I also haven’t noticed how the Philippines is about to oust another President, the same one we put in power when we ousted the last one.
What a wishy-washy democracy. In this country, everyone has something to say (former Presidents, the urban poor, the businessmen, the military, the actors, the press, the priests, the universities, the administration, the opposition, the elite) and everyone’s opinion is right. It results not in a plurality of meaning, but everyone having their own fixed meaning, a truth of their own. Unfortunately, nothing ever makes sense.
And when everyone says a different kind of truth, everyone’s lying. We are all fools fooling the foolish. We are a country of liars, an attribute particularly true about the heads of our state.
So I'll add my own incoherence to my country's lies.
I remember reading a short story by an Italian author. In the story, the law decreed that the President be beheaded after serving his/her term. Knowing their inexorable fate makes them accountable for what they do, automatically heroic - or maybe in some cases automatically criminal. More importantly it makes them selfless.
We should do that: beheading presidents. It would save us the trouble of ousting them.
Sunday, July 31, 2005
A Seamless Series of Niceties
Maybe I haven’t noticed my details closely enough, content as I am with its totalizing happiness. It’s been too totalizing that I had to doubt it, that it actually suppressed the little events of my life.
I haven’t noticed how I yearned to feel how I feel now. I just finished another attempt to understand Jacques Lacan, while listening to chillout, drinking cheap coffee and smelling the scented oils whose vapors are rising to the ceiling, or finding its way to the corners of my newly-cleaned, dust-free, accessorized and tastefully furnished room (at least from my perspective). The bells, synthesizers, drum and bass of the music’s ambient mood is a terrific anthem. I’m studying in La Salle again and I have access to the library and its wealth of books.
Rummaging the pockets of my bag for a notebook, I found a used pair of socks in a plastic bag. I remembered how, on the way to Z.’s 1st birthday party in Brick Road Sta. Lucia, my socks got wet as I braved the rain walking to the venue. I told this to D. and while we shopped around Gateway, she bought me a new pair. We went to her place after and had more Don Hen spaghetti and chicken.
I haven’t noticed how in the time between a job interview and a test, I was able to sit down to a chicken sandwich and three glasses of apple juice while reading Arthur Nersesian’s The Fuck-Up. It’s been one of the most amusing reads of the year. Maybe it’s something I half-expect to literally relate to. I realized how it was noon, and if not for this vacation I would’ve been rotting in the office. Instead, I am in a restaurant, eating and listening to Kruder and Dorfmeister with a view of Ortigas in the window. D. has downloaded a lot of Music for me, from Aimee Mann’s Bachelor no. 2 to Jim Morrison’s An American Prayer, to the 1999 K&D sessions, to the Yoshida Brothers.
One thing I noticed just leads to the other. Although I have never failed to stress this to myself, I have a perfect girlfriend who understands, shares, and appreciates my tastes, fulfills my desires, listens to my incessant whining, drinks with me, travels with me, and savors life’s niceties with me, while I do the same to her.
I haven’t noticed how I bummed around guiltlessly and through my own means. I even managed to give a little money to my mom.
I haven’t noticed how D. and I can have lunch dates now, from the Pasto in Ortigas or at the Orient Square Food Court. I had the time to visit her during weekdays for dinner, a movie and a few drinks.
I haven’t really focused on the details of what I’ve learned in Philosophy class, as well as that learning drive I’m now riding on.
I haven’t fully absorbed how, if I had work, I probably would never have the time to attend film festivals. S.’s film was one of the entries for the first-ever Cinemalaya. After the opening ceremonies, we had dinner and drinks at Dencio’s at the Trellis. The weekend after that we had a hearty dinner at Emerald care of one of my officemates. I haven’t forgotten the crabs we had.
I almost didn’t write about how we’re always out with friends.
I even remember that time D. and I watched the PurpleChickens, Kapatid, and Hale at Saguijo.
It’s been a seamless series of niceties that I almost didn’t notice, if I didn’t look into the details.
It’s bumming. It's bumming at its best.
I haven’t noticed how I yearned to feel how I feel now. I just finished another attempt to understand Jacques Lacan, while listening to chillout, drinking cheap coffee and smelling the scented oils whose vapors are rising to the ceiling, or finding its way to the corners of my newly-cleaned, dust-free, accessorized and tastefully furnished room (at least from my perspective). The bells, synthesizers, drum and bass of the music’s ambient mood is a terrific anthem. I’m studying in La Salle again and I have access to the library and its wealth of books.
Rummaging the pockets of my bag for a notebook, I found a used pair of socks in a plastic bag. I remembered how, on the way to Z.’s 1st birthday party in Brick Road Sta. Lucia, my socks got wet as I braved the rain walking to the venue. I told this to D. and while we shopped around Gateway, she bought me a new pair. We went to her place after and had more Don Hen spaghetti and chicken.
I haven’t noticed how in the time between a job interview and a test, I was able to sit down to a chicken sandwich and three glasses of apple juice while reading Arthur Nersesian’s The Fuck-Up. It’s been one of the most amusing reads of the year. Maybe it’s something I half-expect to literally relate to. I realized how it was noon, and if not for this vacation I would’ve been rotting in the office. Instead, I am in a restaurant, eating and listening to Kruder and Dorfmeister with a view of Ortigas in the window. D. has downloaded a lot of Music for me, from Aimee Mann’s Bachelor no. 2 to Jim Morrison’s An American Prayer, to the 1999 K&D sessions, to the Yoshida Brothers.
One thing I noticed just leads to the other. Although I have never failed to stress this to myself, I have a perfect girlfriend who understands, shares, and appreciates my tastes, fulfills my desires, listens to my incessant whining, drinks with me, travels with me, and savors life’s niceties with me, while I do the same to her.
