changing views

Fr. Montero, S.J., our professor in metaphysics, used to tell us before the start of the class: “Quid quid recipitur, recipitur secundum mudum recipiende”. Translated, “Everything is received according to the capacity of the receiver.” By way of an analogy, the one-liter bottle can never hold more than its capacity.

Then, Fr. Montero would proceed: “This is an immutable law of nature.” If you are dumb, you are bound to me one. If your I.Q. is that of a moron, then don’t aspire for post graduate studies.

May his soul rest, I indeed kept his maxim to the heart. No one from the class challenged his view. How can indeed a one-liter bottle hold two liters of water? From the classroom discussion, this seeming truism influence the way we relate to people. This child, given his I.Q., cannot take up law; that employee can never do this task.

Whilst science owes its framework from philosophy, the latter too has to bow to the superiority of the empirically demonstrated fact. The flat earth theory was a Mesopotamian thought that prevailed for many centuries, percolating in science, politics, and religion. Until Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the earth, the earth was then held not round. The whole system of knowledge had to be overhauled.

Then lately, contemporary medical findings have it that the neural networks that wire man’s brain can actually be stimulated by engaging the mind in both creative and analytical activities so the neurons multiply and create more linkages. The more linkages of the neurons, the more wired the brain is, and hence, the better I.Q and even E.Q a person have.

Science too may later on develop a bottle that even if it is designed to hold one liter of water, it may contain more compared to the present design because in the future, perhaps, even in between the molecules of the glass bottle, there may be nano particles that can hold up water. Now, you don’t measure intelligence by I.Q. The generally accepted norm today is multi-intelligences. The brightest of your kid, or employee, or you friend, may not necessarily be the best for the organization. The entire person is the package.

Are there really immutable laws of nature? The answer cannot be had in the near future. Philosophical theories are constantly being redefined by science, and the latter’s direction is being moulded by the contemporary thought.

Rigidity. Fundamentalism. Absolutism. These are anathema of the unfolding of human knowledge. Given the context, the right attitude is not dogmatism nor relativism. Dogmatism stifles the search for knowledge, and adaptation to something new. Relativism however leads to chaos. For sure, concepts and ideas may not be necessarily existentially true because one believes it to be so. The taking of soma plant during the Kali yoga ritual is not necessarily sound because they experience the 7^th heaven in their hallucinatory flight. There are certain universal virtues, not necessarily immutable truths that still keep humanity intact for millenniums now.

The attitude should be openness, the capacity to learn, listen, experiment, and adapt to new concepts. One does not have to die for a view which overtime have been proven false by verifiable phenomena. When the Oil Deregulation Law in the Philippines was enacted, consumers’ blood pressure shot up because that would mean pillage by the oil cartel in the Philippines comprising of Shell, Caltex, and Petron. That was in 1998. Ten years after, and after two months drinking with the top executives of the new oil player in the market, the new opinion has to be formed: the Oil Deregulation Law is good for the Philippine economy. The cartel of the Big Three is being slowly torn asunder by the many new players which roll back the pump prices ahead of the former. The hour per hour monitoring of the pump prices by this new player, JETTI Oil, is evidenced enough of the cut-throat competition going on. This is good for the consumers.

In human relations, openness is the key. One or two events do not a person make. Prejudgement, discrimination, bias, these three have no place in contemporary history that keeps on changing, and evolving. While as a human race, we evolve in knowledge; as a person, we are still in the life long search for identity, and in the process, revealing shades of the evolving persona.

How one wish Fr. Montero, S.J. is still alive, to tell him that his dictum does not hold now. But then he was a product of his time and place. No one should judge a person without judging the historical context he was in. And who are we to judge the historical context of the past which eventually, we the present, trace the long thread of the past, live the present, and project the future?

Had Fr. Montero been still alive today, the bet is for him to open up to the knowledge of the present, and adapt it. May be, even as he was still schooled in metaphysics and immutable truths, by now, he would live blogging his ideas into the virtual world.

Openness. How can you argue against?

pausing from a blur

It has been months since I last blogged.  The events, both professional and personal, have been a blur.  The lawyer’s life is almost everyday racing to beat deadlines of legal briefs.  On a personal side,  constructing  a new house which is near the children’s school took my  off office hours.  But as in the past,  I always take time to reflect during my natal day.  Such day is today.

 When we are young,  time seems too slow.  During my elementary years, I wanted to finish fast so I would be in high school; and in high school, I wished time would pass fast so I be in college. But past forty, it seems that time passes so fast that you want that it would stand still.  There are so many concerns you want completed that one desires for more time.  I have seen people in a funeral, and wondered why people walk slowly as they lay the dead to the final resting place. Now I realize that the walk is precisely to bewail for the lost time not spent with the dead.  If only we could turn back the hands of father time.

