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.

if i were to make a mixed tape, here's the line up

here's the list of songs i've been listening to the past couple of weeks. my music player is an iPod shuffle so basically, i listen to those songs in no particular order. i intentionally limited the number of Air Supply songs to one. doctor's prescription.

She's always a woman to me - Billy Joel
For No One - the Beatles
Nogweigian Wood - the Beatles
Walts #2 - Elliot Smith
Fade Away - Sugarfree
I have to say I love you in a song - Jim Croce
Eleanor Rigby - the Beatles
Piazza New York Catcher - Belle and Sebastian
Between the Bars - Elliot Smith
Landslide - the Smashing Pumpkins
Burn Out - Sugarfree
Sampaguita - Yano
Summer Romance - Incubus
Everything Reminds Me of Her - Elliot Smith
Even the nights are better - Air Supply

Sisyphus, again?

I reread Albert Camus, his work The Myth of Sisyphus. Originally, I thought Camus was really brilliant coming up with that interpretation. But just recently, I’m beginning to change my views on the subject. Here’s a brief background on the myth. If you already know the story skip the preceding sentences and jump to the next paragraph, but for those who don't, carry on. In Greek mythology, he was the Smart Alek who made a mockery out of Hades several time (just google the details). Sisyphus was convicted of “crimes against the gods” and was condemned to eternal labor. His punishment was to push a boulder up a mountain, and whenever he would come close to the top, the boulder would slip his grasps and the damn thing would come rolling down again. His punishment is eternal frustration.

Camus said that the Gods wanted to see Sisyphus beg on knees to ask them for their aid. But according to Camus, Sisyphus is not the type who would have his pride trampled that easily. The titan would rather be eternally frustrated than to live the rest of forever with a shattered ego. Sisyphus knows (or at least has an idea) that pushing the boulder up the hill is really an impossible task, but he couldn’t care less. The only thing keeping him going is the program in his mind telling him to continue pushing. That he might succeed despite the small possibility.

Sisyphus would learn to enjoy his predicament, thinking that everything is about trying. Life is about pushing. Senseless labor isn’t entirely senseless if do your best, or something to that effect. The glory in attempt. Smile once the boulder reached the highest t could.

But what if what Sisyphus really wants is for the Gods to pity him? Surely, his ego is too though to give up, but if the Gods offered to cut him some slack, I doubt he would refuse the offer. Everything is a means to an end. Of course that would make Sisyphus a hypocrite. If that was to be the case, wouldn’t that reduce the earlier interpretation of life to mere arrogance? I doubt that the Gods would give humanity amnesty from our earthly and seemingly senseless labor under the sun. No matter how much we beg or plead. The most we can do is to justify senseless labor with the hypocrisy of glory in attempt. Who would want to smile at project unfinished anyway?