that when she retired in France, she devoted the rest of her life, thirty years, in solitary penance. Even after bearing witness to the glory of Christ, after successfully spreading Christianity, and well on her way to sainthood, her life was endured in sorrow and remorse. The tears kept falling. Now they fall as raindrops.

She knew that penance never completely absolves anyone, as change never really changes anyone. Bor's painting shows this clearly: the Magdalene is still adorned by the fur from her luxurious past. But her past life is crossed by her present: she holds in her hand the ointment she would use to clean the body of Christ. Remorse dwells in that very crossing, in that moment when the tears have just dried but your eyes still swell--the twilight of conscience, when either a new sun rises or the old one sets. Past and present intersect in remorse, forming a cross, the very same cross we carry to Calgary, the very same cross on which we are crucified.

Metanoia, this is easy to say or believe in, especially by those who wish to change but fail again and again. Those who have gone through it, thought it, understood it, know that remorse never ends and penance is never enough. Most of us just forget--or are given mercy to quickly. But what matters forgiveness and mercy to a remorseful man! We do not do penance for forgiveness, as we do not go through punishment to please the one who required it. We punish ourselves, and that is all that can be said about it. Nor does our apology rest on the possibility of being forgiven. "I am sorry" means what it means: a melancholy unto death that no one can ever take from me.

The point is to bear one's sorrow alone. One learns to live that way.

The Assault of Love: On Caravaggio's Annunciation

2011-12-24T15:24:00.000+08:00

There is no fear in love; but perfect love castethout fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect inlove.

1 Jn.4:18

To be chosen, to be favored over another—would notsuch an honor bring about great pleasure and delight? Not everybody, to besure, is privileged to be selected. To be chosen means to be paradoxically distinguishedfrom other equally tenable possibilities. No decision takes place if the bestchoice is already obvious because of its own merits and consequently the lackof it in others. All that is needed is to observe, weigh, and compare, and byelimination, as in a beauty pageant, the queen is distinguished from thehypothetically less beautiful, the supposedly undeserving. Whence the smilesand tears of the victor as she is crowned and adorned with flowers, bathing inconfetti: she was chosen among others, because of her charm, beauty,intelligence, her body, or by whatever standards which, definitely, werealready determined before she or any other candidate even appeared. LikeCinderella’s glass slipper, to be chosen in this commonplace sense is to beable to fit best to the fixed measurements defined in advance. Thus what ischosen is at bottom never him or her who was chosen, but only the measurements themselves.The chosen is paradoxically never chosen; it only masks predetermined criteria,becomes only an instance or example, a trivial model. That it was him or her who was chosen in the end becomes a matter of greatindifference.

Tothink the phenomenon of being chosen radically, the standards by which choices aremade must disappear. And to set aside predetermined categories or criteria wouldmean having to suspend rationality which alone decides on the standards forselection. There is something arbitrary when it comes to the most importantchoices and decisions we make: reasons cannot be supplied to explain why thiswas selected and not the other. Nor is there any need to explain one’s self. Asin the case when I choose to love this one person among many equally (or more)beautiful possible lovers, I cannot give any explanation to justify my choice withoutbetraying the beloved or lying to myself. It is her whom I love without a reason,without a why. I choose her not because of this or that incentive, not becauseshe successfully passes my requirements and possesses all the “qualities,” aswe say, that I look for in a lover—ultimately I know without being able toexplicate it that I choose her because I choose her. The irrational or tautologicalcharacter of our fundamental choices receives its determination obviously notfrom the office of the intellect but from the ridiculous play of our freedom whichboth requires it and makes it possible. Reasons fail or disappear when it is alreadya matter of love. Love is free inasmuch as it can choose to love withoutreason—even in spite of it.

One consequence of the absurdity offreedom and love is that both are rarely understood. And of things we do notunderstand, we at times flee in terror. So it happens that I can shock andupset the one that I choose to love when I first confess my desire for her. Unableto give an account for my choice, offering nothing else than a promise and ahope, I place my beloved in an impossible situation, that of having to face thequestion my sudden confession of love posed, a question she perhaps neither sawcoming nor wanted to answer. The absurd and unforeseen arrival of love, neverasked for and usually undeserved, assails us with questions rather than withconfetti, and instead of all those pretty smiles and the exhilaration wethought being chosen would bring, it happens that in the wake of theannouncement of love we shake in fear and trembling. Why me?—when it could havebeen anyone else easily.

Caravaggio, Annunciation, 1608–10

Oil on wood transferred to canvas, 112^1⁄4x 80^3⁄4in. (285 x 205 cm)

Musée desBeaux-Arts, Nancy

While receiving presents in different occasions isinitially and for the most part pleasing to us, there are instances, too, whenwe experience dread upon the arrival of an unexplained, even mysterious gift.

Luke tells us that when Gabriel announcedto Mary that she was favored by God, her first response to the angel was one ofneither excitement nor gratitude, but of great fear. Mary, the gospel says, wasperplexed when the archangel addressed her thus: “Greetings, you who are highlyfavored! The Lord is with you” (Lk. 1:28). Confused, she wondered what thegreeting meant and why she had earned God’s favor. This virgin from Nazareth,this young lady of simple birth and state, betrothed to a carpenter of nogreater distinction—why and by what ways did she please the omnipotent God? Whatcould that even possibly mean, to be favored by the God who watches over allthings and peers into all the hearts of men? Why was she, who was neither wealthynor a queen, chosen and not another? Above all: Why did God choose her to bethe mother of His son who will be the King of kings? Gabriel does not ease herconfusion; he explains nothing. Her fright before winged messenger, her perplexityin being chosen to be the mother of the Savior, and her bewilderment as to howshe will conceive him, all these, we are to imagine, left Mary stupefied. And Gabrielconfirms Mary’s dread by saying in the plainest of words: “Do not be afraid,Mary” (Lk. 1:30).

Little else is said to describe thefirst moments of Mary’s reception of the archangel’s thundering announcement,one which, it is easy to suppose, produced in her so many powerful andconfusing emotions. We are left to imagine the intricacies of those deep passionssimplified and abridged by the bare words we are left with. What we lack, wehave to provide. It is up to us to portray the unseen faces of the persons inscripture, to paint the moods and atmospheres of events long past. To relive orto revive the irretrievable, to give appearance to what is invisible or hidden,that is the chief duty and high claim of the painter. Religious art receivesits meaning and purpose in showing us what has been scantly written. Inpaintings we come face to face with the angel or demon, the saint or thesinner, the cross and the garden, events in Christ’s life from his birth to hisdeath. Face to face: the page is givena new vocabulary by the painter, a language no longer for the mind tounderstand and divine, but an embodied vocabulary of shapes and substances,colors and shades, faces and even emotions—the language of sight. The paintergives to us what the writer could not, that is, the gift of vision. The painterfulfills our all too human desire to see what cannot or can no longer be seen. Whatis more, the philosopher Jean-Luc Marion says that authentic paintings, unlikerepresentations or copies of natural objects, are wholly new phenomena: the painter gives birth to the unseen as well as tothe unforeseen. The painter is the magus who delivers the gift of seeing newappearances. “And to see is to receive, since to appear is to give (itself) tobe seen” (Marion). It is the painter we turn to when the writer lacks or failsto stir up emotions or inspire.

Unlike most other Annunciations inart, Caravaggio’s Annunciation,considered as his last great altarpiece before the end of his short buttumultuous life, marks the terror and surprise of the archangel’s visit. Weshall be guided by this particular painting to see what could have happened toMary on that fateful day. If the story starts with Gabriel, so too must thedescription begin with him. Most other Annunciations show Gabriels very muchunlike Caravaggio’s: they often come in regal dress and with golden halos abovetheir heads, with handsome faces and peaceful countenances. Caravaggio’sGabriel is no archangel but a cupid, a boy that as one writer remarked was pluckedout from the chaotic streets of Malta and Rome and forced to wear a pair of darkwings. (It was characteristic of Caravaggio to employ people from the streets heroamed day and night as models. He was accused, probably correctly, of using aprostitute as a model for the virgin in his TheDeath of Mary.) The boy’s face isbarely seen. The shadow of his right shoulder dims his face, coloring it almostred, leaving only traces of his eyelids and nose exposed to the viewer; therest that we see is his ruffled hair. Below Gabriel’s feet, a cloud not of heavenbut of smoke supports him as he bends to an almost horizontal position wellabove the virgin. His posture and distance from Mary are also distinct frommost depictions. Works by the other masters (Rubens, Botticelli, da Vinci,Angelico, Fouquet, Lippi, among others) show Gabriel either kneeling or bowing,some at a great distance from Mary, or assuming a plane lower than hers, inhomage to his future Queen. Caravaggio’s has just entered the frame, as in a blitz,from the unseen window on the left which lets in the little light that entersthe gloomy room. (Caravaggio distinctively painted most of his backgroundsblack.) He hovers well above Mary, yet close to her, and his extended right armcollapses the distance even further. Having just rushed into the scene, with a darkface and a cloud of dust and smoke delivering him, his forefinger so close toher—what was this virgin to think of this boy-angel: Was he herald orexecutioner? What were the lilies for?

There are various opinions regarding Mary’sposture and what the expression on her face means. Was her pose one of humility,subservience, or of fear—or did it speak of experiencing all those emotions atthe same time? Kings and queens are respected because we both honor them andfear them. The virgin’s eyes are neither open nor half-open as in most otherpaintings, and are here closed in the way that we seal our eyes when we think.If she appears pensive, even lost to the scene, it is because she contemplates whatis to become of her fate—that everything shall change from now on. It is alwaysthe surprise, the shock which startles: she was not ready for this, and no onewill ever be, no one can ever prepare for being called, favored, and loved. Heraustere surroundings confirm how she was startled by the angel and hisannouncement: the bed at the back is unmade, the wooden chair behind her tellsus that she probably had been sitting when the angel rushed in, a bread basketand an untidy piece of cloth lie on the floor. The lady of the house wasunprepared for what will be the most significant visit in her life. Thedarkness of the room alone was not ready for that surge of light. Called andsent forth by God to fulfill His promise, Mary is the first apostle who had toabandon the modest life and world she hitherto knew and deliver the living breadwhich was to nourish mankind.

If Caravaggio paints an unflattering Annunciation,it is because the places where the greatest moments of our lives come to passare not always flattering. Caravaggio’s radical point of view of life, whichremains scandalous to some today, came nowhere else than from his harsh surroundings.His was a world of taverns and drunkards, gamblers and cardsharps, beggars,fortunetellers and prostitutes, duelists and criminals. (He was convicted ofstabbing a man after a heated argument over a bet in a tennis game.) He madehis art imitate life to bring both life to art and art to life. Life however isnot pretty. The fruits in his early still life were rarely appetizing. Many ofthe pieces of fruit in his Bacchusare rotting, and in his Basket of Fruit aworm-eaten apple cannot be missed. That a number of patrons and cardinals whocommissioned him to make altarpieces eventually rejected his paintings—withunpleasant portrayals of saints, the Virgin, and even of Christ—is notsurprising at all.

So if we are to understand Caravaggio’sunique portrayal of the Annunciation,we need to go back to the world of the story it belongs to and inaugurates. Inits barest form, the Nativity story is the timeless narrative of a lady who,refused a suitable place to stay in with her companion, gave birth in a stableof oxen. But the often forgotten part of this story, overshadowed by themajestic arrival of kings from the east and the spectacular star which guidedthem, is where the story all began—there, in Mary’s humble abode of unmade bedsand wooden chairs, unwashed cloths and bread baskets lying on the floor. Thestory of our salvation begins with that implausible event when one unremarkablewoman from one unremarkable place was remarkably chosen without her knowing whyand without her being prepared. That woman says Yes, and her life, and ours,will be forever changed.

But to be chosen, to be favored—thatis not enough. When love announces itself, you must first respond. A decisionmust be made. Shall I doubt the love offered to me, remain in disbelief, knowingI do not deserve it?—One always finds ways to excuse one’s self when it comesto love. I can say that I am not yet ready, or that I am unworthy. I can also refusethe gift because I simply cannot understand it. It happens also that the arrivalof love simply terrifies us, leaving us afraid to love and be loved.—Or shall Ireceive the gift, dare my fate, and make that heartrending wager of love? If weare to learn anything from the Annunciation, it is that the greatest decisionswe make ultimately come down to a decision between fear and love.

Mary teaches us the great lesson thatlove overcomes fear and perplexity and makes us richer and more beautiful thanwe are. “Let it be done to me according your word” (Lk. 1:38): Mary’s fiat tells me that love begins bypronouncing that virginal Yes to the one who first chose to love no one otherthan me, undeserving and unprepared Imay be.

December 24, 2011

[Payapang Daigdig]

2011-12-19T11:51:00.000+08:00

Written by Pat Nogoy, S.J.

Payapang Daigdig

Felipe de Leon, Sr.

Ang gabi'y payapa

Lahat ay tahimik

Pati mga tala

Sa bughaw na langit

Kay hinhin ng hangin

Waring umiibig

Sa kapayapaan

Ng buong daigdig

Payapang panahon

Ay diwa ng buhay

Biyaya ng Diyos

Sa sangkatauhan

Ang gabi'y payapa

Lahat ay tahimik

Pati mga tala

Sa bughaw na langit

Pati mga tala

Sa bughaw na langit

The gift delivers Being/being

Jean Luc Marion

There is something about the night.

The blanket of darkness hovering the other half of the day sparks ambivalence. Everything is the same in darkness—fear, joy, pain, triumph, doubt, glory, sorrow. Identities recede unto the vast anonymity. There is a pervading anxiety where existence slips into nothingness. One is never certain what to make out of darkness; maybe that is why the night shakes us because we never know. One cannot avoid imagining a something that is greater, higher, mightier, (even sinister) that lurks (hence the power of ghost stories). Paradox arises: Nothing is seen yet everything is. Nothing as the veil of Being, as Heidegger would put it, makes us fall to our knees. There is something about the night.

There is something about the night. Weary beings bid the world to sleep. Eyes close in restful hope. Yet, existence never stops: Dreams abound; bodies recharge; souls renewed. Existence still happens in the cape of anonymity, in the tender hands of darkness, in the caressing bosom of surrounding shade. Anything can happen. Possibilities thrive, actualities are nourished. In the mysterious shadows of the night, all is. There is something about the night.

There is something about the night. Beings are caught up neither here nor there. No point of distinction, no point of space. Everything goes home to the arms of obscurity. Pace becomes slow and for some, it elicits melancholia. Yet home is where one truly becomes, where one transcends the essence unto existence, when one is not simply a being but, in unison with the rest, Being. What happens in the in-between breaks the structure of language, only silence prevails. Silence echoes all around. Silence is a mouthpiece of Being.

Time began in mouth of silence; space arose in the vicinity of nothingness. Creation happened out of nothing (ex nihilo). The familiar mythical genesis of our forefathers narrated a cosmology: how beings came out of the womb of nothing. Even science agrees: in the cradle of stillness, the big bang erupted. It is no wonder therefore that the most celebrated intrusion of God in human history mirrored that of the old pattern. In the distant and humble stable, in the cold of an ordinary night, when everyone is at rest, God arrived.

His arrival, like any other surprises, is missed. It is so sneaky, low-key, and unobtrusive that it needed angels to wake the sleeping world to receive him. It is so inconspicuous to the point of confounding even in receipt. Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, as the herald angels sang, affirms the unimaginable reality of the Infinite becoming finite. And it happened not in the bang of merry-making, fireworks, and loud cheers but rather in a whisper so soft that it brought angels down, scouring the world, announcing. God arrived in a silent night.

Do not surprises arrive in a similar way? Do not genuine surprises spring out of nowhere, confounding hearts and astounding minds? Surprises are born in anonymity and nourished by silence. We never know surprises. The very presence of surprise elicits true ecstasy (take us out, eks stasis). They are weaved in secrecy; their strength comes from their shadows. Jouissance (joy) happens out of nothing (il y a); out of total absence springs forth presence. It is a joy that cannot be contained by a single heart; the joy of surprise overflows.

In unruffled sleep reminiscent of Adam’s slumber, the world unknowingly received the first of gifts: the fulfillment of a promise. The cherished promise dreamt of and handed down to generations upon generations has been finally realized. The greatest of all gifts has been given and that is God is.

The first instance of giving is existence. Under the shroud of the night, the unimaginable emerges:God is. From then on, the peaceful universe will never be the same. The Ultimate Other dons the cape of Being, humbly enters into the abode of existence, an ancient gift that gave birth to everything. The incarnation of a Truth beyond confounds the mind and astounds the hearts of men. The Divine chose to give Himself by becoming, and becoming one of men. The greatest scandal happened. Yet, what will one expect otherwise from a Divine giving? The mean of Divine giving is always excess, beyond, and scandalous.

The lover aspires for the beloved; one becomes the one that he loves, according to a cliché. The first occurrence of the aspiration of the lover to the beloved is his arrival, that he truly exists and not only a figment of possibility but in breathing reality. The dream of being somebody’s beloved affirms the concrete reality of that lover that, though not yet arriving in my world, exists somewhere out there. The incarnation is a manifestation of a God who is beyond existence yet like any other confessed lover chose to reveal Himself in a manner that the beloved would hopefully understand. His first act is his arrival. He is. His second act is arriving in our own time-space, in storied human history. He is in the flesh. The two arrivals, both gifts, bind the lover and beloved. Love is realized in togetherness.

Yet the peaceful universe remains. Even the stars of the blue sky are still and silent. It is as if nothing happened. Mankind remained undisturbed, immersed in dreams, oblivious to the gift of a God who comes in silent slumber. Gifts of this kind are often missed much like the little acts of kindness that go unappreciated, the silent sacrifices that passed by unrecognized, and the whispered prayers that are unheard. Giving always hides; the arriving yields to the arrival. The universe remains peaceful, unaware of the arriving. Giving happens in shadows of concealment. Giving, like love, is never pompous but humble and inconspicuous. Giving’s impact is beyond measure; it is free to intrude and affect without getting noticed. It does not wake the peaceful universe and even the stars in the blue sky to call attention to itself. It arrives, like a thief in the night, and incorporates itself in the slumbering soulscape. Giving unveils a gift, and like the sending, the gift transcends perdurance and objectivity. Gift is always beyond its flesh; greater than the confines of object. It is dynamic and engages the recipient in its fluid presence and infinite depth. When one receives a gift, one cannot exactly demarcate the contours of the gift; there is always something deeper, something infinite other than the object’s mere appearance. Whatever is received transcends and even transforms the recipient.

Caravaggio, The Nativity with St Francis and St Lawrence, 1608

Man, just like any beloved, will never be the same. His dust and soiled earth becomes his lover’s heaven. Everything is arrayed in divinity; every single man and nature is holy twice over. This joie de vivre came from a revolution of giving that happened when man is asleep. God is Eve whereby out of man’s slumber she came to be; out of man’s bone and flesh, she arrived. God is Eve, the only suitable and desirable partner for man since she is of his flesh and bone. God is Eve, the sole Infinite desired by the finite. It happened under the cradle of the night where stars are brightly shining, where the universe is at peace. Arising from the peaceful dawn of Eve’s arrival, man felt complete. Thus, man will never be the same again.

How man will respond to the giving will comprise the next chapters of history. Yet, the beginning is always a mysterious and engaging clearing; an atypical beginning of a revolutionary course in human history. Suffice to remind men how there is always something about the night, the dwelling of every beginning. Night is always fertile; yet, it hides its fecundity. Concealment protects and nourishes unconcealment; mystery gives birth to reality. Heraclitus admonishes men to pay attention to the clearing, not only in the quickening of the moment, or the flash of light that dazzles. To man, be open! To man, be attentive! For thy knows not the hour of coming.