But time has to pass; so too this borrowed life.  In the end, I ask, what are the things I have done, and things that I should do, so that in the end, I want everybody not to walk in the funeral but run as fast because the life once lived had been meaningful. If it were a sentence, the grave should be the final punctuation mark, a period, that to extend it would mean the loss of the magic the sentence evokes.

Meaning???!!!  Ah, how many lives have been spent without really finding it, and how many journeys ending in a meaningless search.  Once, I wrote about one’s meaning in life, and I received a rather harsh reaction from fellow blogger virtually called PAPA.  The meaning of one’s life is not something cerebral; it is the way we live and relate to people, in  perking up the otherwise mundane things; in celebrating triumphs and arising whole and intact from failures.

Today, I have forgiven in my heart the person who hurt me badly these past days.  I could not understand why that despite the help I am extending,  venom still comes out from her mouth.  Even as she refused to acknowledge the wrong, and thus refuse my forgiveness,  it does not matter.  My heart is now cleansed.  A poisoned heart is not at peace.

Then I recall Stephen Covey and his idea about paradigm.  What makes man unique is not his genetic make-up.  Science can make a clone, a close copy of the double helix of the original.  What makes man truly unique is not his DNA; it is his perception of reality.  A clone may have the genetic make-up of the original, but it does not have the consciousness of the latter.

When one arise from his bed every morning, he either sees the receding darkness, or the rising of the sun from the horizon.  There you immediately see the persona, one distinctly different from the other.  Among those who see darkness, the shades of the dark differ ; for those who see the rising sun, they too differ in their perception of the intensity of the light.

The challenge for human understanding and compassion, is to be able to see how the other perceives reality, the standpoint from which he sees the situation – in a word, his paradigm.  Knowing and understanding the other necessitates viewing things from his paradigm.  If one is able to do this, compassion prevails in his heart.

In my career too as a lawyer, I always try to understand the paradigm of  my client, the adverse party, the opposing lawyer, and upon  knowing  where they  come from, I tend to know what strategy they will use, and what measures needed to counter the tactics.

Yes, PAPA,  it is not finding meaning but in being fully alive and awake, of passion  for life that truly matters.

I have celebrated life with my relatives, employees, friends, even with unknown individuals.  Bottles of beers have been emptied; tennis balls have been struck with precision and ferocity; tempers have flared-up;  jokes have been shared;  legal briefs have been written; and yes, tears too have been shed -  all these in celebration of a life.   Today is the best day to renew the passion for life, in real life and yes, even in the virtual reality.

                                                   

 

the reflective capacity: “cogito, ergo sum”

Between man and all those that belong to Kingdom Animalia, there is an eternal chasm. Of all creatures, only man is capable of rational thinking. Rene Descartes exclaimed: “Cogito, ergo sum.” Translated, “I think therefore I am”. But there is even a greater divide between the rest of the members of his kingdom: It is only man who is capable of thinking that he is in fact thinking. In a word, man is capable of reflection, of transcending himself from his present existence.

The Myth of Sisyphus has been like a biblical parable to the existentialists. While the Garden of Eden saw Adam and Eve created to multiply, subdue the earth, and have dominion over all things, Sisyphus was condemn to roll the stones up the hill, and when it reaches the peak, the stone rolls down. For Sisyphus, there is no end to the eternal damnation. Since he was damned, he has to find meaning of the existence he did not choose.

But confronted with the circumstance of his existence, he has to project something beyond the present, beyond his present circumstance. In a word, in the face of the absurdity of rolling the stone upwards, there got to be meaning; otherwise, absurdity can easily turn to insanity, if not to suicide.

Human existence – stripped of the religious content, of the faith element which no argument is needed – is of Sisyphean genre. Every day, man devotes his time learning, working, socializing, ministering to his material and spiritual needs as well. But after all the lifetime of doing all these, everything is reduced to a dust, as all humans are destined. Life, and living it, is one prolonged trajectory from the cradle to the grave. After all the time spent surviving and living, ironically, every day spent is a day inching towards the grave. If life would have to end in that absurd way, why live at all?

For the religious, faith teaches him that there is afterlife. If there is afterlife, then the present existence must be spent following the rules the Creator ordained for human salvation. In the light of the promising future, there is meaning in what one does at present.

But the grace of faith, even if is bestowed on all humans, is not all the time recognized and lived. What then of present life? And besides, supposed there is no after life, what to make of one’s life? Would it mean that people are licensed to commit suicide because living and trying to survive is absurd?

Man is thrust in the world without freedom. No one choose to be born. But having been born alive, he is called upon to live and survive the kind of life that he wants, a life project that he has to forge and nurture. One realizes though that the other fellow human beings were born, and many will be born, without any option not to. If the mother’s womb nourished the fertilized egg until it is born, society is the womb that enables human to survive and live, using the tools of civilization – language, mores history, culture. Not only did man not choose to live, he too has to reckon with another given in his life – his social milieu.

