Xn3cTs

something i wrote 4 years ago, sept. 2004…

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Meditation Blues in F#m (A Tribute to Yatha-Bhuta*)

by Michael Ian Lomongo

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*Yatha-Bhuta – a Pali word meaning, “reality,” “as it is”

(For my batchmates at VipaT(h)ree, especially Modie, Susette, Rose, Art, and Rudy – the “Usual Suspects” of the group-sittings I attend, from whom I continually draw inspiration…)

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“Am I ever gonna change? Will I always stay the same?

If I say one thing, then I do the other

Same old song goes on forever…”

- “Am I Ever Gonna Change,” Gary Cherone, Extreme

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In an essay entitled “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Albert Camus likened the human condition to that of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was punished by the gods to push a huge stone up the top of a mountain, only to have the stone roll down the mountain once he’s reached the top. He’d have to start again, push that stone up the mountain, to the top, and so on. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseam.

“Vanity… all is vanity,” the book of Ecclesiastes proclaims.

The pop song “Dust in the Wind“ by Kansas has this line: “All we do crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see…”

A bit of a pessimist myself, I tend to withdraw from the exertion of effort. If I can’t do something well, I’d rather not do it. (It’s pride, really.) They say, “Try and try, until you die.” I say, “To try is already to die.” Why try when you can fly? Away, away from it all… the suffering, pain, humiliation, defeat.

Desist, and persist.

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Tags: Life, Meditation, Nietzsche, Nihilism, Pessimism, Philosophy, Sisyphus, spirituality, Vipassana
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Approximating Distance and Distanciation in Hermeneutics
(A reflection on a reading of a few essays in Paul Ricoeur’s “Interpretation Theory” and “From Text to Action”, 2004)
by Michael Ian Lomongo

When I was still in college, I wrote an essay on the saying, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” I argued that what bred contempt, if ever, wasn’t so much the familiarity (or intimacy) itself (which logically, should breed more love and regard for the familiar), as the lack or absence of respect for the inexhaustible mystery of persons and things… The attitude of having figured out someone/thing so thoroughly that there is no more room for discovery and wonderment…

That’s what breeds contempt. Not familiarity. Not intimacy per se. Well, I was younger then and didn’t see the wisdom expressed in the prejudices of old sayings. I thought (and rightly) that the saying meant the need and value of keeping some distance in a relationship. But my mind couldn’t fathom how a relationship growing in intimacy/familiarity would require distance. How can intimacy be nurtured through distance? Distance… the opposite of proximity/intimacy… distance… keeping one’s cool, the lack/absence of warmth/passion… distance… coldness, indifference, apathy… How can something clearly negative bring about something positive? Sure, one kept one’s distance (the farther, the better) from strangers and enemies, but from familiars and friends (intimates)?

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Tags: Distance, Gadamer, Hermeneutics, Interpretation, Nietzsche, Philosophy, Ricoeur
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Thoughts on “Troy,” May 25, 2004…

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“I’ll tell you a secret… The gods envy us. Because we are mortal. You will never be as beautiful as you are now. We will not be here again.”

– Achilles, to the mugged, bruised Briseias, in “Troy”

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Saw Troy last Sunday. Liked it. Even with the abundant use of CGI (as my friend Jojo points out.)

It can be retitled “Achilles.” Or the “The Life and Times of Achilles.”

I’m fascinated by the film because:

1) No matter what his critics say, Brad Pitt is just undaunted by taking on Herculean challenges. (A female teacher of mine once said that Pitt will never become a good actor because of his good looks.)

2) The scriptwriter did his research! He had a good grasp of Greek culture and philosophy (the love for spectacle, “agon” or contest, “arete” or excellence, immortality through the preservation of one’s name, and the sense of piety vis-a-vis the sense of pride in human achievements that easily becomes prey to “hubris”) and mythology. (You have a tight scene in Phtia because here we discover several things: the cunning of Odysseus, the martial expertise of Achilles, the brashness of Patroclus, and the almost paternal love of Achilles for Patroclus.) Plus, the writer demythologized the mythology. I’d like to read The Iliad just to see how many changes and adaptations he did in the screenplay. (For instance, Agamemnon was killed by Clytemnestra, his wife. Was the Briseias (Perseias?) character/love-interest of Achilles an invention? I’ve a suspicion too that the Agamemnon-Achilles spat was cooked up by the writer. Of course, I’m not that well-acquainted with greek mythology. Haven’t read Iliad yet.)