There is always something about the night—out of darkness, light shines; out of anonymous chaos, identity arises; out of the shadows of a resting world, a God- in-flesh arrives. Possibilities abound, even that possibility that surpasses any imagination, a possibility dwelling only in the Divine’s mind. The time for that possibility to be actualized came. Thus, in the mystery of time, in the stillness of Eve, God chose to take hush but radical footsteps by becoming flesh—God-with-us. His gift of Himself that he auspiciously laid in the tender crib of the manger surpasses any judgment, death, civilization, and human progress. No other giving commands more peace and joy. No other giving comes close in the imagination of surprise. No other giving restores the fallen and weary man back to his authentic and holy self. No other giving elevates love in a plane higher than what man can even imagine.

There is always something about the night.

Christmas 2009

Kung Bakit Matagal Maghilom ang Puso

2011-12-12T10:18:00.001+08:00

Tugon Sa Kaibigang Walang Pangalan:

"Bakit nga kaya may mga taong kay bilis maghilom ang pusong nasugatan? Mas magaling lang kaya silang mag uto sa mga taong nasa paligid nila? O sadyang hindi ganuon kalalim ang pagmamahal na kanilang ibinahagi? At bakit may ibang inaabot ng taon ang pagluluksa? Masokista lang kaya talaga sila? O sadyang tuluyan na silang nabaliw at hinayaang maiwan sila ng pag ikot ng mundo?"

Madalas ngang mangyari na mabilis maghilom ang mga sugat dahil hindi ito ganoon kalalim. Baka galos lamang, kaya madaling magsara. Minsa'y ni hindi mo man ito kailangang pansinin o asikasuhin (gamot, bandage, tahi): nariyan lang, maliit, di kapansin-pansin, at sa isang linggo'y mawawalang ni walang bakas. Ganoon din yata sa pag-ibig: may mga umiibig nang hindi ganoon kalalim kaya naman hindi masasaktan ang puso kapag nabigo. Paglalandi, nagtampisaw lamang sa dalampasigan, hindi lumundag, walang pangangahas, walang pagtataya--wala ring mawawala. Ngunit baka isang posibilidad lamang ito, at may iba pang dahilang mahihinuha. Tignan natin.

Nangyayari rin minsan na bagaman tunay tayong nagmahal (nagtaya, nagbigay ng sarili, sinamba pa ang iniibig) ay mabilis tayong nakababangon mula sa pagkabigo. Hindi na mahalaga kung paano nasira ang pag-ibig; taglay ng lahat ng pagkabigo ang katangian ng kalungkutan sa pagkawala ng isang mahalagang tao at malapit sa puso. (Masusukat mo ang halaga ng isang bagay hindi sa tindi ng ligaya noong nasaiyo ito kundi sa lalim ng lungkot na mararanasan mo kapag nawala ito.) Ngunit maaaring magkaiba ang ating tugon sa anumang kalungkutang dala ng pagkabigo: maaaring hindi ko ito maunawaan, o maaaring maintindihan ko ito. At palagay ko ang lahat ay humahantong sa tanong na ito: Naunawaan ko ba ang mga pangyayaring nagdulot sa pagkawasak ng pagmamahalan namin? Malungkot man ako, kaya ko bang silayan ang kadilimang bumabalot sa akin ng liwanag ng pag-unawa. Anong maaari kong unawain? Ito: na hindi na talaga maari pang ipagpatuloy ang pagmamahalan, na higit na mabuti na ang maghiwalay. Masakit man o magluksa man ako kapag nangyari ito.

Hindi nag-iisip ang ating pandama, at sa lahat ng ating pakiramdam, sa sarili nito lungkot ang siyang pinakamangmang. Hindi ito kakulangan sa bahagi nito; tungkulin ng kalungkutan na ipadama sa atin ang kawalan. Ngunit walang halaga ang karanasan ng pagdadalamhati kung mananatili itong malungkot at magwawakas sa lungkot; kung ganoon lamang ang tungkulin nito, kasuka-suka lang ito. Kung gayon, para saan pa ang lungkot at paano ito masasagip mula sa pagiging absurdong karanasan lamang? Baka ganito: baka ang layunin ng kalungkutan ay turuan tayo. O ng anong aral!

Kahit ano, basta mayroon--ng ating mga pagkakamali, pagkukulang; na kailangang ingatan ang pag-ibig, alagaan, dahil ang lahat ay maaaring matapos sa anumang sandali. Na hindi madali ang magmahal. Na laging may maaari pang ibigay. O, ang pinakamataas na aral: na laging may higit pang ligaya. Baka tinuturuan tayo ng kalungkutan na maghanda sa posibilidad ng mas malalim na kaligayahan. Ito ang gabi na kailangang harapin bago masilayan ang kagandahan ng bagong umaga.

Hindi kinakailangang mangahulugang nagkulang ang pag-ibig kapag madali akong nakabangon mula sa pagdadalamhati sa pagtatapos nito. Baka isang tanda lamang ito ng kakayahan nating unawain ang kagandahan din ng pagkabigo. Kagandahan? Sa ilalim ng dilim ng kawalan ng pag-asa? Maaari. Ito ang kagandahan ng pangako ng ibang posibilidad. Hindi lamang posibilidad sa ganang Dahil tapos na ang aking relasyon, malaya na ako ngayong maghanap ng ibang iibigin. May mga ganyan (naranasan na natin iyan marahail) ngunit walang saysay iyan. Ang tinutukoy ko ay ang pangako ng panahon--o ang posibilidad na maunawaan ko na may panahon pa. Lagi't laging may panahon pa. Hindi natatapos ang lahat ngayon.

Sa mga pagkakataon na inaabot tayo ng kay tagal upang makabangon mula sa dilim ng pagluluksa, nangyayari ito dahil nakalimutan natin o hindi pa nalalaman ang katotohanan ng panahon. Iyan ang katangian ng pagluluksa, iniisip at nadarama nito na wala nang panahon, na wala nang maaaring magbago, na kapareho o magkamukha lamang ang bukas sa ngayon, na kalungkutan din ang mararanasan ko sa hinaharap gaya ng kalungkutan ko ngayon. Isang mahabang ngayon ang pagdadalamhati: wala itong pagtanaw sa kinabukasan, o mas mabuting sabihing wala na itong pagtiwala dito, o tuluyan nang nawala ito. Kaya tila tumitigil ang daigdig ko kapag ako'y nasaktan, iniwan, at pag-ibig ay nasira.

Ngunit kung may itinuturo man sa akin ang galaw ng araw at pag-ikot ng mga planeta, ng alon sa dagat at pagdaloy ng tubig sa ilog--iyan ang mataas na aral na nagpapatuloy ang lahat, sumama man ako sa ritmo't galaw ng mga ito, magpaiwan man ako. At pansinin: parehong araw ang nagtago sa akin kagabi at ngayo'y naghahari sa langit, iisang dagat ang walang kibo kanina at ngayo'y nilalamon ang dalampasigan. Iisang araw, iisang ilog, ngunit ibang-iba rin. Ginawa silang bago ng panahon.

El Nido, 2010

Iisang puso na ngayo'y sugatan at walang laman, at iisang puso rin na bukas ay baka tuluyan din na alagaan ng isang magmamahal sa akin. Natutunan kong hayaan ang panahon gawin ang tungkulin nitong baguhin ang tila hindi na magbabago. Natutunan ko sa mga taon na ang siyang maaaring pumatay sa akin ang maaari ring lumigtas sa akin. Sa mga taon--hindi kailanman mabilis, hindi kailanman madali. Kailangan din ng panahon ng panahon upang turuan tayo ng mga sekreto't aral nito. Kaya pagkatapos ko sabihin ang lahat ng ito, pagkatapos ng lahat ng katwiran at retorika at mga talinhaga, ginagalang ko sa lahat silang matagal kung magluksa. Ginagalang ko hindi silang may mga metapisikal man o pangkaranawinang pag-unawa sa kalikasan ng panahon kundi silang may mga sugat na matagal kung maghilom. Sila ang sa balang araw ay magiging mga kaibigan ng panahon.

Supernova

2011-12-07T15:59:00.001+08:00

I have died everyday
waiting for you
Darling, don't be afraid
I have loved you for a
Thousand years
I'll love you for a
Thousand more

--Cristina Perri, "A Thousand Years"

What makes it possible to say that I have loved someone for a thousand years, and that I will continue to love a thousand more? What makes it possible for me to stretch time, even break its limits, that is, to destroy it, in order to say and mean that my love overcomes time and its horizon? At bottom, and I have asked this a thousand times or more--why can love suspend and more so transgress the universal law and preordained rule of time? At stake here is this: If love be beholden to time, what becomes of it? Can it still claim what it claims--its unto death do us parts, it forevers, its alwayses, or its promises? Or would admitting its inferiority and weakness to time's rule weaken it, and steal from it its very essence and richness, which is its ability to stake itself and its future for what it claims to be true?

Let us see.

I know, in the first place, that I do not exaggerate when I say I have loved you since forever. I can, to be sure, locate in time when I did in fact begin or "officially" started to love you. I met you this or that day, at this or that place, under this or that circumstance, for this or that reason, because of this or that characteristic you had and feelings I developed. My love had a beginning, and like all stories these beginnings are definite: they constitute the first few pages of our love, the first few chapters of what will be an epic of two lives crossing.

But when I say that I have loved you for so long, I know that I do not mean that I have loved you for a long period of time, whether it be ten, five, two years. Love's time and astronomical time are different; love has its own solar system unto itself, it has its own physics. That is where love must be sought, not in days, months, or years much less in anniversaries or old photographs.

We always here of people saying of lovers who are about to marry one of these mindless comments: it's about time, you've been together for so long, or haven't you just met him recently, isn't it too early? among others. Come to think of it, these words mean nothing to lovers. But let's not be too rash and discount the wisdom of many. What gives authority to their judgment is the opinion that it takes time to know a person, and along with this, that it takes time to be certain of someone you want to commit yourself to. That I must first know who the person I am infatuated or terribly in love with is, know his personality, 'quirks', behavior, ambitions and dreams, before I know he is 'the one' for me. But who can ever know a person? Who can ever say that I know her, or him, when I cannot even say that I know that tree outside my window or my hand or my father, my friend? More so, who can ever say I know this mystery and obscurity I call myself, this I, whose face I do not recognize in mirrors in some days and whose actions in others frighten me, who has its own secrets forever hidden, forever inaccessible to my knowledge, which has desires I will never understand. If knowledge be the high tribunal of love's sentences, it will never assure me that its judgments will hold--be true. To know you is not yet to love you. To know you better does not translate to loving you more.

The question of love's certainty and knowledge, so hard to answer much less to pose, has nothing to do with celestial time. We hear of another strongly put word: I knew I loved you the moment I met you. Clarity and lucidity, so hard to attain in this world of illusions and shadows, recover their deserved thrones in the kingdom of the heart. Love revolts against the rule of appearances, it owes its sole majesty and power by revolving around a sun which is not seen by the eyes. (And what is not visible is not enslaved by time.) Love rules without the aid of time because it governs not the movements of the stars or the planets but only the movements of the spirit, the loob, the will. And when it comes to the force of the will, when it is a matter of decision and choice, it will always come down to a matter of freedom. I may not be free to stop the revolution of the planets or the movements of the earth, it may not be in my power to freeze time, but I certainly have the power to choose love without knowledge or certainty for the simple reason that I am always free to love now. And all love has is now, never futures or pasts, only presents, solely presence. Love is being and being has no history or future, it can only receive the gift of presence in the present.

We have stumbled upon the word being yet again. This magic word, both stumbling block and bridge, is both the guardian and destroyer of time. The presence of someone you love, Heidegger says, makes available to the lover an experience of the totality of beings, of the "whole" world. What used to be something we cannot grasp mentally or physically, now becomes an object of experience, a privileged phenomenon for lovers. Like a black hole which swallows light and devours planets, the ability to reduce all beings to the presence of someone he loves enables the lover to suspend time, or warp it and bend it--but never to destroy it, only to detonate its hidden grandeur in a spectacular stellar explosion. The myriad beings of the world light up like stars before the gazes of lovers. Beings become more present, they become more than what they are, or they finally become what they are--time, born of the world, or is the world, included.

To then continue to receive love, or to vow to continue to give love a thousand years more, is what makes love come back to and find a home in time--now no longer to violate its governance but to give it the honor of being able to nourish in its years two lovers who love no longer in spite of it, but with it, in it.

Do It Yourself Christmas Kit

2011-12-05T09:46:00.001+08:00

Christmas is here. Not yet, really, but I will it so. There are occasions that you cannot force to come before schedule--New Year, Lent, All Soul's Day, your birthday--and to do so will just be plain silly. But Christmas oh! you sure can. It has been frequently said that our country has the longest yuletide season. We begin hearing carols by September. We see obsessive compulsives doing their shopping in October (or are they just smart or scrimping, taking advantage of the end of October sales?). Christmas trees are put up early November after the days devoted to the dead and saints and Halloween, which is always an all too human transition: from the grave to the cradle. (Death cannot stay in our minds longer than bearable.) And the holidays do not end after Christmas but the day before the first working or school day. We double Germans and their Octoberfest easily.

I have willingly submitted myself to joining the Christmas parade. Even if the spirit has not really possessed me yet, I decided to start doing the many errands and responsibilities the season requires from us. First and easiest of all is Christmas shopping. I have been going to the malls the past two Sunday nights (Eastwood and Trinoma). I find it rather convenient: the shopping centers are open till 11, there are relatively fewer people (thus more parking) compared to weekdays and Saturdays, and I also try to make Sunday night a kind of pilgrimage of the self. I'd go out alone on Mondays before, but since there never seems to be an end to the work as of late, I thought I'd shift that to Sunday, when I usually just rested, read, or went out for a drink by my lonesome or with a friend to bless the week to come.

I also buy a Christmas CD or two every December. Last night, feeling twice as Christmassy as before, I purchased two, one OPM (for the car) and an English compilation (for the house). The local CD I played on the way home.

What I haven't done yet, but plan on doing so: buy Poinsettias. They always look beautiful in the garden or in the living room under the warm embrace of soft Christmas lights.

One lesson though: forcing yourself to feel something, like wanting to be happy, can really become expensive. But the way I see it the season gives me a reason, an excuse, to give. At least that's what I tell myself when I collate the receipts. So I've stopped doing that. Can't wait for Sunday to come. Hoping Shangrila or Power Plant also close late.

The reason I've decided to rush the arrival of Christmas is I've been in a funk as of late. Many things are happening now (and don't they always come at the end of the year?). I don't know if I am escaping some really absurd events and deep emotions I have. But no matter: we do what makes us go by whether it's a trip to the mall or wrapping presents, making lists or eating ham, anticipating Christmas parties or writing seasonal essays.

I've always been weakest during this season, though by sheer will and effort I've become better the past few year in confronting the sadness Christmas whispers with colder nights and undeserved gifts. Christmas is in our hearts, goes a song from my newly purchased album. The trouble is if you've a darkening heart. The problem is if there is silence in your soul. Darkness is the condition of the possibility, however, for the lights of the season to brightly shine like celestial stars in the night. Carols require that our hearts be still to hear the trumpets of heaven sing the gloria.

If you want Christmas, if you want happiness, nothing can prepare the manger for hope better than sad hearts which only wish that darkness end.

Food Network Channel and Philosophy

2011-11-26T11:27:00.001+08:00

Lessons from watching too much Food Network Channel

You can always add more, but remember you can't take it out later

Put some salt and pepper on everything. EVERYTHING.

Everything can taste a bit better with a little more butter

The oven should always be pre-heated

Cooking for others makes your dishes taste better. It suddenly acquires meaning. We, unlike animals, do not just eat so as not to starve. We don't eat, we feast.

While the presentation can change everything, taste is still king

Learn from other chefs

Never reveal your secret ingredient

Taste it before you serve it

Never use the same chopping board for raw and cooked food

Measure ingredients when you're just a beginner

Don't be afraid of adding new ingredients to give old favorites a twist

Make more than enough because you can always have it tomorrow again. Leftover is happiness twice over.

Take out the seeds when squeezing lemons

Add color

Add texture

Make cooking look fun even if it's hard work

Cat Cora from Iron Chef America

Drink a glass of wine when you eat

Eat what you cook

There's always room for dessert

"Sad Writing"

2011-11-22T22:09:00.001+08:00

There are two kinds of sadness, and they are distinguished from each other by their objects or causes. The more usual kind is a sadness due to a particular event. The book I am reading may move me to tears, as the death of a friend can crush my heart for days on end. Our emotions are usually triggered by a stimulus--elation, anxiety, melancholy, fear. We feel such and such because . . . . But the more problematic instance is when you are sad, lonely, afraid, and silent without anything happening to you, without knowing any cause, without knowing why.

This is why I write when I am saddened without a definite reason. It is easy for me to say that I write when I feel such dark emotions so that I can, through writing, grope in the dark, reaching for something tangible to hold on to, a reason. Writing is searching for me. I rarely know what I am writing about till I write, I never know what I will find. So I write to find out, to strike the cords of the soul, tune it out to know which string is loose, even broken. This kind of writing is what people always call "cathartic" writing: you purge and purify yourself by bathing in words.

But, really, I usually finish writing without really finding anything. It's because writing is not just for cleaning yourself. It is, I feel, just a pure act. You let your mind go, your fingers work, you concentrate, you listen to yourself and welcome thoughts as they come, and then you speak. No joke, these things, it requires a profound effort each time. While writing is second nature already for some, they will still admit that words do not just flow out of their pen. Writing is work, even the plainest kind (but still with decency). And this is why I run to writing when I am in the dark and when I feel alone. It gives me something to do, it requires from me something that I can no longer give to a world which I sometimes do not understand, makes me feel important at least to myself, or at least to the moment which gave me the gift of doing something I still enjoy.

What you write, how your write, and the beauty of the words do not matter in "sad writing." What matters above all is honesty. When you are happy, thoughtful, doing a paper, or trying to impress someone--when you are writing for a reason other than writing--then you can never be really honest, never be really transparent. But writing in the dark, there you can weep and shout and complain and ask for help. Sincerity springs from the wells of sadness. No more masks, no more pretensions, no more nervous smiles, when you are in despair. Whatever for? The last thing you want to be when you are down is to appear intelligent and sound eloquent. The most gruesome sound on earth you will ever hear, they say, is a man wailing in terror and tears.

Nothing could be more naked than words.

On Listening

2011-11-21T10:06:00.001+08:00

I try to be a good listener as much as I can. Our everyday lives will contain numerous moments of having to listen to others, may it be as simple and plain as watching television or tuning into the radio, casual conversations, consultations, having classes, and to the more serious situations such as friends confiding in you and you praying to your god. Speaking, like listening, is something we cannot do without daily. But in contrast to receiving words, perhaps speaking is "easier": I relay what is in my mind--information, question, request, opinion--and put them into words. Eloquence and clarity are what I aim for; these are what writers and teachers and story tellers know: their craft and skill and careers depend on their ability to articulate in the most creative and interesting way what they report about or reflected on.

I intentionally used the words "craft" and "skill" in describing speaking. We know that not everyone is a good speaker (public or private) as not everyone is also a good writer (in substance and form). There is an art to writing, and it takes patience, practice, instruction and perhaps some talent to be good in composing the spoken or written word. But what about listening? Could there also be an art to it? Can one say that there is also virtue or excellence, as the Greeks meant by that word, in being able to receive words instead of delivering them? In other words, we often say of a concerned friend or a patient student, that one is a "good listener." But what does that mean? What does it take in order to be able to listen well?