Why does one grope for meaning in life? Why does Sisyphus have to appreciate the drudgery of rolling the stone upwards, and up again every time the stone rolls down? Take out the meaning content of life, and you lose the reason to continue living. And why does one have to have meaning in order to go on living? The key lies in man’s nature. Man not only thinks, but he is the only living being that is aware that he is thinking. Due to this human faculty of reflection, he is capable of finding meaning. Ironically also, man’s capacity to reflect is the same reason why he feels the gnawing angst if he loses meaning in living further. If man cannot relate something transcendental to his present existence, he feels the existential angst which all men are heirs to. This angst is the feeling of loneliness in a crowd, the barrenness of life amidst material plenty: it is the sadness that lays hidden behind the smile.

For animals, the definition of their nature and their kind of life is summed-up easily by their present circumstance. Man, on the other, is not defined by his present circumstance because he has transcendent nature, the capacity of going beyond the circumstance as he waives dreams, and fashions a meaning which is only accessible to him. You heard tales of great men who, despite the face of death, still uphold their ideals and dreams, men who dared to lose their lives so their life project, the meaning of their existence survives.

Because man reflects, he transcends the present. He is willing to lose his life so the meaning of his life may not be put to naught.

But ironically, man’s capacity for self-awareness, for reflection is also the bane that he carries until the grave. As one takes a mental picture of the kind of life he intends to live, and compare it with his present circumstance, there he realizes that there is a seeming unbridgeable divide. Even as he tries to realize his life project, his present prevents him from doing so, and even if he tries to bridge it, it appears that life project is receding further beyond his reach.

There was a boy born of poverty. He dreamed to be a doctor. By sheer diligence and hard work, he realized his dream. He succeeded. He acquired material wealth which he only dreamt of before. He became prominent. But then, even with his success. He committed suicide. We ask why?

Man’s projection of himself differs vastly in content. The doctor, owing to poverty may have dreamed of acquiring material wealth. The sure road is the medical profession which is paid handsomely. Yet, he may have realized later on that what really completes him is not material wealth, but something which may be yet undefined.

What then characterizes this meaning in life? Is the goal we set the meaning of our life? Take the doctor. He has achieved his goal but he snuffed out his own life. The problem with a goal being the end-all and be-all of one’s life is that when we achieve the goal, we realize that it never completes us otherwise we see no more reason for living. We struggle in life because there is something yet missing, something that we have to find. Once a goal is achieved, there will always be another one, and still another. The heart will always be restless.

The meaning of life, the true meaning that is, lies in the way we live life, in finding happiness in everything we do, not in the fleeting euphoria after having achieved a goal. This way, you do not hunger for what is not within your grasp because you are at peace with what you are and with what you have. Sisyphus did not aim to roll the stone upwards because there was a futility of the effort. If we aim to amass wealth, acquire knowledge, achieve the goals, the absurdity of it all is that when we die, all these turn into dust. The key therefore is to transcend ourselves and find the kind of life that we find our heart at peace with. That way, every step towards the Sisyphean apex is a source of joy notwithstanding that up the hill, the stone rolls down again; just all men, everything they do, end up in the grave.

The tragedy of life is not in failing to achieve the meaning of life, but to die without finding the meaning of his existence.

 

simplify life

Peter, at the age of 28, is two ranks away from becoming the captain of an international ship, after just seven years in the sea.  While others envied him for his stellar rise, he suddenly stopped, and decided to go home, and restart life by going back to school and study another course.  I asked him why, and he said: “ I have whispered so many dreams to the surging waves, and whilst my time in the vastness of the ocean.  For once, I want to sleep in my own pillow where my heart rests at peace”.

I dreamt of becoming a lawyer with lucrative practice, and be a politician.  After just five years into law practice, I was in the law firm where clients have to secure appointments, and a firm where I could launch my political career, one partner being a congressman already.  Then suddenly, I realized that I wanted a simpler life.  In 1999, I chose to resettle and open a new law office, and started all over again.

When the new year is only nights away, it is time to reflect on what one has done and has failed to do for the year,  and yes, not even for a year, but of the years one have lived so far.

People have amassed wealth. Bill Gates was once the richest until he gave to others the chunk of his wealth.  Others sought fame and glory.  Still others put a harem.  Bin Laden chose the path of terror.  But when people reach the top of the ladder of the path they have opted for, they realize that the ladder ends in eternity.  There is no so-called peak of wealth, fame, glory, and yes, even infamy.  When you think you reach there, you realize that there is something still which you can never reach nor acquire.

Many have burnt their life energies in pursuit of their dreams, only to realize that there is something lacking, that the dreams can never come in complete fruition.  Others even die without knowing if they have reached the apex of their dreams.  Still many choose death in utter frustration of the inherent impossibility of achieving the fullness of their dreams, and of their desires. Worst, there are those who died without even knowing what dreams they have had.

