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Post-Election Blues


2008
07.11

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Posted in Education, Filipinos, Life, Psychology, spirituality | No Comments »

posted in autografitti, Monday, May 10, 2004 10:53 pm… also reprinted in Gai Olivares’s column at Daily Tribune…

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Post-Election Blues (For Jojo and Other Kindred Spirits)
By Michael Ian Lomongo

I voted for Eddie Villanueva.

Nope, I’m not a JIL member. Nope, I’m not a born-again Christian. I see myself more as a “renaissance” man (which incidentally also means “born again”), but I doubt if die-hard born-again Christians would see that as a sign of kinship.

Actually, I’m a pantheistic Nietzschean-Buddhist-Christian. In other words, “colorum.” Registered voter, unregistered religion.

Why then did I vote for Bro. Eddie?

Both in Ayala (April 29) and Luneta (May 6), as the yellow-clad people around me would start chanting, I’d hear strains of Radiohead’s classic song in my head: “I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here…”

In the first place, my spirituality is not of the evangelical-charismatic type. I prefer Taize-like celebrations, or Tibetan eerie, monastic chantings, or Cynthia Alexander‘s Indian-inspired rock hymns.

But I did join them in the prayer for our country. I may not be wearing yellow but my heart was bathed in a golden-yellow light. With shades of green. I truly felt that even if our convictions were not the same, we were… are, united in desiring change, radical change, in our country’s state of affairs.

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Soul Survivor


2008
06.26

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A friend once asked whether there is room for “soul” in pantheism.

Am just one pantheist among many, so I guess there could be room for the “soul” in a pantheist’s life. =)

In the first place, what do you mean by “soul”? (It can have poetic, mystical, metaphorical, even literal meanings…) If you mean by “soul,” a “thing”, I’m not very sure about it…

If you mean “life-force,” then traditional (Thomistic-Aristotelian) philosophy has always affirmed that every living being has this “soul” or “life-force” or “life-principle.” (That’s why, in the seminary, we used to laugh at Uthai, a Thai seminarian who vehemently argued that a stone has a soul. His argument: If the stone didn’t have soul, it wouldn’t be able to move when you throw or kick it.)

But if you’re a pantheist who believes that the universe is god, and this god is not an impersonal force (as opposed to a scientific kind of pantheism), then the soul/spirit is indeed present everywhere. Even in stones! The stone is god! The stone is alive! The stone has soul!

We can even go to the idea of reincarnation: if there is a soul, and there’s no permanent heaven or hell, then it’s quite logical to believe in reincarnation, until one so to say, goes back to the source (become Pure Consciousness).

As you can see, there are many possible permutations, so it can get quite muddled and confusing for someone who’s searching for absolute certainty.

But I do know of a certainty that really matters, the certainty of the heart. As Blaise Pascal would say, “The heart has reasons of its own, which reason itself doesn’t understand.”

Does it really matter whether there is a soul or not? I mean, does it help you live a good life?

If it does, then believe in it. If you find it quite useless, then dispose of it.

As for me, I’m a lying bastard, a mystic-poet, so I speak of the soul even when I don’t believe in it. Mwahaha! =D

I’d rather go for a drink, and get drunk with life, philosophy, and love!

best regards,
ian

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Sitting On My Pain… Sitting With My Pain


2008
06.21

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Posted in Life, Love, Philosophy, Psychology, spirituality | 1 Comment »

something I wrote in April, 2004. When I was still meditating regularly…

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Sitting On My Pain… Sitting With My Pain
by Michael Ian Lomongo

“The essence of meditation is nowness…it is not aimed at achieving a higher state or at following some theory or idea, but simply, without any object or ambition, trying to see what is here and now.”

– Chogyam Trungpa

—

I. In a few more days, it will be six months since I’ve started doing sitting-meditation. Regularly. Two hours. Daily. An hour in the morning, and another one in the evening. Alright, there are days when (due to partying with friends) I get to sit for just an hour (and days when I don’t get to sit at all), but I’d say I’ve been pretty consistent in my practice.