Let's take a look at bad listeners first. Who are they and what can we notice of them? One characteristic we notice immediately is their susceptibility to distraction. When I speak to a bad listener one of my pet peeves is when he or she does not look at me in the eye. The eyes wander about, look left and right at the slightest visual stimulus or auditory provocation (someone who enters the door in a restaurant, a dropped pen, the television from a far and so on). What this tells me is that you do not listen to me intently, that you just hear my words through your ears and they are not "processed" by the mind, and this explains why another sound can easily replace or substitute the noise that I produce. I have to compete for your attention because what I say is like any other sound that you can choose to focus on or listen to.

Another sign if you are a bad listener is if you do not understand what was said. Related to being prone to distraction is the usual inability of someone to focus on what the words as a whole mean. Like reading an article or a book that bores me, I skim through the pages, hoping that a sentence I chance upon can tell me something about the whole, because I have no plan of going through the whole in order to understand it. Understanding what is said or written, to be sure, requires that you know what most of the words you hear or read mean, and that you possess a certain level of comprehension--or that ability to put things together. But most of the time bad listeners are those who do not even attempt to understand what a friend in a casual conversation or story is saying. Why so? Because focusing on what you tell me requires a decision on my part. I may by just surrendering to receiving the sounds you produce really hear you, and I cannot do otherwise instead if I decide not to listen to you. And the first step to take in order to really listen to you is to decide to focus on what you are saying, and that means suspending all the other sounds I hear.

Like the eyes, the ears can also select what it wants to hear. Every time I am surrounded by sound or noise. Now the clock on my desk is ticking. From a distance I notice that someone is drilling something or using an electric saw where a house is being constructed. Our neighbor's dog greets the messenger by successive barking. Our help, I now hear, is preparing something in the kitchen, she is pounding on some garlic I guess. Just now the wind is blowing and the leaves are dancing. And nearest to me--the last sound I notice--is the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard. All these sounds and noise I did not notice when I was thinking as I wrote the above sentences. And now I realize something: that what could be the nearest sounds we hear are not keyboards being tapped on or they rhythmic performance of clocks but the sound of the voice which speaks in our mind when we think. All the while I was trying to think I was able to drown all the sound and noise around me. Imagine that: by deciding to listen intently, we are able to suspend all other competing noises to the point of as if they do not produce sounds. Isn't that somewhat of a miracle?

For imagine if you could hear everything and you are not able to focus on the sounds you choose to listen to. That is unbearable. The saw from the distance sounds as loud as the clock on my desk, the cries of the crushed garlic as noisy as my thoughts. Someone who does hear everything is some unlucky fellow. He'd be unable to distinguish one sound from another, and would not be able focus on what he wishes to hear. And we know of such cases. There is a medical condition known as hyperacusis which is a defect of the inner ear, leading to hypersensitivity to certain frequencies of sound. But hyperacusis is a physical defect; those who have it have an excuse. People without the condition and are just bad listeners have none.

What is a good listener then? Someone who is not easily distracted, focuses on what you say, and perhaps most important of all, wishes to understand you the best he or she can. Good listeners then, at least for the most part, are the thinkers. Reflective persons are those who know how to listen to themselves, can gather their thoughts, and because of this they are able to clearly express themselves in writing and speaking. The common mark that thinkers and speakers and writers share is knowing how to listen well. And if I may add another trait they have in common, one which is let's say the condition of the possibility of being a good listener, is this: they all know how to dwell in silence. Whence the lack of thinkers and writers in our age of electric saws and television.

But mind you, the ability to think does not automatically translate to becoming a good listener. Sometimes sound thinking can also be the very hurdle that keeps you from sound listening. There are those who always have opinions, who cannot wait for you to finish to share them, who only use conversation partners so they have someone to listen to them, so they have a "sounding board," which is the auditory equivalent of a mirror. I guess needy talkers and thinkers are worse than bad listeners. At least bad and unreflective listeners just don't know how to listen, while talkative thinkers are blind Narcissuses who fall in love with their thoughts and choose to vainly listen to themselves.

Caravaggio, Narcissus, 1597-1599

Lecture on Guilt and Remorse

2011-11-17T20:40:00.001+08:00

Why do we feel guilt? What makes it possible?

We can only feel guilt when we think we did something“wrong” or “evil” or “sinful.” Guilt means knowing and feeling that you did notobey a law, that you transgressed a moral norm or what is accepted by all, orthat you failed to fulfill your responsibilities.

We may feel guilty when we fail an exam because we did notstudy, or when we were not able to greet a friend on his birthday, as we canalso feel guilty for hurting the feelings of a friend, and this can also beseen in the extreme case when a man becomes guilty for killing another man. Thejudge gives the verdict “guilty”—and what this means is that the one who wasaccused or a suspect at first now becomes undeniably responsible for a crime:he formally becomes a murderer, robber, lawbreaker. But does this necessarilymean that the guilty man feels guilt?

To be sure, we feel guilt when we acknowledge doingsomething that should not be done, and more than that, we feel sorry for whatwe did. Guilt is the source of remorse or regret: What I did was wrong, and Iwish I did not do it. But since I cannot undo what I have already done, theonly option left for me to relieve me of my guilt is to feel remorse, torepent, and then to ask for forgiveness. By asking for forgiveness, I imaginemyself being liberated from my guilt and remorse. We usually believe that whenwe are pardoned, then all will be well again, that the damage has been undone, thatwe are delivered from our remorse and absolved from out guilt, as if we no longer did anything, as if nothing happened.

Remorse andforgiveness have a way of taking the responsibility we have from ourselves: Itis no longer I that holds my salvation, but the other—the one who has the power to for-give me and give me back myinnocence. This is why asking for forgiveness is sometimes just a matter either of irresponsibility or laziness.

But what Sartre shows us in the play we read, The Flies, is that guilt is notnecessary. Guilt is something you assume, something you choose, something thatyou decide to own—or not. And the choice to be guilty or innocent begins withthe prior and more important choice of following a law, may it be divine orhuman, to begin with. When I choose to follow a law—say, the “law of the land”or the doctrines of the faith—I also choose to be accountable for the timeswhen I break the law. More precisely: By choosing to follow a law, I bothchoose the privileges and punishments that go with it. Laws tell us what weshould do and not do, ethics teaches us what is right and wrong action, areligion tells us of good and evil, and guides us on how to reach the gates ofheaven or how to avoid falling into the fiery abysses of hell. Law, morals,doctrines will always be there, they are already prepared or always formulatedanew; we are born into them, we are surrounded by laws, we are taught how and what what we should believe.

But what Sartre says is that while laws, ethics, anddoctrines are already there, you do not need to comply with them. One isabsolutely free, according to Sartre, and while one is not free to not besurrounded by these human or divine laws, one can always negate them or choosenot to participate. One can, as Camus would say, become a stranger. You can always say No to these laws, not in the sense ofwanting to become a lawbreaker or sinner, but in the sense that you just say Noto accepting what is right or wrong, moral or unethical, good or evil. Bysaying No—and the man who says No is what Camus calls the rebel—by becoming arebel you relinquish the privileges of the law, as you also save yourself fromits punishments.

Of course, you will still be caught, apprehended, orcondemned if you choose to break a law even if you do not believe in it. Amurderer who kills another man will still be sought after by the law,imprisoned when caught, or even killed. That is our situation, and no matter howabsolutely free we are, situations are limited and our freedom will be confronted and even resisted against by places and people and gods. Sartre knew this as well. Orestes was abandoned by Elektra, he was driven out by thepeople of the city, condemned by Zeus, called a murderer, to be pursued by flies and the Furies for the rest of his days.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau,The Remorse
of Orestes or Orestes Pursued by the Furies (1862)

But while Orestes hadto suffer these consequences, he never felt guilt. He assumed theresponsibility for his double murder, and gave no excuse: he did not evenexplain himself, even vengeance was not a motive for him. The blood was in hishands, and he knew it, but he did not have remorse. What he did was “wrong” buthe accepted the consequences. And the man who accepts the consequences of hisactions has no need for remorse or forgiveness. Why repent for an act you choseand committed your whole being to and staked your freedom for? We create ourselvesby our actions, and when Orestes decided to kill Aegistheus and Clytemnestra hepainted his fate with his own indelible blood. In the first place, from whom does he ask forgiveness? Zeus? Orestes precisely said: “What do I care forZeus? Justice is a matter between men, and I need no god to teach me it.”

What One Deserves

2011-11-16T10:35:00.001+08:00

What does one do in order to get what he deserves? Is everything a matter of chance and luck, or does the world balance fates and lives, an invisible balance sheet as reference, absolute power in reserve, justice and equality its law.

Nobody gets what he wants, they say, and that we only get what we give or deserve. I would be happy with that economic exchange, actually: there is equality, fairness, and a clear logic to it--and what are we without understanding? But that rarely occurs. I see dear ones suffering and, to my finite understanding, I am not aware of them hurting anyone. How does a teenager earn that? What did they do? Now, of course, we're smart people. We don't ask such questions whose answers we will never receive nor understand even if we do.

If I take a look at my life, I would not be able to say whether I won the lottery by luck or I earned the blessings I have. I'm afraid to answer that, to explain what I received and rationalize my condition. What I do know however, what I am certain of, is that I have been given much, well, too much, and there should be reason why that happened. Darn reason, there it goes again. All I know is that even if I am not able to express my gratitude as much I want or need to, I always thank people for what they have given me. I also know that these must be given anew--literally. Gifts given, always in excess and never deserved, are best received when they teach you how to also give.

--But not to give back: we never are able to pay for what we are given, and to do so means pompously and without humility having to earn it again (retrospectively), and that is to cancel the gift as gift. To "pay it forward" means that I simply transfer gifts from hand to hand--I never owned it, I never wanted it.--When the point was to give even if you never received anything, or didn't have to, or even when you couldn't. To give from the innermost resources of one's heart without return or transfer, that is, without reason--always undeserved, never justified.

The God Within

2011-11-05T18:37:00.000+08:00

Each man's life represents a road toward himself, an attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that--one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best he can. Each man carries the vestiges of his birth--the slime and eggshells of his primeval past--with him to the end of days. Some never become human, remaining a frog, lizard, ant. Some are human above the waist, fish below. Each represents a gamble on the part of nature in creation of the human. We all share the same origin, our mothers; all of us come in at the same door. But each of us--experiments of the depths--strives toward his destiny. We can understand each other; but each of us is able to interpret himself to himself alone.

--Hesse, Demian

Why is it so difficult to become ourselves? Why is it that sometimes our lives become a comedy (and tragedy) of errors on the way of finding out where are hearts should finally rest and lay? Why, to begin with, are we not who we really are--but only seeds and promises, potentialities and never actualities, only shells and drafts and plans that rarely be?

I find it quite unfair, to be honest. Not knowing has something devilish about it. The tragic hero commits himself to what is honest and pure and right, but in doing so he unawares chooses what leads to his irrevocable demise. We, to be sure, know what fate will befall our hero and what he shall receive in exchange for his choices and his all-too-human weaknesses. We know--and we watch and predict and rationalize why suffering is necessary and understand the incomprehensible wisdom of the gods. We never question why events unfold they way they unfold for others, while that is what our hero is--a question to himself, a riddle for the world, a problem of God.

But when it comes to ourselves we cannot rationalize. We cannot say that this failure was necessary and that misstep a whisper from the world; we fumble our way most our waking days and that is all that can be said. I would be lying if I say that my past was necessary for me in order to be where I am now. I didn't know then, and I still don't know now why I am who I am. One test to know if you have already claimed your destiny is to ask yourself if is this where it all ends? and if you will not change anymore? Happy though you may be with your lot and shade under the sky, know that this is fleeting and that never does the ground you stand on not shift. One calamity changes everything, one person can disrupt your cherished balance, one dark day eclipses all your beloved memories. We are forever banished nomads in the world, cursed to wander its deserts and valleys, skies and seas, never finding home east of Eden while doomed to recall a lost paradise. We all bear the mark of Cain.

What to make of all of this then? If I know that I will forever be a stranger to myself, never to learn the secrets of my fate, how do I roam about the earth? I can despair, and that is perfectly understandable (why feign dignity before the light which embarrasses you?). Or I can settle: pitch my tent in a lot of my choosing, decide on living a life worthy for a man. The second path is the easiest because it is the sensible way. To despair is to be weak and to surrender, while the point is to keep on living in the face an absurd existence. We create our lives, gather odds and ends which could make up a semblance of a 'self', and, as much as possible, pray for happiness--one which silently says "In spite of this world which was not created for happiness, please let me imagine and feel as if I am, could be, happy." And with such prayers we tend to forget what we pray against because of our confidence and trust or dishonestly. We forget that happiness is impossible and that, truly, nothing existing makes sense.

There is one other way, I think, other than despair and happiness. One can become indifferent to both, suspend all human notions such as fate and gods, reason and meaning, purpose and love. You can be a solitary. Take leave of the world's landscapes and enter the darkened labyrinth of the heart where gods and men cannot find you nor tell you where you need to go and what you need to do. There, where no word has been spoken, you listen to the sage within you that all men have but rarely listen to. What we used to call conscience at one time and easily take as the voice of the devil in the next, that is the real you who knows everything--from what you really like and wish to do, what you really are and should be. "It is good to realize that within us there is someone who knows everything, wills everything, does everything better than we ourselves" (Hesse, Demian). We have ready numerous experiences when we find ourselves knowing what decision to make, but because another thought comes to mind, or because we start to think, we dismiss our "intuition" or "gut feel," consider our first choice as hasty and thus probably wrong. We know everything already. And that is because we are often told by a voice within us. Such voice within us was what the Greeks called daimon.

In front of a tribunal which sentenced him to death, Socrates spoke of many times hearing a voice which would warn him if what he was about to do would be unwise. (The voice, though, would be silent if what he was to do would do no harm.) It is doubtful if admitting to hearing voices changed even a few of the juror's minds. Nevertheless, the philosopher confessed to having a daimon (or as he said, "a divine something") at the point when he was asked if he didn't even want to show remorse for his actions in order to save his life (impiety, corruption of the youth, teaching false gods were the charges brought against him). So Socrates said: I am not answerable to you but only to my god, your laws are your own, and it would be a graver mistake if I should not follow what I am told.

It is rather unlikely that the voice Socrates heard was from a god without. It would be more faithful to experience to say that the voice comes from within, or from ourselves. Plato speaks of another etymological meaning of daimon: he said it came from daemones which meant wisdom or knowledge. In a word, the voice which advises us on what we need to do (or what we should not do, rather) comes nowhere else than from the wisdom of what Socrates called an examined life.

There, in the recesses and darkest chambers of the self, or selves (as all of us are many), there we find who we really are, calling out to us, asking for an audience, telling us not to listen to the world and others but to pay heed to one's self. And it is only when we wander the deserts within, when we survey the terrains of our thoughts, desires, and love, that we gain knowledge and wisdom, which, it is hoped, will help us decide on what to make of our otherwise meaningless lives. It has often been said that if the world possesses no meaning, then meaning is a matter of creation and decision among men. It would be wise, therefore, not to obey the laws of the world and be afraid of men's judgment and their punishment. Only follow the commands of the voice within for to disobey would be to spite the only god there is, the god within.

When we reach the end of the road within, ah, that is when we find our destiny. The word "destiny" also comes from "daemon." This is not surprising at all. Men who gain wisdom not from others but from self-knowledge, those who know who they are, become who they are. A life is not beholden to fate or to gods or to the plan of the universe; a life is its own solar system, a law unto himself, meaning on its own. No event is an act of God or fortuitous, as no decision can ever be a mistake. To the contrary a life aware of itself does not refer itself to anything else outside it; thus there is no meaning, and there is no need to have one because I am not answerable to any one. This, perhaps, is the heaviest definition of loneliness: to receive no more answers from the world. These are our moments of great crisis. Those crepuscular times we are abandoned even by God. There are our Gardens of Gethsemane.

"A demon will not select you, but you will choose a demon" (Plato, Rep. 617e). We choose our own demons as we choose our own lives. Only when we choose our own destiny and take it to its most extreme conclusions--facing the consequences bravely, never turning back like Orpheus--do we, if it is still possible, become happy (eudaimonia) and even be something heroic and divine (daimon).

Nikolai Nikolaevich Ge (Gay), Head of Jesus,
Preparation for The Crucifixion, 1893

For Mac

All a Man Needs

2011-11-02T16:51:00.001+08:00

I abide by the wisdom that all a man needs are three good things: a good watch, a good pen, and a good pair of shoes.

All the rest--clothes, cars, gadgets--are superfluous possessions, unnecessary. These things everybody has. But your choice of watch, pen, and shoes--they individualize you: they say something about your taste, what you want, and if you mean business. And they're the small stuff, too. They can go unnoticed while cars and other men's toys are always seen precisely because they are meant to be seen.

A bold, thick signature from a strong fountain pen says you know what you are doing.

Your shoes tell you where you have been to and where you are going.

A good watch simply means that you let yourself enjoy some luxury from time to time (no pun intended).

Now of course these are only material possessions. They really do not say anything essential about a man, his mind and his heart. And I agree. So let's get that out of the way.

But that's also part of the fun. You know they mean nothing and that you can easily lose or give them away. (You should only own things you are willing to lose.) I like hiding behind things and appearances. Strangers and acquaintances judge me to be your usual materialistic young man. I like surprising them.

The irony is that I rarely bring my fountain pen with me because I fear I may lose it. (Happened to me already.) I also end up in sneakers because I do not have too many formal parties and events to attend. I also usually use my good watches only on weekends because wearing them in school kind of doesn't make sense for me. Which sounds sad, isn't it?

But precisely so. Because it's not about them being seen. It's about feeling good about a few beautiful objects. More than the luxury or the brand, what matters is you know you have things you find beautiful. And I like beautiful things. From beautiful lines or photographs to beautiful watches and pens.

What separates us from beasts is that we admire and create according to the standards of beauty. The day we make do with what could be more beautiful is the day we, well, feel less beautiful.

Lecture on Kierkegaard and Nietzsche

2011-10-24T11:13:00.003+08:00

I gave a short introductory lecture for my new class on Existentialism last Friday. I thought it proper to begin with philosophers that class took up with me a year ago: Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. Supposedly the fathers of Existentialism, without them knowing it, it was interesting to note some of the similarities between the two creators. Some analogues to note:

Kierkegaard :: Nietzsche

The Test of Abraham :: The Death of God
Anxiety, dread, fear and trembling :: the abandonment of God and nihilism
The teleological suspension of the ethical :: the transvaluation of values towards a philosophy which is Beyond Good and Evil
The priority of choice and decision (Either/Or) :: the test of the eternal recurrence (will I choose my life over and again?)
Freedom :: responsibility for one's self
The Knight of Faith :: the Overman

So I asked my students, given the possible kinship of the two, what would be the marked differences between Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. I was happy to hear as the first response that the knight of faith obviously surrenders himself (infinite resignation) to an Other, to God--while Nietzsche's overman is a law unto himself, that is, he is alone. While Abraham breaks all values because he had an absolute relationship with God, Nietzsche's overman has no relationship with anyone else except with himself. Or again, Abraham acquires his license from God, while the superman draws his strength from his own will to power. And finally, because most clearly: Nietzsche's movement goes inward to the self in order to finally become who he is, while the man of infinite resignation directs himself outward to God through passion and love. The first movement is centrifugal, fleeing the self by the force of love, while the other is centripetal, a going back in order to find the center of the self.

