Basag ulo

I regret to tell you that I'm the guy in the red corner. Unfortunately, the fight didn't go well for me. Nonetheless, it was a good match.

a game of chess

I have always been good at at giving people advise on difficult situation. I'm not just good at it, I'm awesome at it. But when I'm faced with my own personal problems. I suck at it. It's like when you're playing chess: as an observer, you see all the openings, but as a player, all moves are impossible. I need to find someone who's going to be my JL.

Free Lunch

The French moralist Joseph Joubert said that "misery is almost always the result of thinking." But does it follow that when you're happy, you you are foregoing "thinking?" We are taught in economics the concept of opportunity cost. There is no free lunch. Everything has an underlying cost. Everything. If we take that statement as fact, it would mean that happiness too has an underlying cost. When we're happy, it is likely that our delight is at the expense of other people's potential happiness.

The Return

"Besides intercourse (when the Image-repertoire goes to the devil), there is that other embrace, which is a motionless cradling: we are enchanted, bewitched: we are in the realm of sleep, without sleeping; we are within the voluptous infantilism of sleepiness: this is the moment for telling stories, the moment of the voice which takes me, siderates me, this is the return to the mother ("in the loving calm of your arms," says a poem set to music by Duparc). In this companionable incest, everything is suspended: time, law, prohibition: nothing is exhausted, nothing is wanted: all desires are abolished, for they seem definitively fulfilled. Yet, within this infantile embrace, the genital unfailingly appears; it cuts off the diffuse sensuality of the incestuous embrace; the logic of desire begins to function, the will-to-possess returns, the adult is superimposed upon the child. I am then two subjects at once: I want maternity and genitality. (The lover might be defined as a child getting an erection: such was the young Eros.)"
— Roland Barthes (A Lover's Discourse: Fragments)

What is Long Overdue

Sometimes I feel like I never learn. Of course, the less people involved in a project, the easier it is to control the project's out come. I invited three artists to help me out with my long-overdue comic book project. The idea of having more than one artist to work on the project was Josel's, the first artist I approached for the project. Josel and I tried to do the project ourselves but a lot of things got in the way. He had his thesis. I had work, graduate school, and my fucked up personal life. Tonight I invited two more artists to work with us--one is Dar Galvan, a former line artist for our college paper, and Nelz Yumul, the fiancée of one of my closest friends. All of them are skilled artists. I am confident that the project I have for them is worth their while. My problem is, I'm not really good at working with people. I always want to be the one in control. I think for this particular project, I have to make a lot of compromise. Oh well. This is for the good of man kind.

As Ricci used to say, Hair is Memory

Jonah Lehrer: Feeling Sad Makes Us More Creative

http://bit.ly/dDx8yA

I guess he was happy when he wrote the title for this one.

The Theory of Everything

[note: this is the first line of the short story im currently working on. i hope i finish it soon.]

god made the world a dark and miserable place full of hatred, suffering, and trans-genders. to make up for it, he created gays, black people, koreans, and christians for us to make fun of.

On the Hostage Crisis

Here's a YM conversation about the recent hostage drama in Roxas Boulevard.

Me: Medyo nakakahiya maging Pilipino ngayon.

friend: why?

Me: hostage drama

friend: blaming the mendoza guy too?

Me: olatz pulis natin

Me: tapos ang babaw

Me: nakakahiya,daming nadeads

friend: hehe. mas naaawa ako dun sa nanghostage. gusto ko maintindihan story nya...

Me: psycho bastard

Me: i bet his mom never gave him attention when he was a kid

Me: i bet he was fat as a kid

Me: and got bullied

Me: i bet he use to kill animals when he was 6

friend is typing...

friend: i'm sorry, i will not talk to you about this if you talk about the guy like that. you know what? criminals may be "evil," but it's not entirely their fault, so i don't think anyone has the right to bash them. pare-pareho tayong may problema. siguro sila yung sasabihin nating hindi marunong magdala. but we can't really tell. i can't tell. hindi pa ako nalagay sa sitwasyon nya. i refuse to judge.

Friend has signed out. (8/23/2010 9:47 PM)

Me: lahat nga tayo nagkakaproblema

Me: but if you cross the line, you cross the line

Me: there is such thing as right and wrong

Me: oo, nasasapagdala yun. and it makes a big difference. at least 5 people are dead because he cannot contain his problem, and now matter what the fuck his problem is, he will always be answerable to the consequences of his actions. because it's plain wrong and stupid.

Me: no way to justify that

Me: it's torture to keep yourself in control when you feel like you're almost at the edge, but you have to. it's a categorical imperative that you do, for the greater good. if you fail. if you lose control. if you flip. suffer the consquences. you will be judge solely by your choices. not by what happened in your life.