For the longest time, I’ve been meaning to meditate. Problem was, I didn’t know how. Sure, I’ve encountered several books on meditation and had some general idea about what took place during the “practice” but it was all in some kind of a haze. The closest I’ve come to a meditation practice was journal writing (specifically, Julia Cameron’s “morning pages”). And even then, I just couldn’t discipline myself to write three pages everyday.

And then I read an article by Bela Lipat in the Inquirer about this 10-day meditation course, Vipassana, that was given for free (yey!). This was June 2003. The article mentioned that the next course would be given October of that same year. I kept the article and resolved to apply for the course.

Just before October came, I e-mailed Sr. Angelita Walker, RSCJ (who was responsible for bringing Vipassana to the Philippines) about my desire to join the course. She directed me to www.dhamma.org to read the code of conduct for those intending to join the course. There I found out that I’d have to keep “noble silence” (absolute silence), cut off communication with the “outside world,” refrain from reading, writing, intoxicating substances, and killing mosquitoes, eat vegetarian food, etc. And all these for the duration of the 10-day course.

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When Harry Met Sally… (Or, Can Men and Women Be Friends?)


2008
05.26

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Posted in Gender Issues, Life, Love, Movies, Philosophy, Psychology | 3 Comments »

“Can men and women be friends?”

What made the film “When Harry Met Sally” memorable for me — aside from the “orgasm” of Sally (Meg Ryan) at the diner — was this intriguing question, provoked by Harry’s premise/presupposition that men and women cannot be simply friends because sex almost always enters the equation.

(In another movie, I think “All of Me,” Steve Martin gets confronted by his wife — “I faked all my orgasms!” — who proceeded to demonstrate this by having “one” right in front of him in his very office. Steve Martin, humiliated, replies, “Well, so did I!”)

Of course, as Harry (Billy Crystal) grows and matures in the course of the years, he revises and modifies his theory but basically retains the core of his presupposition.

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From “The Book of Lights” by Chaim Potok:


2008
05.11

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From “The Book of Lights” by Chaim Potok:

“From the age of fifteen until the age of twenty-one he lived in the apartment world of his aunt’s whispery talking and his uncle’s coughs and brooding silence, and he did not know which was more frightening. For a while after his cousin’s death he thought his family had somehow been singled out for a special curse. But he talked to friends and found that throughout the neighborhood ran a twisting river of random events: parents died in slow or sudden ways, children were killed, relatives slipped young from life. The world seemed a strangely terrifying place when you really thought about it. He tried not to think about it too often.

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Fate, Faith, and Reason


2008
05.05

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Posted in Life, Nietzsche, Philosophy, Psychology, spirituality | 2 Comments »

On the eve of the day when I was thrown into this world, I go back reflecting on the happenstances that have helped me, for better or for worse, become the person that I am.

There is a saying which goes: “Man proposes, God disposes.” How our life turns out in the end is a matter of both fate and faith, destiny and freedom.

I believe (in my destiny), therefore I will accept (my fate). Besides, we can’t do otherwise. It’s in our nature (fate?) as human beings to always try to see or incorporate our misfortunes into the greater scheme of things and find their lessons and/or meanings.

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Master and Slave Moralities in Ugo Betti’s “The Queen and the Rebels”


2008
05.04

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Posted in Nietzsche, Philosophy, Psychology, Theater | No Comments »

something i wrote for a friend in 2003…

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I tried to search for websites that (I thought) would mention the influence of Nietzsche on Betti (based on my reading of “The Queen and the Rebels”). I didn’t find any (plus, this is my first encounter with Betti), so I’m thinking this might be a case of me over-reading or seeing what I want to see, or simply a case of similar minds (Nietzsche and Betti) working on the same issue.

Anyway, as you might know, it was in “Beyond Good and Evil” that Nietzsche mentioned the difference between the moralities of masters (the strong) and slaves (the weak). (Once, I read someone mentioning that Hegel had a discourse on masters and slaves. So, again, as I haven’t read Hegel yet, I’m thinking Nietzsche might be taking off from Hegel’s starting point.) But it is in “The Genealogy of Morals” that we find an extended discussion of the difference between these two kinds of morality. The morality of the “masters” proceeds from an affirmation of one’s goodness; the notion of “bad” appears as a contrast, and is secondary, to this valuation. The morality of “slaves,” on the other hand, proceeds from a reversal of this process: slaves see the master as “evil,” which therefore makes him (the slave – the antithesis of the master) “good.”