But as I told them: The knight's offering and sacrificing need not be a dissolution or destruction of the self. Recalling Augustine (with whom they are more familiar with): the more we approach God the nearer we come to our true selves. God is interior intimo meo--more nearer to me than my innermost self. That is to say, deep down the recesses of my self I find God; or in the desert of the Godhead I find my wandering self (Eckhart).

The paradox of faith is that the more I allow myself to be destroyed by God, the more I am re-created into my true self. Whence Matthew's paradox: "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matt. 10:39). In the time of my greatest destruction and need, I had only one prayer: Destroy me fully so you can renew me completely.

Overcoming one's self is rather tedious and difficult because I may not have enough will and power to do so, which may stem ultimately because I do not know what overcoming myself is for. But the man of faith, to follow this line, is him who is clear to himself that there is a goal and a purpose. He has an intentional object, an aim, a reason--to make God happy. This gives his endeavors and actions meaning and unity. "Purity of heart," says Kierkegaard, "is to will one thing."

White Happiness

2011-10-24T00:18:00.001+08:00

From Gide, The Immoralist--

A Love Story from Hesse

2011-10-18T09:03:00.000+08:00

From Demian--

And she told told me about a youth who had fallen in love with a planet. He stood by the sea, stretched out his arms and prayed to the planet, dreamed of it, and directed all his thoughts to it. But he knew, or he felt he knew, that a star cannot be embraced by a human being. He considered it to be his fate to love a heavenly body without any hope of fulfillment and out of this insight he constructed an entire philosophy of renunciation and silent, faithful suffering that would improve and purify him. Yet all his dreams reached the planet. Once he stood again on the high cliff at night by the sea and gazed at the planet and burned with love for it. And at the height of his longing he leaped into the emptiness toward the planet, but at the instant of leaping "it's impossible" flashed once more through his mind. If at the instant of leaping he had had the strength of faith in the fulfillment of his love he would have soared into the heights and been united with the star.

A Lesson in Writing Philosophy

2011-10-17T18:46:00.001+08:00

2011-10-11T12:31:00.003+08:00

10.25.11

Tolstoy's Parable

2011-10-10T09:55:00.001+08:00

from A Confession

There is an Eastern fable, told long ago, of a traveller overtaken on a plain by an enraged beast. Escaping from the beast he gets into a dry well, but sees at the bottom of the well a dragon that has opened its jaws to swallow him. And the unfortunate man, not daring to climb out lest he should be destroyed by the enraged beast, and not daring to leap to the bottom of the well lest he should be eaten by the dragon, seizes s twig growing in a crack in the well and clings to it. His hands are growing weaker and he feels he will soon have to resign himself to the destruction that awaits him above or below, but still he clings on. Then he sees that two mice, a black one and a white one, go regularly round and round the stem of the twig to which he is clinging and gnaw at it. And soon the twig itself will snap and he will fall into the dragon's jaws. The traveller sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish; but while still hanging he looks around, sees some drops of honey on the leaves of the twig, reaches them with his tongue and licks them. So I too clung to the twig of life, knowing that the dragon of death was inevitably awaiting me, ready to tear me to pieces; and I could not understand why I had fallen into such torment. I tried to lick the honey which formerly consoled me, but the honey no longer gave me pleasure, and the white and black mice of day and night gnawed at the branch by which I hung. I saw the dragon clearly and the honey no longer tasted sweet. I only saw the unescapable dragon and the mice, and I could not tear my gaze from them. And this is not a fable but the real unanswerable truth intelligible to all.

The deception of the joys of life which formerly allayed my terror of the dragon now no longer deceived me. No matter how often I may be told, "You cannot understand the meaning of life so do not think about it, but live," I can no longer do it: I have already done it too long. I cannot now help seeing day and night going round and bringing me to death. That is all I see, for that alone is true. All else is false.

Kahapon Lamang

2011-10-08T12:11:00.003+08:00

Inawit ni Sharon Cuneta

Kahapon lamang narito ang saya
May dalawang puso, daigdig na kay ganda
Sa kanilang mata mababanaag pa
Ningning ng pagsinta ukol sa isa't-isa

Kahapon lamang ay magkahawak pa
Sa isang landasin na ngayo'y nagsanga
Bagama't may ngiti, balatkayong saya
Magkabalikan pa kaya sila?

Sa kanilang mata mababanaag pa
Ningning ng pagsinta ukol sa isa't-isa

Kahapon lamang pag-ibig ay wagas
Animo'y batis na di magwawakas
Nguni't naglayo, di na nagkasundo
Kahit nagmamahalan kapwa puso

Kahapon lamang pag-ibig ay wagas
Animo'y batis na di magwawakas
Nguni't naglayo, di na nagkasundo
Kahit nagmamahalan kapwa puso

Bakit para bagang minsa'y hindi nagiging sapat ang pag-ibig? Kailan ito nangyayari? Paano ito posible?

How You Will Know

2011-10-07T22:44:00.004+08:00

"When one can no longer love, then one should--pass by!"

--Nietzsche

Muntik na Kitang Minahal

2011-10-03T13:25:00.005+08:00

William Henry Bartlett, Hesitation (1886)

Inawit ni Carol Banawa

May sikreto akong sasabihin sa 'yo
Mayroong nangyaring hindi mo alam
Ito'y isang lihim itinagong kay tagal
Muntik na kitang minahal
'Di ko noon nakayang ipadama sa 'yo
Ang nararamdaman ng pusong ito
At hanggang ngayon ay naaalala pa
Muntik na kitang minahal

KORO:
Ngayon ay aaminin ko na
Na sana nga ay tayong dalawa
Bawat tanong mo'y iniwasan ko
Akala ang pag-ibig mo'y 'di totoo
'Di ko alam kung ano ang nangyari
Damdamin ko sa 'yo'y hindi ko masabi
Hanggang ang puso mo'y mapagod
Sa paghihintay kay tagal
Saka ko lang naisip muntik na kitang minahal

'Di ko noon nakayang ipadama sa 'yo
Ang nararamdaman ng pusong ito
At hanggang ngayon ay naaalala pa
Muntik na kitang minahal

KORO:
Ngayon ay aaminin ko na
Na sana nga'y tayong dalawa
Bawat tanong mo'y iniwasan ko
Akala ang pag-ibig mo'y 'di totoo
'Di ko alam kung ano ang nangyari
Damdamin ko sa 'yo'y hindi ko nasabi
Hanggang ang puso mo'y mapagod
Sa paghihintay kay tagal
Saka ko lang naisip
Muntik na kitang minahal

Hanggang ang puso mo'y mapagod
Sa paghihintay kay tagal
Saka ko lang naisip
Muntik na kitang minahal

*

Any particular insights, or interesting questions that may be raised, from this song?

Testing New Blogger Phone App

2011-10-03T00:09:00.002+08:00

Sana'y Maghintay ang Walang Hanggan

2011-09-24T17:57:00.007+08:00

Inawit ni Sharon Cuneta

Doon ka, dito ako
Hindi magkatagpo
Tawag ko'y di marinig ba't kay layo mo
Lapitan man ay di mo matanaw
Bingi't bulag sa akin ay walang pakiramdam
Sayang na pagmamahal
Paano nang pag-ibig kong walang hanggan

Sana'y maghintay ang walang hanggan
Hanggang makilala mo ako ang iyong mahal
Baka ko matutuhan kita'y kalimutan
Baka pangako ko'y dumating sa kailanman
Sana'y maghintay ang walang hanggan
Sana ang iyong paglingap ay muli kong matikman
Subalit kong paglimot ay di mapigilan
Alalahanin mong kay tagal kitang hinintay

Narito ang puso kong inilaan sayo
Pagod na nanginginig baka magtampo
Naghihintay ang labi kong uhaw
Handog nito'y ligayang di mapapantayan
Sayang na pagmamahal
Parang hangin lamang sa iyo'y nagdaan

Sana'y maghintay ang walang hanggan
Hanggang makilala mo ako ang iyong mahal
Baka ko matutuhan kita'y kalimutan
Baka pangako ko'y dumating sa kailanman
Sana'y maghintay ang walang hanggan
Sana ang iyong paglingap ay muli kong matikman
Subalit kong paglimot ay di mapigilan
Alalahanin mong kay tagal kitang hinintay

Minsan ay napapagod din ang mga mangingibig. Habang totoo nga't walang hanggan ang kalooban--at mula sa kalooban ang pag-ibig--may hangganan din naman ang liksi, pananabik, ang pasensya natin. Iba ang nasa puso, iba rin ang nasa katawan. Sa pagkapagod ng katawan tayo madalas natatauhan, o madalas napapaisip: Tama pa ba ang ginagawa ko? May patutunguhan pa ba ito? May dahilan pa ba upang manatili? Kakayanin ko pa bang magmahal? Maaaring tiyak ang mga sagot natin sa mga tanong na ito, ngunit maaaring maging alanganin naman ang ating lakas at pasensya. Marami nang mga mangingibig na sumuko sa isa't isa hindi dahil hindi na sila nagmamahalan ngunit dahil hindi na rin sapat ang pag-ibig kung minsan: masakit na, ang tagal na, ubos na. At maaari lamang tayo tunay na mapagod dahil lubos tayong umibig at walang tinira.

Kadalasan ay kailangan lamang ng pahinga ng mga mangingibig na napagod ("I need some space," "I need some time," "I need to gather myself," mga ganyang drama). Baka magkabalikan kapag may lakas muli. O baka rin tuluyan nang magkahiwalayan dahil mayroon nang iba, mayroong ibang posibilidad na maaring hindi kasing hirap, kasama na riyan ang pagiging mag-isa. Ngunit anuman ang dahilan, mayroon pa ring batayan na maaaring balikan ang dalawang napagod na mangingibig, ang kanilang maaaring gawing sukatan kung ipagpapatuloy pa (o titigilan na) ang kanilang samahan--iyan ang dati nilang pag-iibigan, ang kanilang pinagsaluhang ligaya, ang kanilang kapwa nakaraan. May batayan: dahil alam ko na, naranasan ko na, dahil umibig at inibig na ako. Kaya mas madaling magpasya, dahil alam ko na. Ang alanganin ngayon, kung gayon, ay ang mga mangingibig na napagod at napapaisip kung dapat pa bang ituloy ang pag-ibig na wala namang batayan o wala namang babalikan. Sila ang mga mangingibig na hindi pa naman inibig ng kanilang sinta. Iyan ang dahilan ng kanilang pagkapagod: sa ubos lakas na pagmamahal sa isang hindi naman sila mahal.

Ang distansya na hindi matawid ng isang nais umibig ang pinakamabigat sa lahat--mabigat dahil kailangang buhatin ang puso sa ibayo na napakalayo. Madals ay madali lamang lapitan ang nais kong ibigin. Kailangan ko lamang magpakita sa kanyang abot-tanaw, magpakilala, maging penomenon sa kanya. Ito ang madalas gawin ng lahat ng nagnanais umibig mula sa malayo: tawirin ang distansya, mapalapit, upang ako'y makita't marinig. Nagiging masalimuot lamang ang sitwasyon kapag ang kalayuan na nais mong paiksiin ay hindi mapaiksi gaano man katindi ang iyong pagnanais na makalapit. Iyan ang pagkakataon kung kailan ang iniibig ko'y isang para bagang abot-tanaw na habang nilalapita'y lumalayo rin. Anumang pagsubok kong magpakita ako ay tinalilikuran niya.

Kung anuman ang dahilan ng kanyang pagkailap (hindi niya ako gusto o tipo, may mahal siyang iba, hindi pa siya handa umibig, atbp.) ay hindi na mahalaga. Ang katotohanan lamang na nalalaman ko ay mayroon akong pag-ibig na nais kong ibigay. Ito lamang ang nararamdaman ko: May pag-ibig akong tangan, nais ko itong ibigay sa iyo, ngunit hindi tayo nagtatagpo--walang espasyo at panahon kung saan tayo maaaring maging penomenon sa isa't isa. Gaya ng mga larong mataya-taya, taguan, Marco Polo minsan ang laro ng pag-ibig. Isang pagsigaw ng pangalan ng mangingibig na nasa malayo na nagbubunga ng nakakatakot na mga alingawngaw. Gaya ng pagsigaw ni Echo at pagtakbo ni Narcissus tungo sa tunay niyang mahal, laging nahuhuli ang pag-ibig na hindi tinatanggap. Hindi makasabay, hindi umaabot sa hinahabol, hindi man lamang masabi ang nais sabihin dahil sa sumpa ng distansyang walang anuman, ni sigaw, ang makatatawid.

John Williams Waterhouse, Echo and Narcissus, 1903.

Dahil sa pagod, darating ang sandali na kailangan mong huminto. Pero muli: hindi dahil naglaho na ang pag-ibig kundi dahil lamang naglaho na ang lakas, naubos sa paghahanap, pagsigaw, sa pagsubok tawirin ang bangin, sa pagtangkang ipamalas ang pag-ibig na hindi niya pinapansin--sa pagsubok ng pagsubok na masyado nang sinubukan ang iyong tunay na sarili. Paano pa ba kung hindi tumigil na muna sa pansamantala? Pansamantala: ngayon hindi na muna. Ngunit paano bukas o sa makalawa?

Kaya ng tiyak na mangingibig na maghintay sa makalawa. Ang tunay na katiyakan kasi ay tiyak sa anumang panahon. Gaya ng matematika, may bakas ng walang hanggan ang tunay na pag-ibig: pag-ibig na sub specie aeterni, pag-ibig na mula sa tanaw ng walang hanggan. O gaya ng Diyos, may kakayahan ang mangingibig na umibig magpakailan pa man. Marahil kung mayroon tayong kakayahan na tunay na maihahalintulad sa kakayahan ng Diyos, iyan ang kakayahan nating umibig. Ang lahat ng iba, tibay ng katawan, lalim ng pag-unawa--lahat ng iyan ay wala sa kalingkinan ng sa Kanya. Pero ang pag-ibig na walang hanggan ang salamin ng Diyos.

Ngunit habang kaya ko ngang maghintay at magpatuloy magmahal bukas o sa walang hanggan, hindi ko iyan masasabi para sa iniibig ko. Habang ang tanging kayamanan ng aking yagit na pag-ibig ay ang kakayahan nitong maghintay, iyan naman ang hindi taglay ng aking iniibig. May pangambang mawalan siya ng panahon upang makita ako sa wakas. Baka hindi na dumating sa kanya ang pagkakataon na makilala ako. Dahil may sarili siyang panahon, mga plano, mga pagnanais na iba sa akin, baka magkatotoo ang tunay na pangamba ko: na hindi niya ako kailanman mabigyan ng pagkakataong mahalin. Paano magtatagpo ang dalawang magkaibang panahon, ang panahon ko at ang panahon niya? Baka kulang pa pala ang aking pag-ibig na walang hanggan.

Sa mga pagkakataong pati ang lahat na ng aking maibibigay ay kulang pa rin, diyan ako higit sa lahat nawawasak. Dahil ibinigay ko na mismo pati ang hindi ko kayang ibigay, o dapat hindi ko na kayang ibigay--ang pag-ibig na walang panahon. At ano pa ang maibibigay ng isang puso na pati ang hindi naman talaga dapat ibigay ay ibinigay na? Ni Diyos o ang lahat ng mga anghel ay wala nang magagawa kung pati ang larangan ng walang hanggan ay wala nang magagawa para sa akin. Kung kulang pa rin ang higit na sa walang hanggang pag-ibig, ano pa ang maaari kong asahan? Ano pa ang maaari kong hawakan?

Ang maaari ko na lamang gawin yata ay sumuko--o subukan siyang malimutan. Dahil hawak ko ang panahon, tangan ko rin ang kakayahan na lumimot. Ang mga tao kasi na walang tiwala sa panahon ang hindi nakakalimot. Nagmamadali sila, gusto na nilang hindi masaktan ngayon, nais na nilang maghilom mga pagbubukas ng puso kahit wala pa ito sa panahon. Dahil maaari na akong makalimot sa loob ng panahon na binuksan o linuwagan ng aking pag-ibig, ang siyang ibibigay ko sana sa kanya ang ngayo'y maaaring makapagligtas sa akin. O walang hanggan na ngayong aking kaibigan, pagkalooban mo ako ng isang silid kung saan maaari akong makalimot sa loob ng iyong kaharian.

Ano ba ang nangyayari sa pag-ibig na nalimutan? Nawawala ba ito? Nagiging hindi na totoo? Wari ko'y hindi naman pinapatay ng pagkalimot ang nakaraan, na para bagang "nawala" na ito, naging hindi na nagmemeron. May pagmemeron pa rin ang mga alaala ng nakaraan; ngunit ang pagmemeron nito ay iba lamang sa pagmemeron ng kasalukuyan. Mas manipis lamang, baka hindi na kasintindi, mukhang hindi na kasingtotoo. Ngunit "mukha" lamang. Sa katunayan ay mas nagmemeron ang nakaraang alaala dahil may kakayahan itong magmeron sa kasalukuyan sa isang paraan na maaari pa nitong matabunan, o gawing parang wala, ang kasalukuyan. Alam na natin ito: may mga panahon kung kailan nalulungkot tayo dahil sa mga mapapait na pangyayari sa nakaraan. At ano pa ba ang ibig sabihin nito kundi minsa'y mas buhay ang nakaraan sa kasalukuyan?

Kaya naman may pangangailangan din na makalimot. Pangangailangan sa isang istriktong paraan: dahil kung hindi, maaaring "walang mangyari" sa akin kung hindi ako makalimot. May sinabi si Nietzsche na para bang ganyan: isang "necessary forgetfulness" upang makapagpatuloy mabuhay. Isipin mo na lamang ang kalagayan ng isang tao na hindi kayang makalimot? Paano ka mabubuhay na matiwasay kung naaalala mo ang lahat at wala kang malimutan?

Alam nating kinakailangan ng paglimot ang panahon, o ng panahon ang paglimot. Magkapatid ang dalawa. Biyaya ng panahon sa atin ang kapangyarihang malimutan ang nakaraan. At ano pa nga ba ang panahon kung hindi nakaraan? Wala naman talagang "hinaharap" dahil hindi ko ito tiyak. Wala rin naman talagang kasalukuyan dahil hindi ko ito mahawakan (madulas, biglang wala na). Ngunit ang nakaraan ang siyang tiyak: nakita ko na, malinaw sa isip ko ngayon, at ang mga nangyari noon ay naipako na sa kasaysayan at hindi na mababago--sa isang salita, tiyak.

Sa katunayan, ang tunay na inaasahan ng mangingibig na hindi iniibig ay hindi lamang ang pagkakataon na balang araw ay siya'y ibigin. Kasabay niyan ang kanyang dasal na malimutan niya rin na hindi siya inibig. Wari ko'y pareho lamang naman ang dalawa. Hindi ba't kapag nalimutan natin ang mga hindi umibig sa atin ay parang nagiging bago sila muli sa atin, nagiging bagong posibilidad muli ng pag-ibig? Kung ngayo'y ako ay hindi mo iniibig, bukas o makalawa ay baka ibigin mo rin ako. At iyon ang hahawakan ko, isang baka. At magiging totoo lamang para sa akin ang posibilidad na baka mahalin mo ako kung makalilimutan ko agad ang katotohanang hindi mo ako mahal ngayon.

