Word Stack or A Pile of Thoughts

More of this, I thought to myself, getting off the bus in the late afternoon.  The weight of my bookbag told me that I wasn’t going to get much reprieve from school work.  My teacher’s voice echoed in my head as the bus pulled away and turned the corner, its lights blinking, the other kids making faces. "Chapter six, answer the review questions on page 388." We were reading Beowulf, or at least, the rough translation of it from the original Old English epic, with all the inane side comments and explanations.  As I walked down the street, I was filled with the conviction that simplification, truly, took away the beauty and essence of what was meant to be an unadulterated whole. 

"Foul is fair and fair is foul."
I looked up.  A raven, dark and large, looked back at me with glittering eyes, full of amusement.
"What do you want?"
"Foul is fair and fair is foul."
"Haven’t you go anything better to do then quote dead English poets?" I said, walking past it, and taking my school ID off and sticking it in my pocket.  The bar code’s fading, i noticed as i put it in.
"Macbeth, dearie, Macbeth."
I walked on, and the Raven flew off to the tops of the trees.
"Birds don’t belong on a street!" I yelled at it. 
I need a charm.

I pulled my keys out and opened the door to the house.  The smell of potpourrie and Glade filled my nostrils as i stumbled in, overcome by an immense weariness.  "Fuck the Raven," I muttered vehemently, as if the emotional load that balanced upon my shoulders were the fault of the black messenger.  My book bag clattered to the floor, and I stuck the pile of letters (that I had removed from the mailbox on the way in) on the step above the landing.  It was the usual slop of advertisements and bills.  Except for a brown envelope addressed to

Mr. Kinglsey of White Hall Street
7170 White Hall Street,
Stafford, Virginia, USA

I took my books and the envelope downstairs.  It was an impulse, and I was about to commit a federal crime.  Something tugged at me, something pulled the weariness from me, something lifted all thoughts of the rude bird from my mind.  I had to open this envelope.

I plopped myself on the bed, and held the envelope for a moment.  It was plain, and brown, tied with a single simple three-strand rope.  I pulled the loose end, watching the knot come undone.  Carter and the tomb of King Tut, I thought to myself, as i listened to the sound of the envelope opening beneath my hand.  Something wriggled inside. 

I pulled it out, a small, scaly thing, with green skin and a curious red hat.  Its eyes glared up at me, and it blinked once. "You’re not Mr. Kingsley," the goblin said.
"Nope."
"You know its a federal offense to open other people’s letters."
"I know that, of course," I said, getting off my bed, and placing the goblin on the top of my desk.  It looked rather upset by this turn of events.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"Put me back in that envelope and send me on my way.  He’s expecting me you know."
"Not until you tell me who sent you."
"Outrageous, out of the question."  The little creature put its hands on its hips, and stared up at me. 
"Now tell me if i’m wrong about this: but as the Fates would have it, you ended up on my doorstep.  I want an explanation.  Destiny doesn’t play dice."
"Ah, one of the those," the goblin replied, his shoulders sagging and his head nodding thoughtfully.  He seemed quite put out. "Very well then, what would you have of me?"
"A charm," I replied, without a breath of hesitation.
"That’s it?"
"Yes that’s it.  I’ve been giving it much thought," I remembered the raven, "I’ve been needing one of late, especially since you showed up."
"Very well then, a charm be your wish, a charm ye shall get."
I stared at it.  It stared back.
"Back in the envelope?" it asked.
"Fine."

My last words to the goblin were "Thanks for the charm."
It muttered something beneath its breath, and i sealed the envelope back up with the string.
"Mr. Kingsley will hear of this," the goblin said, muffled through the paper.
"I’m sure he will.  And he’ll know it was for a good cause too," I said as I encircled the address with a red magic marker.

I brought the envelope down to the mailbox.  The raven wasn’t anywhere nearby, and I felt relieved.  The charm had worked, and I could get my homework done without anymore distractions.