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Another Nietzsche


2008
04.23

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Posted in Books, Life, Nietzsche, Philosophy, Psychology, spirituality | No Comments »

I am a Nietzsche fan. In fact, one of the things that drew me to him was the fact that he became insane. Mwahahaha! (SFX: Stinger from “Psycho”)A curious fact: When Nietzsche finally had a breakdown in 1888(?) in Turin, Italy, it was occasioned by his seeing a coach-driver cruelly beating up a horse. He ran up weeping to embrace the horse.

I know that Nietzsche has read Dostoyevski (his contemporary), but am not sure whether he has read “Crime and Punishment.” In the novel, Raskolnikov dreams of someone beating up a horse and him trying to stop the beating.

Is this a case of (an unconscious) life imitating art, or a simple weird coincidence? (Raskolnikov murdered an old woman. Nietzsche proclaimed the “death of God.”)

—

I also encountered a book by Joan Stambaugh, “The Other Nietzsche” where she discusses a slightly different, a mystic Nietzsche. She also sees an affinity between Nietzsche and Spinoza, who was a pantheist. (Nietzsche, a pantheist?) I know this might seem quite far-fetched but there are several scholars who are inclined to this interpretation.

I consider myself a pantheist now, so I guess I have to confess I am inclined to see Nietzsche in that light. (With apologies to hard-core atheists.)

best regards,
nietzsche-ian

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In Defense of Matter


2008
03.26

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In Defense of Matter
by Michael Ian Lomongo (1992/98)

“It is only with the heart that one sees rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

- The Fox, in “The Little Prince,” by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

We are all too familiar with this perennial problem in philosophy (and life): the contraposition between matter and spirit, body and soul. The materialist says that there is no need to postulate such a “thing” as spirit. There is nothing beyond matter: what you see is what you get. The idealist, on the other hand, in putting forth and emphasizing the importance and supremacy of the spirit, belittles matter. In this great war between matter and spirit, the dominance (at least, in literature) almost always goes in favor of the spirit, even if people’s lives seem to indicate the contrary. Since it is the spirit that gives life, good is associated with it. On the other hand, matter (crude matter, body, the “flesh”) is somehow seen as the source of evil, disgrace, bad luck, or imperfection.

Matter, then, has acquired (no thanks to philosophers) quite a bad reputation. And this is especially true in a lot of idealistic, intellectualist, metaphysical, and religious philosophies. The exaltation of the spirit in these philosophies is inevitably tied up with the denigration of matter. Such a derogatory outlook on matter has especially been influential when coupled with the belief in a Supreme Being who is regarded as a pure Spirit, and the belief in man’s way to perfection as that of an active emulation of this paragon of perfection — God. The more you distance yourself from matter, the more you become perfect and God-like, God being immaterial. This naturally translates, for the believer, into a fascination for “things” (pardon the expression) immaterial or spiritual and an attitude of condescension, if not a direct aversion, towards matter.

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Gerontophobia (The Fear of Getting Old)


2008
03.22

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Posted in Art, Books, Life, Love, Philosophy, Psychology | 3 Comments »

“Keep me searchin’ for a heart of gold, and I’m gettin’ old.”

– Neil Young, “Heart of Gold”

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A few months ago, I met Lizza, who’s in her early 30′s. When she realized I was older, she talked about “feeling it.” The coming of age. Old age… and all its concomitant side effects.

I feel the same. There’s a certain wistfulness in the realization that time’s passing. And that sooner or later, time, my time, will be up.

Most of my friends and acquaintances merely laugh it off.

I don’t. (Or, I try to, only that I imagine hearing a faint echo, as if the grim reaper itself were Old Sir Mick singing “Time is on My Side.”)

I feel old. Even when I feel young inside, my body feels old.

Even what I used to think was this raging fire inside my soul seems to be just dying embers.

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