Human existence has, as it were, always “a hole in the donut”.  There can be no fullness in living.  Man like a donut, has always that existential “hole” that prevents him from being complete, of being fully satisfied; otherwise, if there is no such hole, he ceases to be human, and the donut ceases also.

Fr. Michael Moga, S.J.,  the principal exponent and author of Man’s Infinite Hunger,  once told our class: “ The key is not to achieve, to acquire, to dream: the key does not lie beyond but is inside your heart.  Try to ask yourself, what truly makes you happy and content, where can your heart find peace and solace, if you have found this, then live that life.”

I asked Peter why he stopped being a seaman, and choose to live frugally.  He told me: “For seven years I stayed in the ship, I had only one vacation every two  years but  I earned dollars.  P1000 then was only a loose change. I can easily give the money away.  I could buy food, wine, and women. During thirty days of vacation, I could do everything I wanted to.  Then after, back to the reality of surging waves and the expanse of the ocean.  In a word, I bargained two years for thirty days of bacchanalia, hedonism, and gluttony.  Now, every penny counts. I don’t stay in hotels anymore but stays in the house of relatives and become closer to them.  I do not ride in taxis anymore but in public vehicles where I got to talk to co-passengers who are my neighbors, and we exchange jokes while riding.  Since I do not have money, I do not go out on Sundays but I instead go to the church where the priest will not compel you to give tithes.  So I become closer to God.  I am happy for the full one year without losing my life n the seas.”

The key to living is not of having nor achieving but of finding meaning.  When I was young, I could not understand why my grandfather would close the door of his room, and do nothing for the day but read books.  When he died, and I was tasked to give a eulogy,  I was thinking of what to say.  Then I went inside his room, and browsed the books.  There I realized that for every line of every page, there was always a comment or a cross reference.  Reading his books, due to sheer volume,  could last a lifetime.  So only a man who found meaning in reading the books could so passionately comment on every line the author  said.  When I was called to give the eulogy, I was almost tempted to say: “Here lies a man who had uninterrupted lifetime of orgasm reading books”.  In deference to my elders, I simply said: “ My grandfather has no wealth, has no diploma, but he had the fullness of life he only knew, and had we known, we could only envy about.”

Before I decided to relocate my law practice, I was a  heavy, and gasping 86 kilos, thanks to  birthdays,  baptisms, anniversaries, or plain charivaris among buddies, which an aspiring politician cannot  refuse. Home everyday was early dawn when my children and wife were already sleeping.  Even in the house, clients would come, taking away the time that I should have spent with my kids.  Then I resolved that I did not have to be a high profile lawyer.  Deep in my heart, I was only longing for the simple joys of trial works, of cross-examinations and arguments, without sacrificing a family.  In an attempt to balance my life, I relocated my practice and simplified my life to work, tennis court, and home, and attending parties do not come as obligation.

I do not claim to have the fullness of life but I never regret my decision to start life anew.  Hopefully, Peter, who just made his decision three months ago,  will not also regret later in life.

evolving consciousness

 

Before daybreak today, I drove going to Camiguin, a one hour ride by car and another one hour ride by boat, for a court hearing. Just as last year, when days before the day I first saw the world, I have been in contemplative mood, pondering of the life I have lived and what remains of the earthly journey. In a word, I have this stream of consciousness that never fails to flash in my mind, as in a movie.

The age of reason is supposedly seven years old, when the child becomes self-aware of himself, of the outside world, when he starts to use his reasoning prowess – in a word, when the child slowly evolves into a man. As we look back, there is this realization that what we are now is strangely different when we were, say 7 years old. The way we look at the world, and relate to it, and to act in a community of men, is never the same each passing year. Somehow, our consciousness is not the same as that of last year. We simply change, hopefully for the better, but the reality is that, it is not always so.

The young tends, generally, to favor loud, metallic sounds, punk, or outright rock. Later in life, you realize that you could not anymore groove with the fast beat, when you tend to go cozy with the jazz or the classic.

From what source does the change spring? Is it the natural development of the brain, from childhood to adulthood, and the natural decay as man is nearing the grave, by age? Or is it the myriad of factors, like the people around you, the wares that you strut around, or the place where you hang around? Am I evolving alone, or my consciousness evolves with the collective psyche, with the universal man?

Friedrich Hegel said that the “mind” is evolving, and that this evolution determines how society in general is structured. Social structures are the product of a pure thought which in itself is evolving, and as it evolves, so does society. Karl Marx turned upside down Hegel’s concept when he said “ the economic superstructure determines consciousness”. Simply put, the way we structure our society, culturally and politically, depends on the kind of economy. Agriculture has feudalism; industry and trade have capitalism. The consciousness among the feudal lords and among the capitalists is drastically different from the proletariat. The rich reads the classical novels, the laborer in the hovel, the comics. The rich is concerned with the Victorian table manners; the poor, of immediately using the hand that feed the mouth. The rich lives above the clouds and therefore is conscious of the finer things in life; the poor toils the earth, and is therefore, conscious more of daily survival.