We see it in posters hanging from a teenager’s bedroom walls, in the screaming masses chanting a single person’s name, in entertainment news and endorsement commercials.  It is painted across modern culture, from the studios in Los Angeles to the corner sari-sari store in Sibulan.  We see the faces of celebrity, of glamour, of the heroes of entertainment and consumerism.  We see faces, but we don’t see people.

John Berger, in his book Ways of Seeing, talks about glamour as the by-product of the culture of publicity, sourcing itself upon the sentiments of envy created by publicity; THIS is what you want to be, but not what you ARE.  But in the process of this creation of envy, we remove the person behind the image.  A woman posing on the cover of the latest issue of Cosmopolitan magazine really isn’t representing herself as a human being, with emotions, with a family, with hopes and dreams; rather, she is the expression of a product, a commodity, something to be bought: moisturizer, sex advice, cosmetics, the latest R&B album.  For a passing consumer, buying a bag of chips, her picture is not a human being, but an object. 

This objectification of people is perhaps one of the most disturbing aspects of today’s culture.  Taken beyond the example of a magazine and into the studios and cameras, we have created celebrities who are simply a packaged idea of what we want to be: beautiful, famous, sophisticated, wealthy.  A celebrity is merely an object, a living, breathing cultural icon.  When girls scream over the latest Hollywood hottie, it isn’t because they like him as a person; it’s because they want him as an ideal.  What makes this so monstrous is that we idealize human beings into things that we want but cannot achieve.  Fans set up on pedestals these icons which they consider infallible, and try to become like them, or learn as much about these idealized figures as possible.  This whole idea of fandom grows from the culture of glamour. In an extreme example, the fan comes to the realization of either that a) they cannot be like the ideal or b)the object of the ideal falls short of the created ideal.  In both situations, extreme cases involve either self-destruction or the destruction of the fallible object.

For most of people who don’t go through such dramatic circumstances, being disappointed with self-image or simply discarding the pretty faces for new ones can suffice

But the point is that these people are now simply commodities. 

It wasn’t raining when she left.  She would have wanted it to have been raining, but the weather conspired against her.  So she stood in the sun, sweat beading on her forehead, making her bangs cling to her head, beneath the brim of her New York Mets baseball cap.  The weight of her backpack caused the straps to dig into the tanned skin of her shoulders, and she could feel the heat rising up from the concrete to the bare skin of her legs.  He was looking at his reflection in her sunglasses.
"Arrivederci, innamorata."
"You never told me what that means."
"Oh, look it up when you get back to New York."
"I will."

All he got was a nod, a hug, and a smile.  That was all he needed.

Whew. Whirlwind days. Rainy, lighting-storm nights.   Tossing in bed,
tangled in the sheets, treading the tightwire between bursting
epiphanies slowly forgotten in the haze of half-sleep.  Things moving in the
shadows, whispering existentialist temptations.  Chaos, light, confusion.  Intentions aren’t so clear as they used to be.  Is it a weight swinging in the spotlight, one moment crystal, the next fog? 

Disco.

The painting once made so much sense, once was so obvious and clear: a solitary figure, high upon a ridge called Life, mesmerized by the view of empty valleys and dark woods.  A wind whipping around him, and a stark November sun hanging behind the clouds.  I could breathe. 

But the abstract set in.  It was the invasion of form of reason of logic.  It was an overwhelming wave that blurred the lines, that created its own image, frighteningly beautiful, warping what was once pure to be replaced by its own purity. The figure, at once me and not me, afraid and blinded by brilliance, and gripped by terrifying possibility.  The canvas folded in on itself, hiding away the mysterious changes wrought by these powers external. 

A fortress built to keep something within, to keep away prying eyes.  Within is a piece of magic, ancient and powerful, that could be something so good, if only it weren’t so instable and unknown.  It beats against the fortress walls, it threatens to pierce the shroud I have laid across it. 

It is a card that should forever remain face down, never to be revealed.