3) You have a well-thought out, very human(ized) characterization of Achilles. (My good friend Paolo comments that Achilles and Paris are two sides of the same coin. They both earn their redemption towards the end. Paris, by developing his courage; Achilles, by developing his compassion. Paris though is not as sympathetic as Achilles. (Is this due to a failure of acting or script-writing? Uh-oh, I can almost hear the shouts of protest by all those women Legolas-fans.) He also says that the contrast between Hector and Achilles should have been greatly emphasized. Hector is the noblest character in the story, even nobler than the gods. The inner struggle between his sense of duty and fraternal love should have been more apparent. (It’s either a problem of acting, writing, or direction… Well, after all, this is Achilles’s film.)

4) Great choreography, especially in the Achilles-Hector showdown!

5) Laughed out really loud at that scene where Achilles throws the towel at Briseias’s face in exasperation.

6) At first, I didn’t find Diane Kruger (Helen) that beautiful. As I gazed at her face, I slowly did find her beautiful. Classic beauty. Of course, the film tells us that, in all probability, even if Helen were not that beautiful, ships would still be launched to retrieve her because of the wounded machismo of Menelaus and the unbridled ambition of Agamemnon.

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Tags: , Achilles, Agon, Greek Mythology, Nietzsche, Trojan War, Troy
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Pantheism, Underwears, Coffee, Bread, Tea, and Everything in Between

Whenever someone makes the wisecrack that pantheism is the love for underwears, I retort, “No, on the contrary, I, a true-blue pantheist, hate lingerie. In fact, I have this great urge to discard it whenever I see it on a sexy female body.” LOL

Token reference for nerds: “pantheism” comes from the greek words “pan” (everything) and “theos” (god). Thus, pantheism is the “belief that everything is god, or conversely, that god is everything.” I don’t know exactly how “pantheism” is related to “deism” (which Rizal practiced, as gleaned from his exchange of letters with Fr. Pastells while exiled in Dapitan) but I have a suspicion that “deism” probably still sees God as transcendent from the universe while pantheism sees God as immanent to the universe.

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“Pan” and “te” are also spanish for “bread” and “tea.”

Anong konek?

After one has removed the underwear, one has “coffee.” Once satiated with “coffee,” then one can have bread and tea for breakfast.

=)

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Became a pantheist by way of Nietzsche and Buddhism/Hinduism.

If there is such a thing as a Nietzschean Buddhist, that’s what I am right now.

best regards,
panth-ian of the gods

Tags: Buddhism, Deism, Hinduism, Nietzsche, Pantheism, Philosophy, Rizal, spirituality
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Everything happens in the now. But even if everything happens in the “now,” we do not experience this. Consciousness, experience is time-bound.The theory of eternal recurrence is, if i’m not mistaken, also held by some eastern/hindi religions. Also by the stoics. Basically, it’s the theory that everything which has happened has already happened and will happen again infinitely. The premise is that if the world is finite and we have infinite time, all the permutations in the world will take place and be repeated again and again and again. To simplify, let’s say the whole world is made up of A, B, and C. At one point, the order would be like this: ABC; another, ACB; still another, BCA… and so on, until you will have to come back to ABC.

For my idol Nietzsche, it is a theory or a postulate which can be used to help us to live better (like heaven/hell, reincarnation, etc.).

Would you want the kind of life that you’re living be lived again? And again? And again?

Live then with the goal of eradicating, or at least, minimizing regrets.

best regards,
ian

Tags: Eternal Recurrence, Life, Nietzsche, Philosophy, spirituality
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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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Tags: Blaise Pascal, Ecce Homo, Enneagram, Faith, Fate, Life, Love, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Nietzsche, Pensees, Reason
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“… Listen to Me in the truth of your soul. Listen to Me in the feelings of your heart. Listen to Me in the quiet of your mind.

