Autistic Wannabe-ing

I usually have both profound sympathy and an admiration bordering on the wanting-to-be --- autistic. Strangely enough, they make my own eerie compulsions and my compulsions and mannerisms rather normal. The world is a safer place without anybody else in it.

We’ve seen a lot of movies and read many stories about emotionally disassociated minds. They were all heavily charged with disparity and kept wringing our pity. “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time” in contrast, is one that we simply relate to, and empathize with. We don’t feel pity for the character, we level with him and genuinely cheer him on and hope for an eventual triumph. It allows not to see the character as an outcast. We come to an understanding of how their world works. And we are awed by this world.

Aesthetics and Drama

My sense of aesthetics was reduced from “Aesthetic Contemplation” in the Schopenhauerian sense to the “aesthetics” of choosing the colors, fonts and graphical presentations of my daily/weekly/monthly reports in Microsoft Excel.

Coffeeshop drama na naman.

Raskolnikoving

The best part of Crime and Punishment is p.326. A proud Raskolnikov, in a sense of delirium, unremorseful of the crime he committed, tries to justify himself.

His discussion of the “Ordinary Man” and “Extraordinary Man” shows some footprints of the influence to Nietzsche. But this is also how Nietzsche departs from Dostoevsky and turns the footprints of his influence on to an entirely different path.

Forgotten Spontaneous Conversations

jairusjason: Hello H. You must be busy. Anyway, I'm making you a playlist. Very vintage. Let's meet again soon.
H: cool
H: what about tonight?
jairusjason: Nah. Got work.
jairusjason: And you've got to go save the world.
jairusjason: From a cozy office in Maginhawa St.
H: even saviors need to take a break
H: jesus even had forty days in the desert
jairusjason: Jesus didn't save the world.
H: hasn't.
H: you disbelieving pagan.
jairusjason: He's a philosopher and all, and gave a new direction to the world.
jairusjason: But Religion (including the one founded on his teachings) comprises 3/4 of reasons why the world is at war.
H: i disagree. the war in iraq is not about religion. the war in mindanao is not about religion.
jairusjason: The whole crusades was about religion.
H: it's about power. and in the course of it, those involved in the war will pray to whoever god they want to meet after they die.
jairusjason: Don't pull that Foucault shit on me. hahaha.
H: and don't pull that huntington on me.
jairusjason: Hindus and Muslims
jairusjason: Protestants and Catholics (under the banner of Christ) in Ireland
jairusjason: Wiping out the entire Tokugawa Dynasty in Japan
H: ireland was about control
H: dunno about japan but don't confuse the rhetoric used by those at war with the reasons why they are at war.
H: george bush said god told him to invade iraq and to protect israel. do we take his word for it?
jairusjason: Exactly. Religion becomes a convenient excuse for us to bite each other's heads off.
jairusjason: Of course, there is always power, land, or a nation's sovereignty involved.
jairusjason: But Religion always factors in.
H: but don't confuse excuses with the real reasons. i'm too lazy to go to the office today, my excuse: i'm sick.
jairusjason: It always works. hehe.
jairusjason: It's not entirely true that wars are all about a struglle on power.
jairusjason: sturggle
H: give me one example that wasn't about power.
jairusjason: There are people who genuinely believe that war is justified because their faith has decreed it.
H: what people who are at war believe in may be different from why they are at war.
jairusjason: If you put into context (which is always problematic), or position it in a certain logic, of one religion winning over another, then it may be true that it's always about power.
jairusjason: But it's still too reductive to say that it's just that.
H: example?
H: many people in iraq are fighting back against the US because they believe it's a war against islam and they believe it's their duty to defend their religion. true. but can we then say that the war is about religion?
jairusjason: you can go as far as saying that religion can be used as convenient yet effective excuse to defend/conquer nations and kill other people. That's just as terrible as war itself, whatever the "real" reason war has.
H: what is terrible? the use of religion?
jairusjason: that religion can be used as convenient yet effective excuse to defend/conquer nations and kill other people
H: terrible? but we can't just be terrified all the time.
jairusjason: That's what religion does.
jairusjason: It's a very big ad bacculum.
H: what the heck is ad bacculum?
jairusjason: you've forgotten your fallacies!
jairusjason: hehehehe.
H: terrible? but we can't just be terrified all the time<= what i meant was that we have to do something, and saying "it's all about the instrumentalization of religion" doesn't help much.
H: it's a nice academic thesis but it can get boring in the ivory tower.
H: and if we don't want to just be terrified, only a coherent analysis of power -- who's responsible, how can they be stopped -- can guide our actions.
jairusjason: Having something substaintial to say something about the instrumentalization religion is already part of your coherent analysis of power.
H: but you're right, the pope is evil.
jairusjason: Once we a re-educated on what religion really does, once we rebuild our perceptions or religion, if not replaced with a more rigorous philosophy, we take a signifcant step.
jairusjason: It's not just Ivory Tower shit.
H: ok, agree.
jairusjason: And we've certainly made some progress.
H: i guess i just need no convincing on the evils of religion.
H: but don't underestimate the evils of secularism as well.
jairusjason: There are many areas of society where agnosticism or plain disbelief is no longer a scandal.
jairusjason: Jesus Christ was not a savior.
jairusjason: What is called for is a re-interpretation, and re-reading of his teachings.
H: depends too, a lot his teaching were emancipatory
jairusjason: Which is good!
H: blessed are the poor in spirit, he who will be first will be last and he who is last will be first... it's easier for a camel to enter heaven than for a rich man to enter the eye of a needle or something...
jairusjason: hahaha. I really miss the scriptures.
jairusjason: What are the evils of secularism?
H: um. nazism was secular. it killed 4 million jews.
jairusjason: 6 million.
jairusjason: nah. that's different.
H: hitler wasn't motivated by religion was he?
jairusjason: He was motivated by Nietzsche.
jairusjason: hahahaha.
H: the us claims to have a secular government
H: 650,000 killed in iraq
jairusjason: Oh, yeah. And communism.
jairusjason: Right. It their movements were exactly like religion.
jairusjason: It's another form of... extremism.

How to Lose, Gracefully

With the right frame of mind, luck, logic, position, you turn your deuce-sevens to pocket rockets. You gain the discernment and humility to fold a good hand when it’s not the strongest. You know that a chip stack can be a tool, a fortress or a strap, and you fight out yours until another large stack is born. You play above the rail. You plan the man, not just the cards. You show respect, you commend your opponent when you’ve been well outplayed. You shift gears right when you need to get up to speed. You learn to live with a bad beat, but never be hampered by defeat – thereby comprehending what it means to move forward. You put method to madness, logic to luck. You gain the temperance of never going on tilt. You value the company of friends you play with. You win. Most importantly, you learn how to lose, gracefully.

My Sad Republic

My Sad Republic festoons your life with words and phrases which were so intricately selected, as though it had nature’s help when its processes opens the petals of a flower. It naturally and intricately story-tells what is beautiful. It rewards your life with a narrative that summons so much history, nostalgia, fascination, humor, and a mastery of the literary craft that makes you want to worship the writer the way people worship the saints who wrote the bible.

The only downside is it reminds you too much of the images, characters, and even the structure of “100 Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It whittles the originality, but somehow My Sad Republic still manages to leave a uniqueness that leaves you awed. You felt the unforgiving heat he described, the loneliness of what seemed like a hundred years of rain, the power of each ritual and each amulet, you saw how the moon was a bright silver wafer as they made love by that beach, and you will eternally be entranced by the idea of poetry attacking the most unlikely places.