Trooper Jairus gripped the stock of his lasgun close, breathing deep breaths.  Sweat beaded on his forehead, the dappled sunlight piercing the jungle canopy.  A silence had fallen over the forest, and the young guardsman had found himself alone, surrounded by the endless green of Kinmerra IV’s alien jungles.  Moments before, the air had been filled with the crack of lasfire and the screams of dying men.  Suddenly, so suddenly, everything had fallen quiet.  In the thick of the foliage, Jairus could barely make out the positions of his squad members.  Calytos is supposed to be over there, he thought to himself, looking to his right, into straight into the confusing pattern of green and shadow.  Saemaus to my left, his eyes looking carefully to the side.  Somewhere in the jungle, someone moaned. 

"Squad Six! Rep—" the sickening whine of a chain sword ripping into flesh and bone erupted, and suddenly the jungle came alive with the crack of lasfire.  Trooper Jairus fired his lasgun into the green, knowing that whatever it was they were fighting, it was going to be in front of him.  He squeezed again and again, and the lasgun kicked into his shoulder.

A figure loomed from the shadows of the jungle, crashing towards him.  It’s skin was mottled, and across the its head, a raised scar in the shape of the eight-pointed star of Chaos was burned into  its skin.  The robes were brown and crusted with ichor and vomitus.  Once, it had been human.  The guardsman raised his weapon, only to hear a dry click and a whine from a spent las cell.  Emperor help me, he thought to himself, as the creature leapt over him.  Around him, Jairus could hear screams, and the inhuman roar of the monstrosity of Chaos bearing down.  The trooper tumbled backwards, and by a stroke of luck or perhaps the blessing of an Emperor heeding the call of the faithful, the weapon’s bayonet arced.  In slow motion, Jairus watched as the creature impaled itself upon the blade, and it slid down upon the prone trooper.  The guardsman could feel the monster’s weight go limp, and he could smell the foul stench of death.  The trooper rolled the creature over, pulling his bayonet free.  Suddenly, a welcome sound: the whooosh of flamers immolating the jungle around him, driving the foul beasts of Chaos back. 

And still, as the young man looked around him, he could still only tell the tide of battle was shifting by the sounds in the endless jungles of Kinmerra IV.

Post-modernism is such a welcome headache.  We can call it non-linear, deconstructionist, flattening, chaotic, in defiance of definitions, relativistic.  Jacques Derrida, the "father" of post-modernism (along with Michel Foucault) started up this whole idea that seems to have opened the door for the kind of thinking that characterises the society of the 21st century.  It jumps off from a diverse collection of concepts: Heisenburg’s Uncertainty Principle, Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, Chaos Theory, the Internet, cross-cultural exchanges, nihilism and liberalism. 

No one really is an authority of postmodernism.  Even Derrida admitted that he couldn’t really pin down the concept of what he was supposed to have hatched.

Probably someone can say how the trend of postmodernism arose in response to the structuralists of the mid-20th century, rejecting the rigid conformism and doctrine-orienting philosophies of those who divided themselves among the "capitalist", "marxist", "freudian", "formalist" and whatever else have you.  Instead, post-modernism jumps right in and basks in the convergence of all these ideas.   Wendy Steiner, the author of The Scandal of Pleasure and Venus in Exile talks about how postmodernist romance literature can begin with a discussion on the Pony Express system and Chinese immigrants before actually talking about the story itself. 

I see postmodernism as a result of a world where the value of the individual becomes uplifted, where the whole idea of borders, restrictions and laws can no longer define the bounderies of human achievment and articulation.  File sharing throws IPR out the window.  Globalization places countries on equal footing.  Blogs are a forum for anyone to talk about anything to everyone else.  Virtual personalities and relationships defy geography.  Ideas can link Hollywood with philosophy, politics with saturday night entertainment, African dust with American sickness.  In a world where ideas can be put into the great melting pot of the human mind, and then spit out into something completely different, where there is no line between "East" and "West", only convergence in the glittering spires of a city or in the quiet courtyards of a monestary.  This is the world of postmodernism, and its exciting and unpredictable. 