In my youth, Karl Marx never convinced me, and more now.

Yesterday, CNN reported about a scientist in London who is into hybrid animal-human stem cell research. Man, after having decoded the human gnome is now playing god. There may be serious ethical issues here but one fact cannot be disputed: science has evolved in quantum leaps. More than half a century ago, man reached the moon, later planet mars. The internet has drastically changed communication. But, after Darwin challenged the creation theory, the decoding of man’s gnome makes it possible the cloning of parts of the human body. The implications are far reaching.

If there is anything so pervasive and incessant an influence on man’s consciousness, science is it. It may be true that the economic structure determines consciousness, but the economy is determined by the progress of science. Mass production, telecommunication, planes, sky-rise building, internet, medicine, all these we owe to science. Name a field in science, and come to realize, how this field has changed our lifestyle, and the way we relate to the outside world. Before, we wrote love letters with our paper and pen, now we just email it. Even in rigid countries such as Iran, the cable table and internet and constant human travel have influenced this previously cloistered society. Some women are already getting rid of the burqas. Thanks to the information overload.

At no point in recorded history has the influence of science more pervasive than now. The change of our individual consciousness is triggered largely by the rapid progress of science which has changed the way we live, and even the way we perceive things. The gnome project has pushed us to rethink our philosophy vis-à-vis our morality and beliefs.

As I write this blog, I received a cell phone message, greeting me this early. I replied through text message. Twenty years ago, I used to receive a real greeting card, not virtual. I have online friends worldwide which was not possible two decades ago. Things are a-changing, and my consciousness is a particle of the collective consciousness that is now emerging globally.

 

 

 

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Friday September 7, 2007 – 06:33am (CST) Edit | Delete

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the other worlds

It starts with a basic premise. Everything that we perceive is based on the limitations of our senses, and the extent by which our minds process these perceptions. In this sense , man is truly unique; it is not our color, height, or weight that make as an individual, it is our peculiar perception of the reality that confronts us, which is basically determined by our senses and mental capacity, and the memories that we have stored in your psyche.

The dog perceives you starkly definitely from the way you see yourself in the mirror. The range vision of the dog is different from yours. The dog has powerful sense of smell. We, concededly, cannot sniff a bomb. The world we see is not the same kind of world the dog experiences. Imagine if you had night vision: the nights would never be the same again.

At a time when I was engrossed in my study of philosophy, I was enamored with the idea of parallel universes, and the implications they have on human existence. Philippine Studies, my other major way back in the undergraduate, exposed me to the world of faith healing, shamanism, witchcraft, magic, the frontiers of the mind – the other worlds. If we perceive reality differently, ergo, we cannot shut the door to the possibility that parallel to the reality that we now live, there are other possible universes that co-exist with us but which, owing to the limitations of human faculties, we cannot perceive and understand, as of yet.

Parapsychology explains these other worldly phenomena based on the capacity of the mind, and the yet its uncharted potential. Yuri Geller is able to bend metals by merely concentrating on it, and telekinetic powers take over. John of God, the Brazilian doctor turned faith healer, is able to operate without use of anesthesia. Nostradamus had clairvoyant powers, the gift to see the future. If your beloved is in distress, thousand of miles away, you too will feel the distress. Charge it to your extra sensory perception. All these are but illustration of the powers of the mind.

Yet, there are similar phenomena which do not fold quite fully well in the mold the parapsychologist explains as the power of the mind.

Take my grandmother, who incidentally, at the age of 94 can still recognize her grandchildren. At a tender, I witnessed many people who were suffering from the worst form of skin diseases. She did not finish elementary nor medical course. But she has this potion which is heated, and then she would rub this to the affected area, and murmured incantations the language of which I do not understand. Amazingly, living micro-organisms were collected in this hot potion, so hot that I wondered why these organisms were still crawling. The process was repeated depending on the severity of the disease. In days, the skin diseases were cured.

I developed recurring sinusitis way back in high school. Every summer vacation, I would return to our very rural hometown where my grandma lived then. One time, I had this sinusitis, with the debilitating fever and headache. There was this faith healer named Inday Moran (may her soul rest in peace). My grandma accompanied me to her clinic. To my surprise, the same medicines which my doctor gave me were prescribed by this faith healer. She also operated other patients the same way a doctor would. But she would also refuse to administer serious cases like operating on a kidney due to lack of facilities. When I was examined by her, I realized that she was a linguist. She spoke English, Tagalog, and other languages fluently. Yet, she only reached Grade III in the elementary level.

She cured so many people that she was elected mayor of our town, and was undefeated until she died. And my sinusitis? She cured it.