--------
Mga Tangang Tanong

Bakit nga ba may mga minamahal tayong hindi tayo minamahal?
Isang "trial and error" lang ba talaga ang pag-ibig?
O bakit sa unang banda pa lamang ay nagugustuhan natin ang mga hindi naman tayo gusto? Anong kaguluhan ito? Bakit kailangang mahirap?
Hindi ba maaaring ibigin lamang natin ang tiyak na iibig sa atin? Oo, "mali." (Ngunit mali para kainino?) Pero puwede naman kung sa puwede.

Quoted

2011-09-24T15:09:00.005+08:00

In "Love as Suffering"

Teacher's Month

2011-09-22T07:16:00.002+08:00

RED PAINT

I scribble questions on the margins
drawn clean as with a ruler
unlike the words (and thoughts)
thrown as darts now here then there

Did you not hear me when I said?
one should think before you write
you should be careful with your words
they will be your life

They spoke of Plato and Aristotle
of Beauty, virtue, and the Good:
Where's the elegance or excellence?
Goodness requires respect from you

A perfect line, an insight in bud
I have to find them, there is no other way
to survive today. They are bread
for a life that feeds on a kind no other

Why do I teach? we sometimes ask
when that man's trade or that man's craft
looks easier, answering to no one
I am their dirty canvas, they my false art

Perspectivism in Love

2011-09-12T13:48:00.002+08:00

Love is blind not because lovers do not see, but because those who are not lovers do not see. They do not see what two lovers, for instance, see most clearly in one another. The woman may be just plain ugly, and the man an obnoxious jerk, but they are only so from a spectator's perspective. Lovers have three eyes: they see more than the visible world we all perceive with only two eyes. They are like those who see ghosts or see the future. It is a plain fact that other people do not just have the organs to see those things: you either see it or you don't--you can't even imagine it. The same in love.

And when it comes to love, its truth above all is exclusive. Never mind if they may be mistaken in the end, never mind if what they see are merely projections of themselves--these are possibilities that lovers never feel or know in the heat of passion and in the vision of beauty. There may be a consciousness or a fear that they may be mistaken, but that is of no importance to them because they can only be mistakes when they are compared to what other people see as correct or the ideal. What is important is what they see, the pure phenomenon of the other above all, one which discloses itself never to many but to you alone.

Who cares if others do not understand? It is not them after all who is at stake. They may be right--but so what? First of all who is to judge what correct is? I alone am responsible for my choices, I alone know what is "right." Let them find their own beloved, I say. Saying that I am mistaken in choosing my beloved is like saying I shouldn't have pizza when I want to, that I should order pasta because it is what you like. Like saying I wore the wrong tie to work, or my belt does not match my shoes. Or that I bought the wrong book, saw the wrong movie, believed in the wrong God. That you are God.--

2011-09-09T00:10:00.004+08:00

It's time to write about love. I'm already boring myself.

Why did I stop? Or when did I lose it? Myself? These questions never occurred to me until I was asked. You don't see yourself when you change, but others always do. They always want you to be the same as they last saw or heard from you. While I--I've not for a while looked at the mirror. Is that sadness I see or a silent contentment, one which negates change and postpones consciousness? I better look again.

I must write about love. I didn't even know I stopped.

When do we stop speaking love? When do we stop using it in our sentences or imagining it in the middle of an insomniac night? Concerns, deadlines, cheap pleasures--these wound the very heart of love, killing its dream which in each case is what really love is. The day you cease aspiring for love, no longer able to recall that tremble and stupid anxiety of wanting to see a beloved, that is the day you have either "matured," as they say, or died. Ha! All the love in the world and none for the most of us!

I will write about love to get my share back.

I understand Camus now when he said that quantity trumps quality. Maybe that is why I was thinking about that earlier in the afternoon, having remembered writing about "being many" a four years ago. (You know you're dead as a writer when you quote yourself, i.e., Marcel. So I will not put the link.) Purposes, dreams, goals, ends, a job--having all these lead you into solitary confinement. You didn't even know you were walking toward your own death, wearing the very belt that the hangman will use. Now you can no longer be anyone else: you're a teacher and that's it, a student and no more, a salesman, employer, employee, etc. What difference does it make that you are whatever you are when you are only what you already are? I want to be all, or I want to be nothing because nothing could still be anything. But never a something. . . .

I used to write about love when I was still many. Love loves many things, never a few, wanting all.

Overcoming One's Past

2011-09-05T12:47:00.001+08:00

The overman is not the man of the future; it is the man who is able to reconcile with and liberate himself from his past. Self-transcendence begins with freeing one’s self from the past. And this liberation is one

in which what we took to be what merely happened to us in the past can be assumed as the burden of one’s own doing, that one will heroically take on what merely ‘was’ as one’s own and so transform it into ‘thus I willed it’ (Hollingdale, xxxi).

Why the sudden turn to the past instead of the future? Why is the past the object or target of self-overcoming?

Perhaps because the self that you are is precisely the sum or the result of your past. What is problematic, though, is that the past is that which we by definition can no longer overcome and change. We are in a word powerless in front of (behind?) our past. This is why Nietzsche said that the sadness of the will is that it is not able to “will back.”

Also, when I look back at my life I see that most of it is marked by contingency. Accidents, the decisions of others, “God’s plans,” unexplainable or absurd events, what we in other words did not choose or will—all these shaped, formed, and altered the course of my life in such a way that I may now be so far or so different from what I planned on becoming then. (It’s true for me.) Before this fact one can say that “all is chance,” that we therefore have no control or power over our lives, and that we are slaves to circumstance. Understanding that you are not responsible for your life, we can add, can lead you to either despair or hope in a god who we then believe has the power we do not possess. Either way: loss or transfer of will. Nothing is overcome.

The alternative which Nietzsche proposes is for us to embrace what ‘was’ by changing it into ‘I thus willed it.’ Now of course we know that we really did not in fact will or choose much of what happened to us in the past. What I can change however is my view of or attitude to it. Even if I cannot say I chose all that happened to me, I can nevertheless say that “all is well,” that “I wouldn’t want it any other way.” By doing so I also overcome my accidental or contingent self, and turn it into a self I am satisfied with, or perhaps even learn to love.

We all know that uncanny feeling when, in those moments you recall your past as you get older and older, you slowly see some semblance of meaning in your life. What were once events you did not understand—those painful and trying times that shook your faith and made you dramatically (and cinematically) ask God or the world “Why?”—those events may now make some sense to you. Meaning, like wisdom, always comes late. You have to let time do its “work,” as it were, so that the meanings of once seemingly meaningless events may emerge. And in that blessed moment you do see how things have fallen into their proper places—kahulugan—that is the time you realize that your life indeed has a sensible if not meaningful story, one which you can now call your own.

You now see that the events that crushed you and you regret were necessary in forming your story. Perhaps it only in this way that we should understand Nietzsche’s famous “What does not kill you can only make you stronger.” In claiming your own past, you must also claim the pain you experienced. It is now in this sense that Nietzsche says that the overman is able to will the eternal recurrence of the past, with all the pain one endured along with it because “All things are enchained, entwined, enamored” (263). Because of this, saying Yes to the joys of the past means saying yes to the pain as well: “Have you ever said Yes to one joy? Oh my friends, then you also said Yes to all pain” (Ibid).

Those instances when the past suddenly makes sense could be what Nietzsche referred to as Augenblick. In the blink of an eye you see your whole life spread out before you. You see why the past was necessary and why you are what you are now. Upon knowing this, you then recognize what you have to do and where you have to go. Whereas you were merely an actor in your own life story before, now you take the reins and direct your own life. The self of the past is thus overcome by the self of the present and future. Reconciled with your past and knowing that everything can now be willed, you can finally begin creating yourself with consciousness and responsibility. It is perhaps in this context that we can also understand Nietzsche’s “Become who you really are.”

"Augenblick" (Sariaya, Quezon)

Marcel's "I hope in Thee for us"

2011-09-03T16:01:00.001+08:00

A response

I find your question interesting mainly because that has also been a question in my mind almost since I first read Marcel years ago. Like you, I am still dumbfounded as to why Marcel ends his phenomenology of hope that way. I haven't taught him though, and I have no text with me; so I will go with what I remember and feel.

I believe that what he was trying to say, and even us can imagine this, was that in the end hope is not selfish. You already know that hope has no object: it cannot ask for a particular thing to be granted--that is anticipation and expectation or simple wish-making. But hope is sheer openness and uncertainty. My favorite example for that, as you may have seen from some of my essays in my space, is waiting. Authentic waiting does not wait for a this or a that. It also does not hurry; actually, it has no sense of time anymore. It just waits without knowing what will arrive, and when it will arrive. It is pure openness.

But hope is also different from waiting because hope still has an indirect object to which it hopes or believes in: God. We may not ask God to precisely give this or that by a particular time; but we can still believe in God, trust in him, have faith in him: that he knows what you are going through, that he knows that you need help. When we pray, for example, we usually pray for this or that; but in a mature faith, we come to pray no longer for things. We pray to show our faith, we pray to glorify him, we pray to ask him to be with us in our time of need if He so will it.

When we pray, again, we find out that in the end we are weak before him who is almighty. There comes a time then that we realize we are nothing, that we cannot do anything; but at the same time we realize that he is there. Our faith ultimately is having faith in Him that he shall not fail us, that in whatever form it may be, he shall be there to save us. Now this redemption need no longer come in a particular form (e.g., like having your prayer answered). It is radically a sheer trust. And we know that trust, too, does not come from certainty (that I trust you because I am absolutely certain you will follow me). It is again sheer faith (I am being repetitive already; but faith is like that).

I remember my own teacher saying these lines: Sa dulo alam ko na hindi Mo ako bibiguin. Na mahulog man ako ay may sasalo sa akin. At kung hindi ko kaya, kaya Niya.

Now, to answer directly: We say "I hope in thee for us" because we come to realize before despair and God that it is no longer about us only. That there are larger things, much larger than our narrow wishes and concerns. That to pray for one's self before a God who is benevolent and almighty is to be selfish. When we pray, we also include others in our prayers. I think when we are weakest we lose hold of ourselves already, we let go of everything about us. Now that is the opening for the entrance of the Other, of others.

Na kung hindi ko kaya, sana kayanin ng iba. Na kung dinaranas ko ngayon ang dilim ng kawalan ng pag-asa, sana ay hindi it maranasan ng iba. At kung hindi ko na matulungan ang aking sarili, sana ay matulungan ko ang iba.

Nietzsche one said: "Some cannot loosen their own chains but can be a redeemer to a friend."

Maybe hope in the end is to wound and open yourself to a God whom you nevertheless believe in even if He seems to be absent, and to others who are weak like you, and beholden to God's power.

I spoil what I say with a cinematic reference. But is it not that in "end of the world movies" mankind becomes united before a power that darkens all hope? Maybe it's something like that, and something not like that.

. . .

On Writing (II)

2011-08-27T17:50:00.003+08:00

A few more I recently shared:

1. Strings and bows

Decorate your writing with colorful details. When you write about a person give little anecdotes, minute eccentricities, tidbits of otherwise unimportant information. This is when reading biographies can be helpful. I like noting down the habits of people, what they owned, their favorite meals, the name of their pets, those little things that make stories real.
An example. I had a talk with a "stranger" a few nights ago. He's a headwaiter in a dim sum restaurant I frequent. He's been there since I started going to the place five years ago, and got promoted around a year ago. He wears the same olive green or peach shirt every time I'm there, and from the looks of it owns the same number of ties. He smiles a lot, asks me about the same things (if I still go to the bar next to it), and already knows what I order (hot congee and pork buns). Over a cigarette a few nights ago, he shared his problems with me (I don't know why I am a magnet to problematic strangers). His wife had left him, and she has started seeing someone else. I saw how hurt he was. Nothing is more crushing for me than to see a grown man cry. They've been married for seven years, they have a daughter who is confused with the set-up now. He's in debt and thinking of finding another job. He has not been able to pay the registration for his motorcycle.
In around ten minutes I saw the storyline of a man. His relationships, his work, his problems, what he owns, what he cries about, what he cannot do something about. But it's always the little things which make us human: the dim sum and the motorcycle, the olive shirt and the tears during a smoke by the balcony of a dim sum restaurant. These surreal details only real life can provide.

2. Keep notes

Remember, remember. It is easier to remember all the details of what you can use as material in the future by keeping notes. Our memory all too often fails us; and nothing can be more frustrating than trying to recall a line, a story, an insight or idea that you need at the moment in class or in writing. And the greatest loss is when you know you had an original idea in a drunken or sleepy moment that will be gone forever.
Notecards. We all know that keeping notes for school or for research makes reviewing and writing a lot easier. And I was, and still am, an obsessive note-taker. When I started graduate studies, I began the system of taking down key or interesting passages in notecards. They're handy, cheap, and you feel nice in organizing them in neat card boxes. I have kept the habit till now, though I've not been as faithful as before. (I use page markers more often because I don't write on my books). When I researched for my thesis, to illustrate, I ended up having around a thousand notecards. I still use them today.
(Wittgenstein, it is reported, brought his notebooks to war. Nietzsche, as is well known this time, wrote a lot of his aphorisms during his long wintry walks in the woods [that's why they're at times short].)
Now I use a phone app (Evernote) if I'm not within reach of blank cards. But I nevertheless put cards in strategic places: beside my bed, on my desk of course, in some of my bags, and even in other places I no longer want to mention.

3. Read for style of prose and tone

There are some authors you read because you enjoy their insight and what they say, but there are also some authors you should read because of their style and how they say whatever it is they say.
It doesn't matter if you do not understand most of what they say (i.e., the French writers), but as long as you admire the rhythm and cadence of their words, their turns of phrase or vocabulary, the gravity, you should keep on reading them to give you models of style.
I rarely understand Greene or Hesse or Nabokov, but I like how they sound (Oh "Lolita"!). I barely survive a Marion reading, but I so admire the sharp turns of his paragraphs. I love Heidegger not only because I think him profound, but because I find his pretentiousness at times amusing. I love Camus above all because of the eerie silence of his sentences only to be shattered by a short powerful line.
Do not copy content, but do not be afraid to imitate styles. ("Good artists copy, great artists steal.") Be like the apprentice of a master painter who is precisely taught to imitate the master's hand. What will be on his canvas, after all, will be his own painting, what will be on yours though painted in a similar style will still be yours.

4. A room of one's own

It has often been said, and for good reason, that you must find that writer's space. If you can find a small table away from your bedroom and/or office, away from distractions and temptations, write there. You will immediately see the difference.

Jan Ekels II, "A Writer Trimming his Pen"

Of Eternal Will to Joy

2011-08-27T16:33:00.001+08:00

Zarathustra by the Sea, 2004, by Setsuko Aihara

Of the Love of Eternity

Oh mankind pray! What does deep midnight have to say? “From sleep, from sleep—From deepest dream I made my way—The World is deep, And deeper than the grasp of day. Deep is its pain—, Joy—deeper still than misery: Pain says: refrain!—Yet all joy wants eternity—, wants deep, wants deep eternity!”

(III “The Other Dance Song,” 2, pp. 183-84)

A question of happiness. An urgent question must be posed to the overman: Can the overman ever be happy? Can there be a place for happiness for him who wills his own tragedy by affirming and loving it? What joy can there be for a man who wishes to repeat “again and innumerable times more” even his suffering and pain?

Richard Hollingdale offers a neat answer to this question. He says that the overman, in affirming his fate however pleasant or crushing it may be, recognizes that both the misery and happiness he experienced in the past were not only necessary but also essential to being what he is. The overman reaches that great moment when he is able to put his life on a scale and declare that all in all, “everything was worth it.” He realizes that his whole life could not have been lived any another way. That even his wrong turns and dead-ends, his valleys and abysses, his tragedies and heartbreaks—all these made him become the man he is now: stronger, and also happier. Only in being able to say “I thus willed it” and “I will will it again” can there be a profound happiness.

Affirmation of both joy and pain. Now this kind of happiness is borne no longer from contingent events or luck; neither is such joy received from another or a gift from God. To the contrary: this joy is given solely by one’s self to one’s own self. It is being able to say that after everything that I’ve gone through, “All is well.” It is being able to say this is still the best of all possible lives, and that I wouldn’t have lived it any other way. That if I could choose a life all over again, I’d choose mine because it shall make me happier still.

In Nietzsche: The Man and his Philosophy, Hollingdale says that the overman

will affirm life, love life and say Yes even to misery and pain, because he realizes the joy he has known would not have been possible apart from the pain he has known; and as he will not be dismayed at the idea that the joy of his life will be repeated endlessly, neither will he flinch from the knowledge that its pain must be repeated too. (Nietzsche, p. 167)

Because joy and pain are the two faces of the same life, to love one’s joy is to love one’s pain as well. Joy alone does not make a life; the pain you experience defines you just as much, or even more. More than our triumphs and accomplishments, we are who we are because of our failures and suffering. While difficulties will always be unpleasant, they are necessary in composing the story of our lives. If you leave out the bad and take only the good, save only the joy and discard the pain, you will end up repeating another man’s life, and no longer your own.

Zarathustra in the Sleepwalker Song in the fourth part thus tells us:

Have you ever said Yes to one joy? Oh my friends, then you also said Yes to all pain. All things are enchained, entwined, enamored—if you ever wanted one time two times, if you ever said “I like you, happiness! Whoosh! Moment!” then you wanted everything back . . . you eternal ones, love [the world] eternally and for all time; and say to pain also: refrain, but come back! (IV “Sleepwalker Song,” 10, p. 263)

Will to joy, pain and eternity. Because it is in the nature of joy to want to remain joyful, “all joy wants eternity.” Like the will to power which wants to increase its feeling of power, joy also wants to heighten its joy infinitely. If ever pain becomes (and it always is) necessary to increase joy, pain must also be willed constantly. When both pain and joy are then willed infinitely, then you have the definition of the overman: a man who eternally overcomes himself and all his pain, his lack, his contentment. Now even the eternal recurrence becomes willed by the overman who wants to repeat his happy life:

For all joy wants itself, and therefore it wants all misery too! Oh happiness, oh pain! Oh break, my heart! You higher men, learn thus, joy wants eternity,—Joy wants the eternity of all things, wants deep, wants deep eternity. (Ibid.)

Because he knows that whatever diminishes him can only make him stronger, the overman wills his own pain. He is able to on his own transform or transfigure all pain into joy. No one can hurt him anymore. He has no need for a savior or a god to deliver him from pain because he can overcome anything on his own. He does not pray and has forgotten how to hope.

Of Sisyphus’s Smile

There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.

(Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus)

Most of the characteristics of the overman described by Nietzsche we can see in Camus’ depiction of the mythical god Sisyphus.

Sisyphus, 1548-49, by Titiano Vecellio

Sentenced to eternal labor in hell for his levity before angry gods, Sisyphus denies them the pleasure of seeing him suffer by silently carrying his boulder with neither regret nor hate. He negates powerful gods by going up his mountain in the same impassive manner again and again, even if he knows that each step upward will be in vain, even if he knows that he will have to descend as soon as he reaches the heights. Yet he goes up again with the same expression on his face and the same strength in his arms, his will undaunted, and his conscience clear.

Camus tells us that when Sisyphus reaches the peak of the mountain and sees the rock disappear into the earth, he pauses for a moment. That is the moment of consciousness, the blessed instance of lucidity: You know what has become of your fate, you know the cost of your pleasures, you know what you shall do next and for the rest of your life. With neither remorse nor regret, he knows that he will never ask for pardon or forgiveness; he has no notion of guilt. Everything will remain the same, everything is absurd and vain and pain, everything will repeat itself: Sisyphus will descend the heights once more, pick up his fate and put it squarely on his shoulders like he has done innumerable times, and scale the mountain afresh.