I haven’t noticed how I bummed around guiltlessly and through my own means. I even managed to give a little money to my mom.
I haven’t noticed how D. and I can have lunch dates now, from the Pasto in Ortigas or at the Orient Square Food Court. I had the time to visit her during weekdays for dinner, a movie and a few drinks.
I haven’t really focused on the details of what I’ve learned in Philosophy class, as well as that learning drive I’m now riding on.
I haven’t fully absorbed how, if I had work, I probably would never have the time to attend film festivals. S.’s film was one of the entries for the first-ever Cinemalaya. After the opening ceremonies, we had dinner and drinks at Dencio’s at the Trellis. The weekend after that we had a hearty dinner at Emerald care of one of my officemates. I haven’t forgotten the crabs we had.
I almost didn’t write about how we’re always out with friends.
I even remember that time D. and I watched the PurpleChickens, Kapatid, and Hale at Saguijo.
It’s been a seamless series of niceties that I almost didn’t notice, if I didn’t look into the details.
It’s bumming. It's bumming at its best.
Saturday, July 30, 2005
What I Know
It’s not critical hermeneutics, it’s not postmodernism, but thinking of yourself as dumb is the one true learning. Maybe I’m not at all dumb, but it would be better if we had no claims to intelligence either. It elevates us to a higher podium and it gives us license to laugh at everyone who claims to be smart. Maybe it’s just classic Socrates. “Wisest is he who knows he does not know.”
Sometimes I tire of telling myself of happy I’ve been. Then I barely notice how happy I am.
Sometimes I tire of telling myself of happy I’ve been. Then I barely notice how happy I am.
What I Do
The silliest truth of all is that writing is not helping me now. Writing hasn’t been rewarding. It isn’t hiding the fact that I am dumb. There are no noble truths behind my choice to study Philosophy. I just wanted to obscure the fact that I am futureless. Philosophy only tranquilizes my thoughts on who I’m going to become in the future, and it painlessly absolves me of dreams of getting rich. It’s an alibi for having lost a “serious,” business-inclined ambition. So I finally realized why I’m studying again. I’m the dumbest ass alive.
Language limits us to the reality that language itself construes. Language is pounding the word numskull in my head.
Resolutely floating aimlessly can make you drift from one drinking binge to another. I miss drinking alone. You don’t have to worry about anything when you say something embarrassing. You can only embarrass yourself to yourself. And yes, I’ve been reading a little Sartre again. Hell is other people. No Exit was fantastic.
I wonder how I manage to say things sometimes: “Depressed people are people who don’t get life’s cosmic joke.” I don’t even get it. Haha.
What I do:
- Study Philosophy, since its midterm this week. I’ve recently learned that the reason why I’m studying, is because I’m so stupid I have to study again. I can’t even understand Kristeva and Lacan on my own. But I’ll probably feel better after getting agreeable remarks on the papers I write. I hope I do.
- Stay sober. Although it won’t be long till I’m inebriated again.
- Look sloppy. Dyaneh says she misses me in office attire. Is it a subtle way of telling me to go work? I just realized how much I look like the houseboy all the time. Not that I’m trying to wring people’s apathy, but I’d love it if they think I’m a houseboy.
- Read, listen. Most recent read: Kiss of the Spiderwoman (Manuel Puig). Who wouldn’t have grown a fondness for a Marxist revolutionary and a gay window-dresser talking about movies all day in an Argentine prison?
- Job Interviews. I don’t even take Call Centers seriously anymore, especially when they make you wait too long as if they had no regard for their prospective employee’s time, only to offer less than what you previously earned. I just put up with a minimum, job interview decorum. After four worn years, you really wouldn’t be that eager to work at entry level again.
- Spend less. The only consistent law I have ever known in economics, the only one I have put into practice, is that when you have less, you spend less. If you have more, you spend more.
- Dawdle. To be idle, to was time, to procrastinate.
Language limits us to the reality that language itself construes. Language is pounding the word numskull in my head.
Resolutely floating aimlessly can make you drift from one drinking binge to another. I miss drinking alone. You don’t have to worry about anything when you say something embarrassing. You can only embarrass yourself to yourself. And yes, I’ve been reading a little Sartre again. Hell is other people. No Exit was fantastic.
I wonder how I manage to say things sometimes: “Depressed people are people who don’t get life’s cosmic joke.” I don’t even get it. Haha.
What I do:
- Study Philosophy, since its midterm this week. I’ve recently learned that the reason why I’m studying, is because I’m so stupid I have to study again. I can’t even understand Kristeva and Lacan on my own. But I’ll probably feel better after getting agreeable remarks on the papers I write. I hope I do.
- Stay sober. Although it won’t be long till I’m inebriated again.
- Look sloppy. Dyaneh says she misses me in office attire. Is it a subtle way of telling me to go work? I just realized how much I look like the houseboy all the time. Not that I’m trying to wring people’s apathy, but I’d love it if they think I’m a houseboy.
- Read, listen. Most recent read: Kiss of the Spiderwoman (Manuel Puig). Who wouldn’t have grown a fondness for a Marxist revolutionary and a gay window-dresser talking about movies all day in an Argentine prison?
- Job Interviews. I don’t even take Call Centers seriously anymore, especially when they make you wait too long as if they had no regard for their prospective employee’s time, only to offer less than what you previously earned. I just put up with a minimum, job interview decorum. After four worn years, you really wouldn’t be that eager to work at entry level again.
- Spend less. The only consistent law I have ever known in economics, the only one I have put into practice, is that when you have less, you spend less. If you have more, you spend more.
- Dawdle. To be idle, to was time, to procrastinate.