Ever since, I have opened to the possibility of parallel universes. I have to unless I had super human senses and perceptions. If one recognizes his limitations, there is no other logical way but to be open to the possibility that the other universes may indeed exist.

I am prompted to blog about this because of my recent experience. Two years ago, my wife went to Ireland for two months. When she came back, she could barely walk and had been suffering excruciating pain for almost a month already. She was taking pain relievers but the pain persisted. After three doctors and many tests, she was diagnosed to have slip disc, an incurable disease in which one of the disc in the lower spinal column collapsed, and the major nerve compressed. Without surgical intervention, she could suffer paralysis in the lower part of her body. But I asked and researched about the success rate of slip disc operation. The result: it is a 60-40 proposition, with the possibility of major accident during surgery.

I have a German tennis buddy who has slip disc also. There are only two recognized experts in this field, two German doctors in Germany who can operate for a fee of P5 million or $100,000.00. Where on earth can I get the money?

Then, we went to this faith healer. Miraculously, the day after the healing, the pain was gone and my wife can walk again.

Was it our faith that healed? But to be candid, when we went to this faith healer, I was the typically doubting Thomas. The faith healer must have some powers which science, as of yet, cannot explain. The key is openness.

My friend Millie was kind enough to let me read about the Einstein Theory of Relativity. Small objects travel space that is warped by the larger objects, This warping can only be seen in at least 3 dimension-reality. But accordingly, there are 7 dimensions of the hyperspace which are not yet determined with particularity. Will somebody pursue Einstein and explain to us the possibility of parallel universes, the other worlds?

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Sunday August 19, 2007 – 07:40am (CST) Edit | Delete

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soulmates

shaped in the same cast, we trek apart

searching for our own cithara sings

the melody written in the universes of our fate

distanced by space, longing for the presence

we keep on humming, the same tune of our birth

when we sing, there is always the broken chord

that empties our being, and longing

in the concert hall of our heart, we know what

the music that completes the song

the soundtrack that our destinies must play

to our heart we keep, the testament of our birth

wherever we trod, we hear

the murmurs of the heart

the same melody we have always known

that by fate we, each, sing alone…

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Sunday July 1, 2007 – 06:17am (CST) Edit | Delete

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paradigms

I have devoured books. Books about sports, history, bios, philosophy, religion, and even, banned books. I too read pornography, and true art as well. What I am now, for sure, is not not only the synergy of the real lessons in life but also, the teachings the books taught me. Real lessons, once learned, cannot be unlearned: like a chronic disease, they become part of your being.

But in our readings, there are books which we imbibe the most, books which become prisms on how we view society and life in general. Two authors stand out for me: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Stephen Covey.

Hegel’s The Philosophy of History demonstrated the well – known dialectical reasoning of thesis-anti thesis and the resulting synthesis. For him, reality as we know it is the unfolding of the progression of the human thought, the dialectical materialism; that for every stage in history, there is the embryonic seed of destruction that would result to a synthesis which is a progression of the former state of things, which synthesis, in turn become the thesis in the historical ladder.

Heavy concepts , it seems. When I read Hegel’s books, at first, I thought I was facing a blank wall. I had to read several of his books before I took hold of his idea. The idea is actually unfolded in history. The affluence that wealth brings in capitalist America is the boon and bane of that state. Because people live in comfort and luxury, the incoming generation tend to be less industrious compared to the fathers that toiled for the wealth. There is the loosening of morals and discipline, essential traits of the nations that brought the wealth. The thesis, the wealthy society that is America, therefore, generated its own seed of destruction, the coming of the generation that marvels at comfort and luxury without the corresponding industry and discipline which the fathers had.

The anti-thesis of a free and honest election is the massive cheating, fraud and terrorism. But that too will necessarily end, not now perhaps, but if we follow the Hegelian dialectic, it will have its end, or at least refinement, in a new synthesis. Why? Because the anti-thesis of the free election, if pushed to its limits, carries with it its own demise. Massive electoral cheating, if it becomes intolerable, will invite its fierce foes.

What does this idea of dialectical materialism impact on me? I view events positively. When I read the horrible headlines, my spirit is not necessarily dampened. Terrorism, corruption, electoral cheating, these too shall pass and be resolved in a new synthesis. These are mere material manifestations of the progression of human history, and the evolution of the human thought. When this anti-thesis to a good society is exemplified in its worst forms, society will inevitably bring forth the synthesis. The wrong idea of actors being elected to office reached its apex during Erap’s election, and that the idea, as shown by the recent polls have to be killed. Cesar Montano, Richard Gomez, Lito Lapid were sent packing for their movie shoots and not the public offices.