Yet before he descends Camus says that a smile breaks on Sisyphus’ face. That smile, that happiness, that moment of consciousness—they all say “But I will it thus! I shall will it thus!” Endless suffering and pain, meaninglessness, are all overcome by uttering those magic yet tragic words. They become the source of his redemption and eternal joy.

Of Recurrence Regret Revenge Redemption

2011-08-15T14:23:00.001+08:00

Everything is empty, everything is the same, everything was!
(TSZ II “The Soothsayer,” p.105)
To redeem those who are past and to recreate all ‘it was’ into ‘thus I willed it’—only that would I call redemption!
(TSZ II “On Redemption,” p.110)

Nietzsche would unabashedly declare that the thought of the eternal recurrence of the same—what he would later call “the highest possible formula of affirmation” (Ecce Homo, p. 123)--was his greatest discovery and contribution to humanity. Why would he think highly of the eternal return? What did he see in this thought that could summarize his philosophy in the simplest yet most powerful way? Let us see.

Recurrence

First announced in the section “The Greatest Weight” in The Gay Science (341, p.194-95), the eternal recurrence of the same declares that all things and events repeat themselves endlessly. “The eternal hourglass of existence,” as the devil proclaimed, “is turned over again and again” (Ibid., 194). More than being a metaphysical and cosmological statement, as it is presented in his other works, the eternal return’s importance lies in being able to pose a clear ethical question to each human being. And the question is this: If all things repeat themselves endlessly, then how are you to go about with your life? Or better: If your past will repeat itself, “Do you want this again and innumerable times again?” (Ibid.).

Regret

That question is to be the heaviest weight for the man of regret. What is the man of regret? Such a man discerns that he made mistakes, let a lot of opportunities pass his way; he may have never reached his potential, let other people down, in the process becoming a disappointment to others and himself. He could be a man who feels he received the short end of the stick, was treated unfairly, and unable to receive retribution or justice.

Simpler still, the sorry man could be a man who went through loss, pain, and suffering—things we doubtless do not want to experience again. Whence his sighs and shrugs and blank stares. Whence these pregnant words he utters now and then: “If only I could, I would have had done things differently.” The words “sayang” and “sana” pepper his speech.

Revenge

While it is only natural for us to feel regret, Nietzsche sees something dangerous hidden behind that usually melancholic but generally harmless emotion. When regret cannot bear its loneliness any longer, or when we realize how impotent we are in the face of a past we can no longer touch or save, that is the time when we can avenge our past in the present. This is what Nietzsche calls “the spirit of revenge.”

That fact that “the past is past,” as we say, is according to Nietzsche “the will’s gnashing of teeth and loneliest misery” (TSZ II “On Redemption,” p.111) “That time does not run backward,” he adds, “that is its wrath” (Ibid.). Precisely because he can no longer go back, change what has happened, and claim what has been lost, the sorry man “rolls stones around out of wrath and annoyance, and wreaks revenge on that which does not feel wrath and annoyance as it does” (Ibid.).

If the past cannot be demolished, the present sets the stage for the destroyer to avenge himself. And more alarmingly so: those who feel no regret, the happy ones, those who are reconciled with life, they will be the victims of avengers because they have to learn how to also suffer like the avenger: “on everything that is capable of suffering he avenges himself for not being able to go back” (Ibid.).

Revenge is more than the desire to get even or receive justice or to render due punishment. Much worse, revenge receives its spirit from a hatred of the past in particular, and of the indifference of time in general. “This, yes this alone is revenge itself: the will’s unwillingness toward time and time’s ‘it was.’” (Ibid.)

Redemption

Can there be any redemption for a man whose will is impotent against the past? How can one prevent regret so as to save one’s self from the spirit of revenge?

This is where Nietzsche’s insight of the eternal recurrence offers a solution. If we let go of the notion of a linear time—past, present, future (a notion that Christianity introduced)—and then imagine time to be a circle, a going back while a going forward (thus a going nowhere), then the past loses its irrevocability, not because it can no longer be changed, to be sure, but (and this is a wild guess) because even if one had the power to change it, the past will necessarily happen again.

The notion that something could be done in the present to reconcile one’s self with one’s past, or the idea that something can be hoped for, like a redeemer or savior, betray that all too human belief that we control time, that we can bend or reverse it. But: “Everything is empty, everything was, everything is the same” (TSZ II “The Soothsayer,” p.105). Time has no goal and thus no direction, and if it has no direction it will also necessarily lack sense and meaning—as in Greek tragedy.

Like Oedipus who plucks out his eyes because he could not look at a world he could no longer understand, the man of regret may understandably “gnash his teeth” upon learning that time offers neither redemption nor reconciliation. Nietzsche however envisions another, higher man who will be unmoved upon by a revelation. The overman says of his cruel past: “But I will it thus! I shall will it thus!” (TSZ II “On Redemption,” p.112). To the demon of the eternal return he says: “You are a god, and never have I heard of anything more divine” (Gay Science, 341, p. 194).

Affirmation of Life

This is why the eternal recurrence was for Nietzsche the highest form of the affirmation of life. The overman has no need for redemption because he does not require revenge; and he does not need to avenge himself in the present because he never regrets his past. He loves his fate (amor fati) and says “the great Amen” to what has been, what is, and what will be.

To clarify, the overman is not a fatalist or a man of resignation, someone who has given everything up because he sees no point in going against the inevitable recurrence of time. To the contrary, the overman wills a higher will, a “creative will,” one which gives itself its own redemption and joy (TSZ “On Redemption,” 112), things that he no longer requires from the world.

By affirming what cannot be willed otherwise, by declaring “But I thus will it!” one becomes higher and larger than any crushing fate. One even frees one’s self from the bounds of time: the differences between past, present and future vanish in the pronouncement “I thus will it.” Whence Sisyphus’s smile, and Oedipus’s holy remark that “All is well” (Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus).

Phenomenology and Painting Research

2011-08-11T09:30:00.003+08:00

"Philosophy cannot refrain from finding itself, when it comes to painting, permanently. . . . The exceptional visibility of the panting has thus become a privileged case of the phenomenon."
—Jean-Luc Marion, The Crossing of the Visible

ABSTRACT. Far from merely being a reproduction and representation of visible things-in-themselves (Husserl), a painting can make manifest what we precisely otherwise do not see: beings in their emergence and coming-to-be (Merleau-Ponty), Being in its hiddenness (Heidegger), and even what is able to see us—the Other (Levinas) and, possibly even, the Deity--the invisible par excellence (Marion).

On Writing (I)

2011-08-06T15:56:00.006+08:00

Some advice I've given students in a writing course:

There are only two things you need to do in order to be a good writer: You have to read, and you have to write.
Write in white heat, edit in cold blood.

When you write your first draft, don't think; thinking comes later. Let your fingers do the thinking as there are times they're smarter than ourselves. Write first out of the fire of passion, the rush of ideas.
Then after your work has cooled down, put on your editor's cap and if need be be ruthless in editing what you wrote.

Write your first draft for yourself, and then your second draft for your reader.

Being wary of whether or not what you are writing will be agreeable to other people can paralyze you. In contrast, when you write without considering others, what you write is agreeable, and even beautiful, to you precisely because that's what you put down and not another thing.
When it comes to the second draft, put on your reader's hat and try to take his perspective: Am I clear? Do I need to put a transition here? Could I be boring the reader in this part?

It has often been said: Write what interests you the most. Otherwise:

You will not enjoy.
You will not own your writing.
And there's just no sense in it: It's like finding a heavy rock to carry up a mountain when you could have found a more manageable, because enjoyable, boulder to carry.

St. Thomas' "Prayer for Work":

Ingressum instrias--Look after the preparations
Progressum custodias--Survey the progress
Egressum impleas--Harvest the fruits

George Friedrich Kersting, "Man Reading
by Lamplight." 1814.

Schedule: Know your body or mind clock.

It could be early in the morning, at night, or whatever time of the day. Observe when your thoughts are most fluid, when you have the most energy. These are what I call waves: know your high and low tides.
No sense to write when you're sleepy, or tired--and when you are, just rest to gather strength so you can give it another go soon, fresh. Or do something less tiring: organize your notes, photocopy books, format your paper.
The golden rule is: Do not mix work and rest. Rest when you rest, work when you work.

Read while you write.

While it is natural to think that you need to read first so you have something to write about, the danger is that there is really no end to reading, as the things you think you need to read will be infinite. That will only be excuse for procrastination: "I haven't read enough," "Just this last book."
Because reading is easier than writing, we tend to prolong the first part and wait until the last moment to commence the second (usually because of deadlines).
Reading while you write is more advantageous in that you narrow down your reading based on what you really need as you write. Most of what you read, you discover, you will not use anyway in your writing (though of course they might come in handy in the future, or more importantly, you nevertheless learned something--which is the point of research).

Remember that, as I read somewhere, the poorest draft is much better than the clearest outline.
No such thing as inspiration. While it be an art, writing is still a craft.

You need to labor, exercise your skills, invest most of your waking hours to it, and simply soldier on.
The best writers and artists, though inspired, are the ones who saw work as work, rain or shine, melancholy or gay, hung over or spirited. Treat it as an 8-5 job.

On that note: Exercise.

Write as often as you can, daily as possible, so that you can train your mind and hands regularly. When it comes to the really serious writing, it will come naturally already.
It's not about me but I think writing has become easier for me the past few years because of the time I've spent writing here. Whether it be in a journal, a blog, a diary, or notes, write as often as possible.
Also, write about anything. You will be surprised with what you will discover in the course of writing. I use a lot of examples for my classes that I gathered from things I wrote on different topics.
And who knows? those assorted, incomplete notes and pieces may someday find themselves collected in a book. Pascal and Nietzsche gifted us with such short notes. Speaking of Nietzsche . . .

Advice from Nietzsche (Human, All too Human):

Be Humble

"The talent of some men appears slighter than it is because they have always set themselves tasks that are too great."

Less is more:

"A little knowledge is more successful than complete knowledge: it conceives things that are simpler than they are, thus resulting in opinions that are more comprehensible and persuasive."

Be simple:

"Young people love what is interesting and odd, no matter how true or false it is. More mature minds love what is interesting and odd about truth. Fully mature intellects , finally, love truth, even when it appears plain and simple, boring to the ordinary person; for they have noticed that truth tends to reveal its highest wisdom in the guise of simplicity."

Avoid being superfluous:

"Writers who do not know how to express their thoughts clearly in general, will in particular prefer to select the strongest, most exaggerated terms and superlatives: this produces an effect as torchlights along confusing forest paths."

Beethoven's Famous Heiglnstadt Letter

2011-08-06T13:59:00.000+08:00

For my brothers Carl and [Johann] Beethoven.

Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you.

From childhood on, my heart and soul have been full of the tender feeling of goodwill, and I was even inclined to accomplish great things. But, think that for six years now I have been hopelessly afflicted, made worse by senseless physicians, from year to year deceived with hopes of improvement, finally compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady (whose cure will take years or, perhaps, be impossible). Though born with a fiery, active temperament, even susceptible to the diversions of society, I was soon compelled to isolate myself, to live life alone.

If at times I tried to forget all this, oh how harshly was I flung back by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing. Yet it was impossible for me to say to people, "Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf." Ah, how could I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in me than others, a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, a perfection such as few in my profession enjoy or ever have enjoyed. - Oh I cannot do it; therefore forgive me when you see me draw back when I would have gladly mingled with you.

My misfortune is doubly painful to me because I am bound to be misunderstood; for me there can be no relaxation with my fellow men, no refined conversations, no mutual exchange of ideas. I must live almost alone, like one who has been banished; I can mix with society only as much as true necessity demands. If I approach near to people a hot terror seizes upon me, and I fear being exposed to the danger that my condition might be noticed. Thus it has been during the last six months which I have spent in the country.

By ordering me to spare my hearing as much as possible, my intelligent doctor almost fell in with my own present frame of mind, though sometimes I ran counter to it by yielding to my desire for companionship. But what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone standing next to me heard a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended my life - it was only my art that held me back.

Beethoven's Death Mask

Ah, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me. So I endured this wretched existence - truly wretched for so susceptible a body, which can be thrown by a sudden change from the best condition to the very worst. - Patience, they say, is what I must now choose for my guide, and I have done so - I hope my determination will remain firm to endure until it pleases the inexorable Parcae to break the thread.

Perhaps I shall get better, perhaps not; I am ready. - Forced to become a philosopher already in my twenty-eighth year, - oh it is not easy, and for the artist much more difficult than for anyone else. - Divine One, thou seest my inmost soul thou knowest that therein dwells the love of mankind and the desire to do good. - Oh fellow men, when at some point you read this, consider then that you have done me an injustice; someone who has had misfortune man console himself to find a similar case to his, who despite all the limitations of Nature nevertheless did everything within his powers to become accepted among worthy artists and men.

You, my brothers Carl and [Johann], as soon as I am dead, if Dr. Schmid is still alive, ask him in my name to describe my malady, and attach this written documentation to his account of my illness so that so far as it possible at least the world may become reconciled to me after my death. - At the same time, I declare you two to be the heirs to my small fortune (if so it can be called); divide it fairly; bear with and help each other. What injury you have done me you know was long ago forgiven. To you, brother Carl, I give special thanks for the attachment you have shown me of late. It is my wish that you may have a better and freer life than I have had. Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience; this was what upheld me in time of misery. Thanks to it and to my art, I did not end my life by suicide.

Farewell and love each other - I thank all my friends, particularly Prince Lichnowsky and Professor Schmid - I would like the instruments from Prince L. to be preserved by one of you, but not to be the cause of strife between you, and as soon as they can serve you a better purpose, then sell them. How happy I shall be if can still be helpful to you in my grave - so be it. - With joy I hasten towards death.

If it comes before I have had the chance to develop all my artistic capacities, it will still be coming too soon despite my harsh fate, and I should probably wish it later - yet even so I should be happy, for would it not free me from a state of endless suffering? - Come when thou wilt, I shall meet thee bravely. - Farewell and do not wholly forget me when I am dead; I deserve this from you, for during my lifetime I was thinking of you often and of ways to make you happy - be so -

Ludwig van Beethoven

Heiglnstadt,

October 6th, 1802

Memorial Prayer

2011-08-02T08:41:00.003+08:00

The last end of being is the darkness or the unknowness of the hidden divinity, in which this light shines that darkness does not comprehend. Therefore Moses said: "He who is sent me" (Ex 3:14), he who is without a name, who is a denial of all names and who never acquired a name. And therefore the prophet said: "Truly you are the hidden God" (Is 45:15), in the ground of the soul, where God's ground and the soul's ground are one. The more one seeks for You, the less one finds You. You should so seek him that you find him nowhere. If you do not seek Him, then you will find Him. That we may so seek him that we may eternally remain with Him--may God help us to this. Amen.

Meister Eckhart

Of Friends and Neighbors (and Women)

2011-08-01T11:37:00.004+08:00

Do I recommend love of the neighbor to you? I prefer instead to recommend flight from the neighbor and love of the farthest! . . .
. . . One person goes to his neighbor because he seeks himself, and the other because he would like to lose himself. Your bad love of yourselves makes you loneliness into a prison.
Those farther away pay for your love of neighbor; and even when you are together five at a time, always a sixth one must die. . . .
. . . I do not teach you the neighbor, but the friend. The friend shall be your festival of the earth and an anticipation of the overman.
Let the future and the farthest be the cause of your today: in your friend you shall love the overman as your cause.
My brothers, I do not recommend love of the neighbor to you: I recommend love of the farthest to you.
(Thus Spoke Zarathustra I “On Love of the Neighbor”)

Nietzsche overturns the Christian commandment of the love of one’s neighbor, seeing in it a hidden longing to escape one’s self, which in turn betrays our inability to love ourselves. “You cannot stand yourselves and do not love yourselves enough,” he tells us, and “now you want to seduce your neighbor to love and gild yourselves with this error.”

While Christianity challenges us to go out of ourselves, shun selfishness for selflessness, as Christ did, Nietzsche suspects that this centrifugal movement is easier accomplished than a centripetal movement: what is more difficult, thus the true challenge, is to stay—and learn to love one’s self.

This Christ also knew: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We have, along the way, perhaps have just forgotten the latter part of the commandment, given all this clamor for generosity, being persons for others, regard for “the Other,” etc.—what we now call ethics. But the point for Nietzsche is to first (either in order or priority) love your self: “Many cannot loosen their own chains and yet they are a redeemer for the friend” (“The Friend,” p. 41).

Love of one’s neighbor is, aside from it possibly being an escape from one’s loneliness, can also be rather convenient: you do not have to go very far from where you are in order to call yourself “generous” or “loving.” The neighbor is by definition nachbar—the “near-dweller,” or he who is close by. All you need to do is to cross a short distance, and that emptiness is filled for a while (organized relief projects, one-time donations through cash or credit card, etc.). No real effort, no real sacrifice (because not really difficult), or no real love, is thus paradoxically required to love one’s neighbor.

Instead of the love for one’s neighbor, Nietzsche teaches us the love of the friend. What is the friend?

Nietzsche describes the friend (rather unclearly though) as he who is “farthest” from us (in time and space); as him “in whom the world [already] stands complete”; as him who already has “an overflowing heart,” being a “a bowl of goodness”; and who, we can assume, is the one who can bestow us what we ourselves lack (because of our hidden loneliness and despair). The friend can turn everything around because he is able to transform us into a receiver (and receiving is at times more difficult than giving). Because of his possible power over us, the friend will also have to be one’s enemy (“The Friend,” p.40).

(We also know that there can also be a “politics” in friendship. There are those who keep only friends who need them, letting go of those who are “complete” and without lack. Even in friendship the will to power can be in play.)

An interesting note: Nietzsche tells us that a woman is not yet capable of friendship as she is only able to love those who love her (thus only those close to her). Toward those who do not lover her she is unjust and blind. (Nietzsche's unfair view on and animosity toward women though can easily be explained biographically.)

Though if there’s any consolation for women that Nietzsche gives, he also says that men themselves are not capable of friendship.

Caravaggio. Detail from
The Calling of St. Matthew.

Finally, a rebuttal and confirmation from Christ, something Nietzsche may have overlooked: “If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much” (Matthew 5:4-6). Precisely: did not the Samaritan answer to the call of the one who was farthest from him?

Christ knew as much. Did he not also have real companions that resemble Nietzsche's imaginary friends?

Of Sublimated Passions (Education)

2011-07-25T10:06:00.002+08:00

Once you had passions and named them evil. But now you have only your virtues and passions of pleasure. . . .
   . . . Ultimately all your passions became virtues and all your devils became angels.
   Once you had wild dogs in your cellar, but ultimately they transformed into birds and lovely singers.
   Out of your poisons you brewed your balsam; your cow, melancholy, you milked—now you drink the sweet milk of its udder.
   And now nothing evil grows anymore out of you, unless it is the evil that grows from the struggle among your virtues.
(Thus Spoke Zarathustra I “On the Passions of Pleasure and Pain”)

Giving us a preview of how he will perform his “genealogy of morals,” Nietzsche traces above where our virtues and notions of goodness come from. According to him, what we now deem as good, or as virtuous, or accepted, or proper—all these present valuations can be traced back to what they once were: great passions.

At issue then here is how these originally wild, dangerous passions were transformed from something devilish into something angelic, beautiful. Or again, how our original and individual passions became sublimated—that is, neutralized and modified—in favor of the herd, so that it may be understood and be accepted as the new norm. And when a passion has been set as the norm or the standard—what is to be considered good or virtuous for all—then the original danger, fire and passion of these virtues become extinguished or frozen, turning into lovely, sweet yet fixed goals.

