I woke up with my head heavy as a cloud about to burst. When my head hits the ground, I have an early morning enlightenment: what the hell was I doing last night drinking too much and dancing with office girls in their uniform? I hit the shower, and REM’s “It’s the end of the world…” is booming on the background. I felt relieved the minute cold water splashed on my head and body. I look at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My face is pale and my pupils and brows are black, all of my skin beaded with water. Maybe last night wasn’t meaningless. Maybe the past exists and I had a swell time.
Last July, __, __, __, __, and I have been hanging around a lot. We have our work at ___ as a big alibi to meet each other. Seen in some vague angle, “adaptations become habits.” That sounds like our friendship. Tonight, after duty, __ treats us dinner. I’ve never had so much dimsum in my life. What I loved even more was the way these people laughed with each other. After a long walk, we laugh some more and call it a night.
Never have I seen so much dignity in death as the characters who died in Malraux’s Man’s Fate. It also reaffirms that drugs (opium in this case) can give an almost authentic meaning of life, as with the protagonist, Gisors.
There are times when you lose touch with the splendor of solitude. During these times, the weekends come to me as a spectacle. I was content with spending evenings alone reading and writing. Now the weekends oblige me to have fun in its shallow sense (drinking too much and watching people dance.) The weekends returned to me now like a part of me which I lost, like the prodigal happy to be home again.
Be in danger, but do not be defeated. Rather, be dared. And when you fail and fall down, you can always laugh like mad. Laugh all you can, or laugh while it lasts.
Time alone is time well spent.
Absurdity attacks. Its ingredients: a dumbly written poem, a failed attempt at writing my Philosophical Problems paper, the rush of sugar from huge quantities of strawberry jam in bread. I suddenly felt awful for having to look for excuses for my failures. I felt awful for wanting something tremendously tragic to happen in my life. Then I wanted to remind myself of the fundamental questions: what do I want out of life? What do I live for? What is it that I really put my life into? Nothing is real right now. Nothing is real, except perhaps my disappointment over the fact that I should’ve paid more attention to writing my paper.
Re-reading The Catcher in the Rye in the empty room upstairs. I felt, for the past past month, a genuine relief. I was in the company of life’s greatest book, a window overlooking trees, a wet road, while the afternoon’s pale light spreads without any of my gloom into the room, swimming like a liquid into me.
I think the TV finally broke down, and I would eagerly want to thank whomever it was who shot for me. I’ve been looking at that idiot box too much.
The will wills its will. Philosophical Problems class this morning tells us something about the will willing its will. Nietzsche tells us that man would rather will nothing than not will. Man wills. The will to power must be expended, it cannot remain stable. In the same light, the will of Spinozas’s connatus is to persevere. And for Descartes, or for Christianity, it is follow their god’s will. For Schopenhauer, the will is but suffering. Among all wills, one thing can be found in the end zone: that there is something that moves us. The difference lies in how we affirm this movement. Nietzsche affirms with power, change and overcoming, Christianity by dwelling on pity, Schopenhauer with aesthetic contemplation and ascetic living, and Spinoza with perseverance. But how do I affirm it?
Sunday night while working on my Mabini paper. I write, “Somewhere in his young life, Mabini took lonely, long walks (while everybody else was out for party and amusement) during Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons with a kerchief about his head, his feet bare. Somewhere in his young life, practiced dancing with a stupid chair.”
I could’ve quoted something political and something intelligent about him. But this is the only part of my paper that isn’t political or intelligent about Mabini. For in his politics, in the revolution, in the struggle for freedom, Mabini only saw failure. In the only considerable private experience I knew about him, there were lonely walks and dancing with chairs. I could only imagine the kick, the ecstasy he derived from drinking carabao milk. That killed him.
Kills me.