The second book that impacted on me tremendously which changed my paradigm about people is that of Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It was gifted to me on my natal day by somebody I treasure for a lifetime. Accordingly, every actuation of a person can be understood based on a paradigm. Why do some Muslims regard Christians with enmity? Go to their paradigm. For them, we Christians are still the infidels who have desecrated their religion. If you understand where they are coming from, you understand the manifestations of their paradigm, and the greater your tolerance for cultural differences. Why does my eldest kid misbehave? Then go where she is coming from. Her next sibling followed barely a year after. When she needed our parental care and understood what it meant, we were coddling mostly the newborn. Her misconduct is a way of telling us that she too exists and needs coddling. Covey’s book opened my reservoir of compassion to other people. When I see people and their actuations, I relate these to their respective paradigm.

If every person would just view each other’s actuations based on the paradigm of that person, then the world will be very peaceful. Pope Benedict XVI, in fact, when he made a speech in a German university, though he was heavily criticized, invited Muslims and Christians to a true dialogue, a deeper understanding of the true bases of our discord.

The way we relate to people based on their respective paradigm is a paradigm in itself. But lest I may be misunderstood, Covey’s book is not an invitation to tolerate the commission of a wrong. Our paradigm is limited to our own perceptions and experiences. As my late professor in Metaphysics, Fr. Montero said: quid quid recipitur, recipitur secumdum mudum recepiendi. {Translated, things are received or perceived depending on the capacity of the receiver}. Ones paradigm and his understanding depends largely on his capacity to perceive and understand. Though our paradigms differ, the manifestations must be guided with the natural law of right and wrong. Killings cannot be tolerated just because one paradigm allows it. To detonate a bomb to kill the infidels may be understood in the light of one’s religious paradigm. But understanding and tolerance are different concepts. To kill a person, not in self-defense, cannot be universally accepted nor can it be justified in the tribunal of our conscience. I may understand why you box me, but hell, I cannot tolerate that it be done to me.

Should I keep these lessons throughout my lifetime? I doubt. Hegel said that the true nature of man is unfolding yet in history. The kind of life and being that I may become in the future is not a fixture, definitely not static. The lessons I have, true enough, may be not be unlearned, but as I march to towards life, I may find my own thesis-antithesis-synthesis, that the idea I treasure most, may find a different expression.

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Monday June 11, 2007 – 07:31am (CST) Edit | Delete

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belonging and alienation

Way back in college, there was this professor, Fr. Malley, who analyzed divine and human history in terms of alienation and belonging, instead of thesis and anti-thesis, the latter being more popular to the students considering the political temperature during Marcos time. The Marxist dialectical materialism took man as a mere object, a mere commodity in the historical moment. Fr. Malley’s analysis however considered man as the focal point of history. If history has to be understood, we have to dig deeper on the nature of man. To him, history is the full stretch of the tensions of belonging and alienation, played in the recesses of the human psyche and outwardly projected in our collective history.

twas in the Garden of Eden when alienation started

The Garden of Eden, although more allegorical than historical, jump starts the connection of the divine with the human and at the same time the alienation of man. At the end of the story of the Genesis, when God already breathed into man the breath of life, the Creator gave man an abode, which was a paradise on earth, the Garden of Eden. Man belonged then to the embrace of the Creator. But the snake in the garden which tempted Eve to take the forbidden fruit, opened man to the other world, the possibility of living beyond God’s reach.

It was in the Garden of Eden that man strayed away from completely belonging to God. Throughout the Bible, there is a constant struggle to belong to God and at the same time to be alienated therefrom. Moses, in leading his people to the promise land, was faced with pagan-worship, bacchanalia, sex orgies, and all vices in complete defiance of God’s commandments.

Moses parted the red sea only to be betrayed by the people he wanted saved

Human history is a mere extension of the biblical tension in terms of religious wars. In fact, the most gruesome war is not political but religious; the former war aims to conquer territory, but the latter is concerned with the conquest of the soul. What we witness today by way of terror attacks is not a clash of civilization but of one group trying to consolidate its piece in the already fractious religious debate, claiming their religion as the only path to salvation and the rest will lead to the road of perdition. The issue, to what religion should man finally belong, Christianity or Islam, has only alienated man from the source of love and belonging. In an attempt to spread its own version of salvation, people have been killed, and when called upon to account for the deaths, these groups would only charge the killings to collateral damage.

But why should man kill if he only wanted to belong to his divine? The answer lies in the estrangement of man. If we have to read historical moments, we have to go back to human nature. Without roots in the divine, man is a broken piece. The sentient, and intelligent man needs to belong, to the divine and to the people he truly loves. According to Saint Agustine, “My heart is restless until it rests in thee”. Ironically, the jihadist that kills is moved by the overpowering mission to accomplish a mission that is, for him, truly divine. If he fails in his mission, he not only fails his Allah but the people around him as well. He needs to belong, and if he has to kill to achieve this, then kill he must. Alienation is at times worse than death.

So too the Crusaders who slaughtered the Muslims on their way to redeem the Holy Land. The medals of war conferred on them were mere testaments of their deep desire to be accepted and to belong in the bigger Christian community.