Take for example the virtue of knowledge.

In the past, speculation was at times a dangerous endeavor, as that meant having to question authority, dogma or law, the common sense of the people, etc. (think of Socrates, Galileo, Eckhart, etc.). Or as I imagine, if education was not literally dangerous, it was at best counter-intuitive for men and women because other things needed to be tended to—play, work, bodily pleasures, rest, etc.

The will to know in the beginning was a drive which only resided in those courageous individuals who dared to know and to ask; or in more practical terms, as in ancient Greece, education was reserved only for free men, those who had the leisure (and perhaps nothing better to do with their time).

But what has happened in the course of history? Education has evolved to become accepted as the norm, a requirement for everyone, taken to be “what is best” or “good” for children. And what then was the result of this reversal from education being something exclusive and daring, into a basic right and claim? Now even those who do not wish or cannot afford to study have to earn degrees “at all costs.”

Also, since education is now a requirement ideally for all, what one is to know has been made generalized and evened out (e.g., content of subjects, curricula, degrees). Everyone today knows the same things, everybody can do what everybody else does. In spite of all “specializations,” the student will nevertheless be like any other old student. (Precisely: because if you do not know what everybody else should know, you fail.) Thus the uniformity of our graduates today. Thus schools becoming at times “factories” which produce future employees with skill sets that match the prescribed proficiencies required by employers and companies.

What was once an individual and perhaps a dangerous undertaking then, could today be an all-too-common good for all. And whenever an activity is deemed to be good for all, it then loses its sparkle and its own real value: education has now become a means to a happier life, a step and not a goal, a labor and not a joy.

Waiting for New Gods in a Time of Danger: A Lecture

2011-07-13T08:32:00.007+08:00

The world's darkening never reaches

to the light of Being.

We are too late for the gods and too

early for Being. Being's poem,

just begun, is man.

--Heidegger "The Thinker as Poet"

In “The Question Concerning Technology,” Heidegger says that while modern technology enframes beings by challenging them to present themselves as things which may serve our own purposes, modern technology, he asserts, is nevertheless a way of revealing. That is to say, even when man sets upon beings his own will and intentions, man nonetheless participates in the unfolding of truth, in its unconcealment. Aletheia—the name the Greeks gave to that dynamic disclosure and concealment of truth—happens even today in our dark times, although for the most part only in a technical way. Just the same, truth is still able to manifest itself, even in a distorted and hidden manner. This is so because the truth of Being, whatever time it may be, and even in the hour of greatest danger, will always unfold itself to the human being, beyond his own willing and wanting.

But this precisely according to Heidegger is the danger of dangers: that even if Being calls on us to help in the unconcealment of truth, we turn a deaf hear to that call, choosing instead to listen to ourselves and create our own “truths.” For what is the value of truth nowadays?—What could it even mean, or what could its worth be, when we always have the choice to stay with our own convenient truths, cling to what is most readily-available for us to understand and use? Whereas truth is always difficult, shifty, and always loves to hide, it is but understandable on our part to stay with what we already know, keep on repeating what works and works best, and remain in a world which reflects our own image and likeness. That we have managed to make the world our own little global village, that we have been able to turn nature into “a giant gasoline station,” and have even objectified our fellow human beings by turning them into “human resources”—all of this is the accomplishment of the human being’s ability to create its own splendid truths. And outside these human truths, beyond the horizon of man’s wants and needs, no truth can anymore exist or show itself. Hence this world where all the gods have fled, hence this silent homelessness no one wishes to admit, this forgetfulness of what life or existence can really mean.

It is interesting to note that even in his later writings, Heidegger did not offer us any “viable” and “concrete solutions” on how to confront the danger not only of modern technology but also of modern man. While he does tell us, if you recall, that we should keep meditative thinking alive at this time when calculative thinking has been accepted as the only way of thinking, that really doesn’t say much at all. In a 1966 interview for a magazine article, Heidegger himself was straightforwardly asked what philosophy can particularly do to address the dangers of modern technology and the destruction it leaves in its wake. And this was Heidegger’s ambiguous and rather disheartening reply:

Philosophy will not be able to effect an immediate transformation of the present condition of the world. This is not only true of philosophy, but of all merely human thought and endeavor. Only a god can save us. The sole possibility that is left for us is to prepare a sort of readiness, through thinking and poetizing, for the appearance of the god or for the absence of the god in the time of foundering; for in the face of the god who is absent, we founder. (1)

Heidegger, who was interestingly a philosopher who almost never talked about God or gods, as he was according to himself concerned all his life solely on the question of Being, here all of a sudden tells us that only a divine being can spare us from the harm we have set upon ourselves—that no human effort can rescue us, and that all we can do now is to be ready for either the appearance of a new god, or finally accept that no other god is coming. This “readiness” for the god to come he speaks of is similar to what we had discussed in class as that “openness to the mystery”—an openness to the meaning which hides itself in the disclosure of truth as modern technology. Such readiness, however, and such openness, again really do not say anything much to us: what are we to wait for then? What are we to prepare for? What are we supposed to look for precisely when the truth to come is a mystery, a mystery which by definition is something we cannot define or envision? And how do we even know if the god that is to save us has already come, is already among us, if we do not even know the face with which it is to appear?

The difficulty of being totally open is that you welcome all possibilities without really knowing which one is supposed to be true, or the one you are to actualize. The trouble with waiting for something without being able to anticipate or expect it is that you wouldn’t even know if what you were waiting for has already arrived.

As we wait for the coming of a god, whenever or if ever it does come, what are we to do then? How is one to prepare and ready one’s self for that unforeseen arrival? Perhaps Heidegger isn’t really telling us to give everything up, to stop acting and living, as we wait for another manifestation of truth. Another aspect of authentic waiting, aside from that painful experience of not being able to anticipate or control the arrival of that which is to come, is that it also gives you the chance to see the things around you, an occasion to once again notice the things that have been too familiar to you. Take this example: Whenever we wait for our ride home, whether it be a jeepney or a train or a friend, we pass the time by looking around, taking notice of the things close to us (like the carved names of lovers on benches, the faces of the passersby as they go about their business, or the way the sky turned violet as the sun set). When we can do nothing but wait, we become aware of the things around us, things that may have for so long been ordinary to us, so ordinary that we now wonder if they even existed at all. It is when we have the time to give them “a second look,” though, that things may once again appear as they are as if for the first time, now able to capture our attention in the way that something stunning and new can arrest our gaze. In a word, it is in the open region of waiting where beings can once again show themselves as something amazing and astonishing—an event which for the Greeks signaled the beginning of thinking and philosophizing.

While we cannot, and should not, simply go back to the time of the Greeks and superficially reproduce in ourselves that original wonder that they experienced, there are other paths available to us as we wait for what Heidegger called “the other beginning” of philosophy. And in his “Memorial Address,” Heidegger gives us a clue as to where these paths toward a new kind of thinking can be found. To recall, regarding the question as to where we could perhaps find a new ground and foundation for our works to flourish, Heidegger answered thus:

Perhaps the answer we are looking for lies at hand; so near that we all too easily overlook it. For the way to what is near is always the longest and thus the hardest for us humans.(2)

And what could that be which lies nearest to us, so near that we fail time and again to take notice of it? What, in other words, are the beings which dwell closest to us, beings which we can again see if we simply look around us?

Such beings are nothing else but our fellow human beings, our neighbors. As Heidegger points out elsewhere, the word “neighbor,” which in German is Nachbar, originally referred to something that “dwells near” us, or literally a “near-dweller.” Thus human beings are essentially related to each other as we are to our neighbors, as people who live and dwell close to each other as in a neighborhood. And this neighborhood, to be sure, is nothing like a global village (where villagers never really get to see each other in the eye); nor can it be found in cyberspace (which is really a placeless place); and finally, neither can this neighborhood be built through a social network (a network which, if you really think about it, should be called an anti-social network). No, my true neighbor is the real human being which dwells nearest to me, here next to me, one that has a face which I see and also looks at me—one that has a face that according to the French philosopher Levinas I can never objectify, handle or comprehend, calculate or enframe. For the face of my neighbor is by itself, like truth, also mystery—one able to disclose and conceal its own holy truth.

And perhaps, if we are to follow Heidegger’s clue that we must look once again at what is nearest to us while we wait for the coming of the next god, it would be best to once again take a look at our neighbors—that is, to look after them in this time of danger, see to their needs, watch over them in the way that neighbors keep watch for one another at night. Maybe the face of the god that is to save us is a familiar face. And that it is when we first learn once again how to dwell and live in peace with our fellow human beings that we can begin building a new home in this age of homelessness.

July 12, 2011

Synthesis Lecture

1 Heidegger, “Only a God Can Save Us,” Der Spiegel Interview, in Richard Wolin, ed., The Heidegger Controversy: A Critical Reader (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993), 106-107.

2 Heidegger, “Memorial Address,” in Discourse in Thinking, trans. John M. Anderson and E. Hans Freund (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 53.

Happiness and Forgetting

2011-06-25T13:07:00.004+08:00

Anyone who who cannot forget the past entirely and set himself down on the threshold of the moment, anyone who cannot stand, without dizziness or fear, on one single point like a victory goddess, will never know what happiness is; worse, he will never do anything that makes other people happy.

--Nietzsche

I have a rather, let's say, "above average" strength of memory, which, gratefully, has served me well in my profession in that I am able to quickly recall ideas or lectures from years past, recite lines from writers when I need them, or relate experiences to provide examples for this or that point I am making in a lecture. To be sure, memory always comes in handy. It is easy to surmise that, for a businessman for example, being able to retain various concerns and keep them in the foreground can only serve them well: every small thing is considered, every person is kept in mind, giving you a view of the whole while seeing it also in detail.

But memory, however necessary for "success", could also be turned into a weapon that reverses itself and strikes you. Those who remember everything are the very ones which have the inclination to despair. Because if nothing escapes you, then everything--good or bad, fortunate or otherwise, happiness and melancholy--can remain hostage to the mind; and there, in a room which has no doors or windows, the only light which shines on them, preventing them to hide, is the steady light of memory.

Thus you see every smile and feel once again the warmth of your tears from way back; in the corner emerges the face of a lost friend or the ghost of her who used to give you happiness; those dead gifts which now are as heavy as rocks, those symbols of hurt, tokens which teach you once more the lesson that time gives and takes everything away. And since it is in our nature to magnify the loss instead of the gain, to mark the times which shook our faith instead of those who turned us around (are they not in the end the same? By the altar in my room still stands a bottle of spoiled wine; it was the sole witness when I nearly surrendered but did not, choosing life). Why do we have this preference for retaining in our minds those people who hurt us, those nights which almost lost us?

Because pain marks us, wounds us. A sharp knife cuts you--you remember that, you learn from that, that knives open us and opening us we lose a part of ourselves. Happiness does not take anything away, it adds; but when something is added to us, we merely feel larger, expanded. But sorrows diminish us till we grow small, till we thin out and approximate the substance of Nothing--hence we feel useless, numb, "worth nothing." Yes, I recall also with fondness pleasant pasts. Do we not take photographs of happy events?--but happy only, mind you: never those breakups, those departures, those failures. We recall images of happiness, but images are for the eyes only, whereas the whole body absorbs the impact of misfortune's blows. The body itself is the film which is exposed to the darkness. That is why I literally shiver upon remembering that painful memory, while I only replay in my mind like a silent slide show frozen stills from better days.

Nietzsche is correct. The heaviest burden of the inability to forget is that it paralyzes you. We speak often of "you have to move forward", "you have to use your hands", "do something", heck, "exercise." I've been told all these things and many more ("eat chocolate" is another). Looking back, they are all indeed helpful for a depressed man--how else do you crack the ice which immobilized you but by chipping away at it, struggling against it. But these things are easy to say. To move is the last thing the depressed would want to, or can do; that's too difficult, even impossible. Action requires levity, spirit, energy--the very things that were taken away from me, the very things I lost in the poverty of despair. Precisely: hurtful memories, which are really already nothing--dead, past--, become heavy chains that prevent my motion. And because those heavy chains are "only" of the mind, they are the memories themselves.

At times I wore those chains voluntarily, though, even if I can already break free from them. I had become afraid of what I will see when I once again open my eyes, what I will go through, say, if I once again give love of life a chance. Like a prisoner who'd rather stay locked up because the open world terrifies him, I hid in my prison because I did not want to become imprisoned again, and repeat what is still fresh to my memory. This is the double accomplishment of that devil called memory: He stands before the door so you cannot escape, and he is behind the same door in case you do--ready to be your escort, watching your every move from then on, cautioning you that it can happen all over again, or that everything will happen all over again, what precisely Nietzsche's own devil announced: the eternal recurrence of the same.

You never lose the devil, in the same fashion that you never really lose your memory. But sometimes you just forget that he is there, you fail to notice his presence, or--you learn to accept that he will never go away. And the best way is to get along with him, know him. And perhaps, who knows?, you can turn him into a sweet angel who will remind you of that higher lesson: that being afraid of the same painful thing happening again can only be possible because you were able to forget just enough to give yourself another crack at happiness.

Paul Klee. Angelus Novus. 1920.

The First Existential Question

2011-06-05T08:20:00.005+08:00

The Curious Camel

A mother and baby camel are talking one day when the baby camel asks, "Mom why have I got these huge three toed feet?"

The mother replies, "Well son, when we trek across the desert your toes will help you to stay on top of the soft sand".

"OK" said the son. A few minutes later the son asks, "Mom, why have I got these great long eyelashes?"

"They are there to keep the sand out of your eyes on the trips through the desert", the camel mother answers.

"Thanks Mom" replies the son. After a short while, the son returns and asks, "Mom, why have I got these great big humps on my back??"

The mother, now a little impatient with the boy replies, "They are there to help us store water for our long treks across the desert, so we can go without drinking for long periods."

"That's great mom, so we have huge feet to stop us sinking, and long eyelashes to keep the sand from our eyes and these humps to store water, but... Mom?"

"Yes son?"

"Then what the hell are we doing in the zoo?"

On the Relationship between Philosophy and Biography

2011-05-21T09:56:00.018+08:00

Gradually it has become clear to me

what every great philosophy so far has been:

namely, the personal confession of its author

and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir.

--Nietzsche

Philosophers, perhaps much more than others, would deny any such relationship, similarity or even disparity, between their thoughts or body of work with their very own lives. They warn us, sometimes vehemently, that reading their biography into their philosophy, or interpreting their work as either a reflection or response to the different experiences they have accumulated in their lives, would not only lead us into dead-ends, but also be rather too narrow-minded of us--as if every thing in fiction must correspond to something in fact, as if every story out there must mirror exactly the fabric of an author's life.

We understand that also, naturally. We are no longer children. Not only should we give thinkers and authors above all enough credit by not thinking too naively that, aware or not, they do not find out for themselves that their works are merely projections or repressions of their wishes or troubles, as if we see more than what they do, as what has been held by most; artists, perhaps more than others, are more conscious than we think at the point of creation. Nothing escapes their gaze, and nothing discoverable can hide from the power of their anticipation, much more their own selves and its relation to the work of art. In fact, the opposite can be said that they deliberately, at times to the point of madness, try to hide themselves in their work, endlessly masking themselves or backgrounding themselves (as Caravaggio does in some of his earlier canvases, where he only partially shows his face as among a crowd); or much more, they rid the work of any possible trace that may implicate them, sanitizing their work as one does before fleeing the scene of one's crime, of any possible resemblance or inversion of it with the writer's life that may come across the sharp lenses of a persistent reader. It is in such a case, however, that the thinker errs.

Caravaggio. The Martyrdom of St. Matthew. 1599-1600.
Caravaggio is farthest from the scene, at the back.

Ironically, it is because of that very consciousness, of having to always rid the work of any possible evidence that may lead back to him, even if he is truly innocent at the first, that turns him into the guilty one. In erasing a trace, you leave another one, or usually more, and in the end you make a mess of it, your pristine hands now stained by blood. Or again: beware of philosophers who repeatedly tell us that their philosophy and biography have nothing to do with each other--they are the guilty ones. The truly innocent keep their silence about their work and lives, as does the scientist or the waiter or the mailman.

When I speak, initially and for the most part, what I speak about concerns me essentially, or at the very least tangentially. When I talk about the weather or "current events," that is, when I say something only for the sake of saying something (and not because something calls me to say something about it), for "small talk"--speaking with having nothing to say isn't really saying anything at all, obviously. This idle talk, though always nervous, is easy enough: we only say what everyone else is saying, what is obvious to one and all, what is, in a word, unessential; we do this all the time. But it is when essential matters are at stake when we begin to choose our words, perhaps even give some thought into what we say; in matters of import, not necessarily grave, we do begin to reveal our mind, and that means revealing a life. There is something selfish about our words not only in that they come from our mouths, but because they refer to us, to our position, to--shall I say it?--our own very hearts. What does not touch me in my being, what is only a childish play of words, marked either by sophistry or hubris; or speeches or lectures about big words such as "justice" or "God" or "mankind," which, while benevolent and perhaps even inspiring, are not rooted in a life, in one's very flesh--words and through them, thoughts, that bear no weight for me precisely and literally do not matter to me. I can speak them, or as one said, I can "speechify," I can do this and you will understand me, but you shall always miss me--who I am--thus you will not know me. It is the same with all essential matters.

And when we enter that horizon which we still (have to) think is most provocative to thought, when we speak of the work of the word and the riches of ideas, we still have to say the same: that what is said here in silence or in thunder must be borne from the very lives of men, from their deepest, truest selves. To write, naturally, is never easy for those who do not experience anything within themselves. Easy to speak or to "tweet" about this and that new, cool thing I saw, something I merely noticed or overheard, something just uploaded or posted on a blog, something I suddenly feel. But these words have no amplification even if they still serve the duty of signification, linking one link to another link which leads you to only another link. Such words do not reverberate because they do not rise out from the depths. It is in the depths where a man's life can be found.

What would a thinker be without tumult in his soul? Without the burden of a cross or the weight of sheer existence? Or without those mad passions that possess him to no end, in running away from which one cannot but speak, or yes, shout. I will have no grave reason to think or write if every day were sunny and I have no troubles. There is something sickening in writing about happiness: it will always be the same story, the same ending, the same emotion. Oh but tragedy! One can die a million different ways. One can be punished in many more. Hence the infinite number of tears, while all laughters sound the same. One tear for every thought, every page; these tears compose the most profound stories we tell.

Around me I see that those who have chosen to live the life of the mind--they are in pain. Yes, they do not show it; but that does not matter. I see it, I hear it, those senseless cries or hollers or silent screams, may they have been unleashed in the past, or are still in schedule for a very near future. Every thinker is due for at least a breakdown or two in the course of his or her life.

A thinker is also never a healthy man. (They are most probably not wealthy as well). When you use you mind non-stop, you worry a lot. Come to think it, thinking may be nothing but worrying--worrying if I understood it right, if I am correct, if I covered everything as much as possible. And worrying is never a pleasurable activity.

. . .

Notes

On Kierkegaard: Well, it's fairly obvious. His writings, it has often been said--though too easily--, can be read as one long apologia to Regine, as to why he did not marry her whom he loved and who loved him so much.