“Hear Me, everywhere. Whenever you have a question, simply know that I have answered it already. Then open your eyes to your world. My response could be in an article already published. In the sermon already written and about to be delivered. In the movie now being made. In the song just yesterday composed. In the words about to be said by a loved one. In the heart of a new friend about to be made.

“My Truth is in the whisper of the wind, the babble of the brook, the crack of the thunder, the tap of the rain.

“It is the feel of the earth, the fragrance of the lily, the warmth of the sun, the pull of the moon.

“My Truth – and your surest help in time of need – is as awesome as the night sky, and as simply, incontrovertibly, trustful as a baby’s gurgle.

“It is as loud as a pounding heartbeat – and as quiet as a breath taken in unity with Me.

“I will not leave you, I cannot leave you, for you are My creation and My product, My daughter and My son, My purpose and My… ‘Self.’”

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The above quotation is from the last portion of Neale Donald Walsch’s “Conversations with God, Book 1.” I’m quoting it at length because I think it gives a general idea of what pantheism is all about.

Pantheism is, simply put, the belief that God is everything, or conversely, that everything is God. Of course, some philosophers have pointed out that pantheism is virtually an atheism. To believe that everything is God is to make the idea of “God” profane. If God is immanent (to the universe) and not transcendent, then why use the word “God” at all? The very notion of “God,” they argue, presupposes the idea of “transcendence.” Pantheism, insofar as it denies the transcendence of God, is virtually an atheism.

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Tags: Books, Conversations with God, Hegel, Life, Nietzsche, Philosophy, spirituality, Translation, Writing
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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.”)

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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

Tags: , Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevski, Nietzsche
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Books Liked/Loved:

The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexander Dumas)
El Filibusterismo (Jose Rizal)
The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
The Favourite Game (Leonard Cohen)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra / Genealogy of Morals (Friedrich Nietzsche)
The Trial / Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)
Doktor Faustus (Thomas Mann)
Cubao Midnight Express (Tony Perez)
The Alphabet of Grace (Frederick Buechner)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Pirsig)
Written on the Body (Jeanette Winterson)
The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevski)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera)
Personal (Rene Villanueva)
Foucault’s Pendulum (Umberto Eco)
Lady Chatterley’s Lover (D.H. Lawrence)
Siddharta / Narcissus and Goldmund (Herman Hesse)
The Book of Lights (Chaim Potok)
Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
A Little Book on the Human Shadow / Iron John (Robert Bly)
It Is Here Now – Are You? (Bhagavan Das)
The Last Three Minutes (Paul Davies)
The Dancing Wu-Li Masters (Gary Zukav)
The Clowns of God (Morris West)
Zen Guitar (Philip Toshio Sudo)
Sophie’s Choice (William Styron)
The Artist’s Way (Julia Cameron)
The Day of the Jackal (Frederick Forsyth)
Inside the Music (interviews with contemporary musicians)
Writing Down the Bones (Natalie Goldberg)
Ordinary People (Judith Guest)
The Teachings of Don Juan (Carlos Castaneda)

Tags: Art, Books, Life, Literature, Love, Music, Nietzsche, Philosophy, Poetry, Psychology, spirituality, Writing
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A reaction on

Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag

Posted in autografitti@yahoogroups.com, August 5, 2003.

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I can understand the dislike that Sontag has for hermeneuts and their penchant for reducing a work of art into its purported meaning, especially when such meaning is made to appear as esoteric and accessible only to initiates. I’m inclined to think that this is the same dislike that we have for so-called experts, academicians, philosophers, and intellectuals. These personages are supposed to illumine life but most of the time they only succeed in clouding and cluttering it with hot air, pollution and garbage.It is interesting to note that Michel Foucault argued for an “ars erotica” vis-a-vis the “scientia sexualis” in Volume I of The History of Sexuality. Of course, he was not talking about an “erotics of art” but an “art of erotics.” But he, like Sontag, is wary too of hermeneutics and its promise of getting into the “depth of things.” (The truth/meaning of things.)

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Tags: Art, Education, Foucault, Hermeneutics, Interpretation, Life, Nietzsche, Philosopyhy, Sontag, Translation, Writing
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