The most lethal assassin is not one who brandishes his weapon with dexterity; it is one who is willing to die in the pursuit of a mission imposed upon him by his group that sets the common vision. If he dies, he will be a martyr to his brethren, no matter the scorn of the society that he has wronged. Unfortunately, in man’s desire to belong to a common mission, divine or worldly, he sets him apart, by force of circumstance , from the larger community. What we see now are packets of cohesive groups unwittingly annihilating each other.

The necessity to belong is both divine and human. It is existential in character. There is a proverbial hole in a donut. A donut ceases to be one without the hole. Man is suffering from an existential hole, an emptiness that he carries to his grave; he is forever in constant attempt to fill-it up but never succeeds. The members of the family, friends, and other humans who we love and care are sources of

the hole remains till we die

belonging that somehow fill-in the hole. But while still alive, we look upon God as the source of total completeness, as the Being with whom we truly belong.

Historical movements are manifestations of this existential hole in every man. People seek salvation in recognition of this hole. Otherwise, if man feels complete, there is no need to look for the beyond. Push to the extremes, we see congregation of people, who, in their search for their own version of salvation, have relegated others as mere collaterals.

Is man cursed to kill each other in the name of salvation? Look at the mayhem in Bali.

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Sunday May 20, 2007 – 08:30pm (CST) Edit | Delete

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going back to the core of life

Yesterday, I received a tragic news: my once tennis buddy, Dodong, died, apparently of car accident. But there is more than meets the eye. At 1:00 o’clcok in the afternoon of March 24, 2007, his car rammed into a truck that was parked at the road shoulder. He must be running with a speed of 120km/hour that his car and his mangled body were beyond recognition. Initial finding points to a suicide. Accordingly, his young wife, called him over the mobile phone to break the tragic news: she was leaving him. One tragic news leading to a more horrific news.

We were stunned, numbed. How could he took his life? He was doing well in his business? He was a class “A” tennis player, and for us, tennis players, “tennis is life”. So long as there is a tennis court, life continues. And yet, Dodong’s case proved that afterall, contrary to our slogan, there is more to life than tennis, that behind the grunts for a power stroke, underneath lies the sobbing self, hidden behind the facade of a happy face.

One time, I eavesdropped upon a conversation between two of my friends. This friend is planning to resign from his present job that compensates him enough to place his family in the middle income bracket. But he is planning to go to Canada for greener pasture, leaving his family in the Philippines. I joined the conversation, and asked this friend, what really does he want in life. He is doing financially okay here in the Philippines, but he is willing to leave for a higher income, despite the terrible adjustments that he has to make in Canada. The question struck a chord. He could not answer what he really wanted in going to Canada. And yet, he was then in the verge of deciding to leave.

How many times have we embarked on something, yet if we are asked why we did that, we become speechless because we dont have the reason why. Once, I gave a peptalk to my students. “Why are you studying? So that you can work later on? You work so that you can earn your bread, and you need to earn your bread, to give you energy. You need energy so that you can work well.”

You go to companies and other workplaces, you find people who are working without being able to transcend the workplace, meaning, unable to break the cycle of working to earn the bread to give energy, to work well. Life becomes a conundrum. A person lost in a riddle of life may later find no direction.

We are living in a dizzying world. Knowledge, information, and events come to us in a fast pace that we can hardly catch-up. Often, we do things as a knee-jerk reaction to events without truly reflecting on the reason why we do things, or we decide on something. I often ask students why are they taking a particular course, the usual refrain is that it is what their parents told them, or, it is the easiest course, or it assures them of job in the future. It was rarely when somebody answered me, “Sir, because I am excited and happy to learn about this course.”

In this dizzying world, the call to humanities is most imperative. The sciences may provide us with the technological know – how on how to deal with the present world, but it is in the humanities that provide us with the reason on why and how to deal with the present world. The humanities open our eyes to a deeper appreciation of life, a life that we chart and travel. There is a need to ask: Why and what am living for? The meaning of one’s life, and the depth of our conviction to it, is like a shining star that where ever we are, as we charter our ship of life, will guide us, and tell us whether we are on course or not.

Once we have an existential connection to the deeper meaning of life, no wind nor wave can buffet us into the neverland. We will always find our bearing in the turbulent seas because as we look up in the sky, we still find and relate to the shining star.

My tennis buddy Dodong may have been buffeted by the howling winds, and perhaps, did not place his shining star up there. Seconds before he rammed his car into a truck, the record show that he told somebody from the other end of the phone conversation, “I will ram this car into the truck.” Which, tragically, he did. He lost touched with the core of his life, the reason for living.

Maybe, he had placed a shining star, but he did not have a strong existential connection to it, that at the instant that the shining star was to be his guide, it dimmed, and failed to lift his spirits up, and there, his life went into oblivion.