" . . . when a thinker's work, or pieces and traces of his work, are available, the 'life' of a philosopher is unimportant for the public. We never get to know what is essential in a philosophical life through biographical descriptions anyhow." -- Martin Heidegger

"I would like to tell you how much I feel stripped away by the very idea of a biography. For one who thinks that the true self for us all is a non-worldly self, foreign to every empirical or objective determination, the attempt to approach him through these kinds of reference points seems to be problematic. The history of a man, the circumstances which surround him, are they anything other than a sort of mask, more or less flattering, that he and others agree to put on his face--he who, at bottom, has no face?" -- Michel Henry

"For a profitable study of the history of philosophy there is also need for a certain "sympathy," almost the psychological approach. It is desirable that the historian know something of the philosopher as a man (this is not possible in the case of all philosophers, of course), since this will help him to feel his way into the system in question, to view it, as it were, from inside, and to grasp its peculiar flavour and characteristics. We have to endeavor to place ourselves into the place of the philosopher, to try to see his thoughts from within." --Copleston, S.J.,

. . .

Semana Santa

2011-04-18T23:29:00.002+08:00

Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi). Christ Presented to the People (Ecce homo).

Juan de Valdés Lea. Pieta. ca 1657-60.

Luduvico Carracci. The Lamentation. 1582.

The Entombment. From the Chateau de Biron, Perigord. ca 1515.

Caravaggio. The Denial of Saint Peter. 1624.

photographs taken at the MMA in New York

Tulay

2011-04-04T11:43:00.004+08:00

O HESUS, HILUMIN MO

Koro:

O Hesus, hilumin Mo
Aking sugatang puso
Nang aking mahango
Kapwa kong kasimbigo

Hapis at pait Iyong patamisin
At hagkan ang sakit
Nang magningas ang rikit (Koro)

Aking sugatang diwa't katawan
Ay gawing daan
Ng 'Yong kaligtasan (Koro)

May mga sandali sa ating buhay kung kailan tayo ay nasasaktan, nasusugatan. Hindi natin madaling makalimutan ang pakiramdam ng lungkot dahil, gaya ng kaligayahan, nadadama natin sa mga pagkakataong ito ang katalagahan ng ating buhay, na hindi pala tayo manhid o isa lamang bangkay. Upang kumirot ang iyong puso kailangan mo ng puso, upang masaktan kailangan mong magkaroon ng pakiramdam.

Ngayon, alam nating lahat na kung papipiliin lamang tayo ng paraaan upang madama ang buhay, walang duda na ang pipiliin natin ay ang mga magagandang pakiramdam gaya ng kaluguran, saya, at kaligayahan--kung kailan tayo'y tila lumulutang, magaan, nasa langit, at hindi maaaring masaktan. Dahil sa kabilang banda, sa larangan ng lungkot at paghihirap, bumibigat ang ating katawan at loob, tila nagiging mga pandiin sa lupa at walang katuturan ang ating pag-iral, at sumusuko tayo sa isang pagdidilim ng daigdig kung saan walang nakikita o maaaninaw na pag-asa.

Ngunit gaano man kadilim ang abot-tanaw ng kapanglawan, maaari pa rin ito magningas ng kaunting liwanag--isang itim na liwanag, kumbaga--na siyanama'y maaaring magpamulat sa atin ng iba pang katotohanan. Anong mga katotohanan ito? Walang duda, dahil madilim ang paningin ng lungkot, hindi nito maaaring makita ang mga bagay na babad sa araw, o naglalaro sa liwanag, gaya ng mga anak ng liwanag, ang kaligayahan, kapayapaan at pag-asa. Bagkus, kung hindi man matanaw ng lungkot ang mga may kinang, may iba pa rin itong maaaring makilala--at walang walang iba ito kundi ang mga kapatid nitong nagtatago sa dilim, ang mga naghihirap, at nasa kailaliman ng lungkot. Mamumukhaan mo ang isang taong nagdarahop kung ikaw rin ay naghihirap. Makikita mo sa dilim ang kapwa mong nababalot din ng dilim.

Sa pagkilala ng isang kapatid na nasa dilim, may ilang bagay kang maaaring gawin. Gaya ng isang maligayang tao na maaaring magkaroon ng makasariling paniniwala na siya lamang ang dapat maging maligaya at wala nang iba, maaari ring isipin ng isang taong naghihirap sa harap ng isa tulad nito na siya lamang ang may karapatang magdusa. Na mas mabigat ang pinagdadaanan nito, mas malalim ang mga sugat, o mas magaling sa larangan ng pag-iisa. Tila ganyan minsan ang tao: sakim sa mga pag-aari pati na rin sa hindi inaari. Kaya naman maaaring mangyari na hindi na lamang pinapansin ng ibang may pinagdadaanang lagim ang mga kasama nito sa matagal na biyahe tungo, harinawa, sa pag-asa. Baka mag-unahan pa. O 'di kaya tuluyang magkasakitan. Na para bang hindi mahahati ang saya na hindi pa rin naman natatanaw. Madalas mangyari ito dahil, gaya ng paulit-ulit na sinasabi ng iba, mahirap raw ibigay sa iba ang wala naman sa iyo. Kaya naman maaaring magtagal ang kalungkutan dahil umaabot ito minsan sa sandaling wala na itong mahugot na lakas at pag-ibig mula sa sarili. At paano magiging biglang meron ang wala?

Ngayon, kung hindi mula sa sarili, kung gayon, maaaring sa iba manggaling ang tulong na iyong kinakailangan. Oo, at iyan naman ang kadalasang inaasahan ng mga nagkukulang, kapos, nawalan, nasiraan--na sana'y may ibang tumugon sa aking tawag, tumulong sa akin, mag-ahon sa akin mula sa karagatan ng kawalan ng kasiguruhan. Humihingi tayo ng tulong sa iba upang tayo ay makatayo muli, maging kahit na papaano'y muling maging maligaya, upang muling tanggapin sa kaharian ng liwanag. Kaya lamang, at alam na natin ito, maaaring mangyari na walang tumugon sa iyong tawag, at maiwan ka pa ring mag-isa sa iyong pagdurusa. Dahil, nasabi na, iba ang pandinig ng mga masaya, iba ang pananaw mula sa taas, iba ang pinipiling makita ng maliligayang mga mata. Baka hindi ka nila makita o marining, lalo na't maintindihan at maunawaan. Sasabihin ng mga marurunong na Maging malakas ka lang, Huwag kang mag-isip ng mga negatibong bagay, Magdasal ka kasi, Lilipas din iyan--mga "payo" o "pampalakas ng loob" na madaling sabihin ng mga taong hindi naman nararanasan ang pinagdadaanan ng iba; mga salitang walang laman dahil wala namang bigat para sa mga walang dinadala. Ano pa ang maaaring maramdaman ng pinayuhan ng mga malalakas kundi ang lalong humina ang loob: dahil ang kahinaan ko pala ang nagdulot ng aking patuloy na lumbay, dahil marupok ako at hindi kasingtibay ng mga hindi naman talaga nasusubukan. Sa halip na matulungan ang kailangan ng tulong, maaari pang maging mapanakit ang mga salita ng mga taong "mabuti." Subalit kailangan pa ring sabihin na madalas naman ay hindi nila ito sadya, na may kabutihang loob pa rin sila; hindi lamang talaga nila alam ang kahulugan ng paghihirap dahil hindi nila ito nararanasan sa paraan na nararanasan mo ito. Ang tanong nga ni Alexander Solzhestein ay "Can a man who is warm understand one who is freezing?" Hindi mahirap sagutin iyan.

Kung hindi silang mga hindi nakararamdam ng iyong sakit ang maaring tumugon sa iyong tahimik na tawag, sino kung gayon ang maaaring makarinig sa iyo? Nasabi na, silang mga hindi rin naririnig ng iba, silang nasa pareho mong katahimikan, mga parehong may pinagdadaanan. Ngunit muli, paano ka nila matutulungan kung sila mismo'y nangangailangan ng kalinga? Sinabi nang hindi mo maaaring ibigay ang wala ka. Subalit hindi naman kailangang maipit sa ekonomiya ng pagbibigay-pagtanggap ang maaaring maitulong ng isang kapwa naghihirap. Maaari pa ring tumugon sa mga tawag at iyak sa dilim sa pamamagitan ng ibang paraan.

Maaari mo silang samahan lang, hawakan ang kamay habang naghihintay ng liwanag sa paglipas ng panahon. Hindi binabago ng pagkakaroon ng kasama ang dilim--nariyan pa rin ito talaga--ngunit hindi nagiging kasingnakakatakot ito. Hindi kailangang mawala talaga ang lungkot, o gumaan ang dala, o tumila ang bagyo ng luha--ngunit maaari pa ring makalimutan ito pansamantala, maisantabi, maantala. Hawakan mo lamang ang aking kamay, yakapin, at mag-usap tayo upang basagin ang katahimikan. At ang milagro ng mga milagro ay sa pagsama mo sa akin ay nagkaroon ka rin ng kasama, may hahawak din ng iyong kamay, may kausap ka rin. Wala kang ibinigay sa akin, at sa katotohanan ay wala rin akong naibigay sa iyo. Ngunit sa pagbibigayan natin ng wala ay may tumubo, may nagbago, may sumibol.

Hindi ito isang tanong tungkol sa pakikiramay dahil hindi ko kailangan ng karamay, dahil hindi mo naman ako maiaahon gaya ng hindi rin kita maiaahon. Ang tunay na handog sa akin ng pagkamulat na may kapwa akong naghihirap tulad ko ay ito: binibigyan mo ako ng dahilan upang umahon dahil doon lamang ako magkakaroon ng kakayahan at lakas upang ikaw ay maiahon. Dahil narinig ko ang iyong tawag sa dilim, kailangan kong maging liwanag para sa iyo, at magagawa ko lamang ito kung makakayanan kong lumabas sa sarili kong mga paghihirap, tawirin ito upang tumungo sa iyo.

Kung ako lamang, kung mag-isa ako, wala akong dahilan o pagkakataon upang lampasan ang aking sariling paghihirap. Subalit dahil nariyan ka, at tumatawag ka, kailangan kong tumayo at bumangon--isang pagbangon na hindi lamang para sa aking kapakanan kundi para sa iyo na, dahil kung hindi man ako, nais kong muli kang maging maligaya.

Schelling on the Kinship of Philosophy and Art

2011-03-19T12:42:00.010+08:00

[. . .]

The Artist and the Work of Art

We are now in a position to see how in aesthetic production the conscious subject, or the self, is reconciled with the nonconsious object, or the world, in an absolute identity. Now such an absolute reconciliation of the no less absolute opposition between the self and the world is possible only because the absolute itself can be found nowhere else than in the very person of the artistic genius.

Schelling finds no difficulty in locating in the artistic genius the abode of the absolute. It is after all plain for Schelling that no other being is predisposed or falls prey more easily to contradiction, paradox, and conflict than the artist. Unlike the scientist who does not go beyond what is evident, and the logical philosopher who is afraid of contradictions, the artist not only thrives in opposition, but is himself a living contradiction.

One such contradiction is the ability of an artist to paint what he nowise saw nor could possibly see, to say what he does not fully understand or mean, or create what he could never have imagined himself capable of creating. Some of us are familiar with those instances when, after writing a poem or drawing a landscape, or even something as simple as taking a photograph, we sometimes are beside ourselves in disbelief that it was us who while no poet wrote that perfect couplet, that is was us who while no painter revealed the secrets of a hidden face or disclosed the faint sorrow of the hills, us who while no photographer saw through our lenses what the naked eye could not possibly see. Such a contradiction, while felt and experience rarely by most of us, as though accidentally, is for the artistic genius his very being and essence—at once a blessing and a curse, at once providential and punishing. Whence the mad genius, or the tortured artist. Whence a van Gogh, a Beethoven, or a Hölderlin.

There is in each artist, according to Schelling, a “dark unknown force,” a spirit, as it were, which inspires him (in+spirare: to be inflamed, breathed into by a spirit) to create what he otherwise cannot create by himself. And where else can that spirit come other than from the very world which speaks and oppresses all great artists? It is through the hands of the artist that the world is able to speak, and in the work of art the world is able to make itself manifest. Through that secret “power” bestowed by the world, the genius is granted a kind of “destiny” which enables him to realize in his works “without [his] knowledge and even against [his] will, goals that [he] did not envisage.”[i] Like a possessed man or a deranged criminal, the artist is able to see or say or show what he was not completely aware of at the moment of creation.

Sometimes the purpose of artistic creation is nothing benevolent or profound. Some artists create for selfish ends: they only wish to relieve themselves of the conflict between their consciousness and unconsciousness, minds and souls, to reconcile the voices within and without, and arrest the fleeting visions which from nowhere flash before the mind’s eyes. Schelling thus claims that

The fact that all aesthetic production rests upon a conflict of activities can be justifiably inferred already from the testimony of all artists, that they are involuntarily driven to create their works, and that in producing them they merely satisfy an irresistible urge of their own nature; for if every urge proceeds from a contradiction in such wise that, given the contradiction, free activity becomes involuntary, the artistic urge also must proceed from such a feeling of inner contradiction.[ii]

But in involuntarily setting down in a work of art what previously possessed him with no end, the artist also freely grants us a vision of the world no man can ever replicate. And the stronger the violence and tension inside the artist, the more striking his work appears to us. Yet to be sure, neither is the tension in the artist suddenly arrested or neutralized in the work of art, nor does it happen that the intensity of the artist is amplified in such a way that the work itself becomes violent to us. On the contrary, an eerie silence, at once resounding and entrancing, resonates in a great work of art. All great works of art possess the qualities of intensity and silence in equal measure; in them opposition and tension are sustained in constant equilibrium as if in indifference.

This, however, can only be possible if the artist before the moment of creation already bore and absorbed within him the opposing forces of self and world; thus in creating his work he as it were “merely” sets and freezes that indistinct opposition and tension into a lucid, yet no less striking, harmony—which we in turn are able to see and feel upon beholding it. Upon the accomplishment of his work, the artist is finally able to deliver himself from the infinite opposition to which he had succumbed, enabling him to at last experience that longed-for peace.

Schelling speaks of a unique kind of tranquility shared by both the artist and his work upon the completion of artistic creation:

Every aesthetic production proceeds from the feeling of an infinite contradiction, and hence also the feeling which accompanies completion of the art-product must be one of infinite tranquility; and this latter, in turn, must also pass over into the work of art itself. Hence the outward expression of the work of art is one of calm, and silent grandeur, even where the aim is to give expression to the utmost intensity of pain or joy.[iii]

Caravaggio. Judith beheading Holofornes (1600)

This infinite tranquility congealed and held in a visible work of art, able to capture and retain our restless gaze; or this infinite harmony which is both set down and set free in a piece of art, able to speak to us personally in its mute silence; or that ineffable holiness and invisible purity[iv] that illuminates all great works of art—this, above all, is what we call beauty. For Schelling, beauty is nothing other than “the infinite displayed in the finite.”[v] “The basic feature of every work of art,” Schelling concludes, “is therefore beauty, and without beauty there is no work of art.”[vi] As the resolution of “an infinite opposition in a finite product,”[vii] it is in a materially finite yet infinitely beautiful work of art that man is at last reconciled with the world which had once opposed and threatened to destroy him.

The Kinship of Philosophy and Art

After deducing the nature of the work of art, Schelling ends System of Transcendental Idealism with his reflections on the kinship of art and philosophy, and the affinity of the artist and philosopher. According to him, what the transcendental philosopher is able to subjectively conceive in an intellectual intuition, the artist is able to produce objectively by way of his imagination: “aesthetic intuition simply is the intellectual intuition become objective.”[viii] In other words, what for the transcendental philosopher is necessarily subjective and ideal—thus alienated and estranged from the objective world,—is for the artist what could be objectively produced, made visible, and shown in reality. “The work art,” he says, “merely reflects to me what is otherwise not reflected by anything, namely the absolutely identical which has already divided itself even in the self.”[ix] What the philosopher stammers in articulating, the artist is eloquently able to depict in his art. Or, to reverse Wittgenstein, what otherwise cannot be said can nevertheless be shown.

Hence the kinship between philosophy and art: transcendental philosophy is the absolute intellectually intuited and ideally expressed, while art is the absolute aesthetically intuited and beautifully illustrated. Philosophy and art are of kin in that philosophy provides the conditions of the possibility of art—namely, contradiction and opposition, dichotomy and distinction between the self and the world; while art for its part resolves and reconciles in beauty the differentiation and destruction all philosophizing necessarily leaves in its wake.[x] Thus if one is to concede that art is philosophy made objective or seen, then “it is self-evident,” Schelling says, “that art is at once the only true and eternal organ and document of philosophy, which ever again and continues to speak to us what philosophy cannot depict in external form . . ..”[xi] In the artist’s ability to gather what the philosopher leaves shattered, Schelling thus concludes that

art is paramount to the philosopher, precisely because it opens to him, as it were, the holy of holies, where burns in eternal and original unity, as if in a single flame, that which in nature and history is rent asunder, and in life and action, no less than in thought, must forever fly apart.[xii]

In what perhaps raised the eyebrows of other academic philosophers at that time, Schelling, who was called by some as the “Prince of the Romantics,” elevates the status of art to a rank as high as, or even higher, than that of philosophy itself. For if philosophy in its origins according to Aristotle began as the desire to know; and if knowledge, as Plato says, is the longing of man to be reunited with what has been lost to him—Schelling now declares that art, as the accomplishment of an absolute identity and unity between man and the world, is both the beginning and end of philosophy, its source and its hope: in it dwells in its original purity what philosophy after its inception can only wish to recover, and hidden by it is the magic stone by which the philosopher is able to transform all things back into himself.[xiii]

The final aim of philosophy is to return to the simple marvel and wonder of art, where all distinction before us disappears, and we once again or for the first time see ourselves with the infinite—an experience which Schelling elsewhere said Plato had once likened to death.[xiv]

excerpts from a paper for German Idealism class

15 March 2011

[i] F.W.J. Schelling, System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), trans. Peter Heath and with an introduction by Michael Vater (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001), 222.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Ibid., 225.

[iv] Ibid., 227.

[v] Ibid., 225.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Ibid., 226. Further on, he says regarding on imagination: “This productive power is the same whereby art also achieves the impossible, namely to resolve an infinite opposition in a finite product.” See 230.

[viii] Ibid., 229.

[ix] Ibid., 230.

[x] “Philosophy sets out from an infinite dichotomy opposed activities; but the same dichotomy is also the basis of every aesthetic production, and by each individual manifestation of art it is wholly resolved.” Ibid., 230.

[xi] Ibid., 231.

[xii] Ibid., 231.

[xiii] “Philosophy was born and nourished by poetry in the infancy of knowledge, and with it all those sciences it has guided toward perfection; we may thus expect them, on completion, to flow back like so many individual streams into the universal ocean of poetry from which they took their source.” Ibid., 232.

[xiv] Schelling, Works, cited by Heidegger in Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom, __.

Prayer for Aid

2011-03-17T11:14:00.003+08:00

Deh fammiti vedere.

Oh, make me see Thee, Lord, where'er I go!
If mortal beauty sets my soul on fire,
That flame when near to Thine must needs expire,
And I with love of only Thee shall glow.
Dear Lord, Thy help I seek against this woe,
These torments that my spirit vex and tire;
Thou only with new strength canst re-inspire
My will, my sense, my courage faint and low.
Thou gavest me on earth this soul divine;
And Thou within this body weak and frail
Didst prison it-how sadly there to live!
How can I make its lot less vile than mine?
Without Thee, Lord, all goodness seems to fail.
To alter fate is God's prerogative.

--Michelangelo Buonarroti

The Pietà (1498-1499)

2011-03-13T17:51:00.004+08:00

Poster I had to rush, good thing they said it was ok.

Delivering my paper on Schelling