I face the Future.  I face a setting sun,
I face a night of darkness
I face a ferocious wind and a foe without measure

I hold in my hand
My heart
My blade
An edge of cold steel burning with passion
And love

With this I can take upon my transgressors
I can win through
With love

There’s an old Jedi ritual, a prayer of sorts, spoken as the final pieces of the Lightsaber are put together:

The crystal is the heart of the blade.

The heart is the crystal of the Jedi.

The Jedi is the crystal of the Force.

The Force is the blade of the heart.

All are intertwined:

The crystal, The blade, The Jedi.

You are one.

Some would say that life is a struggle, a conflict, a battle.  At times, this feels true.  We struggle against our emotions, against pain, against homework, against our friends, against stupid people, against traffic and deadlines.  Our weapon through all this is the convergence of our actions, our attitudes, and our own self’s.  We have to wield our decisions with ruthless determinination, maintain a positive and healthy outlook, and keep ourselves centered without being rigid.  Life can suck sometimes, but bring it on, because I am ready.

Is there a
God? 

I like to think that there is no way to answer this question with a definitive
"yes" or "no", and people that do are simply basing their
conclusions on a set of arguments that point to an increased possibility of
God’s existence or non-existence.  With this in mind, we may as well say
that the quality of a person’s worldview (either materialist or spiritualist)
depends upon the quality of the reasoning for why they believe what they believe.
If there is no thought behind belief, there is nothing credible about that
worldview.  Unfortunately, a large number of people simply adopt the
beliefs they grew up with, without question, without close scrutiny.
"Blind faith" is not faith at all.  It is being naive. It is then necessary to open the box and
really examine if what we believe can truly stand up to the test of sensibility
and reason.

"The Question of God" by Dr. Armand Nicholi Jr., Professor of
Psychology at Harvard University, delves into the reasoning of two
well-published thinkers who wrote and spoke extensively about their world
views: Dr. Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis.  On one hand, there is Freud,
author of psychoanalysis and staunch athiest.  Throughout his life, Freud wrestled with the idea of the existence of a God, and found compelling reason to
dismiss the notion of a Divine Being as a myth with no place in rational human
experience.  Lewis, however, found that through a line of reasoning, the
presence of God could not be denied.  Both based their argumentation on
premises derived from obeservations of human behaviour.  Both arrived at very different conclusions. The questions posed by Freud are extremely
compelling, and I believe, should be taken into consideration by Christians
seeking to grow in their faith.

Freud’s main
line of argumentation points to the problem of the spiritual worldview that
adheres to the idea that “since science cannot explain it, therefore God is
needed to make it so.” In the “The Mind of God” by Paul Davies, Professor of
Mathematical Physics at the University of Adelaide, calls this kind of
reasoning a “God of Gaps”, referring to a God who exists in the gaps of
scientific knowledge. An example in “The
Mind of God” is that of the Big Bang. According to the theory, the universe began as a singularity, that is, a
ball of matter infinitely dense (Professor Ablong of the Physics Department in
Silliman likened it to a teaspoonful of matter weighing six hundred thousand
tons). The theory states that because of
the internal heat, the ball exploded, and the resulting explosion created the
known universe. This theory has been
proven by observation (galaxies moving away from each other, remnant radiation
from the explosion), but there are several problems with the theory, one of
which is what triggered the explosion. It wasn’t triggered by simple heat, because in a state of singularity,
the force of gravity overcomes all other forces, drawing everything together. For a long time, physicists and cosmologists
couldn’t explain why the universe would suddenly explode, violently overcoming
the force of gravity. Pope Pious XII
took this lack of explanation as confirmation of the Genesis event, stating
that it was God who caused the Big Bang to occur. But later on, quantum mechanics provided a
viable physical explanation for the Big Bang, pointing to the unpredictability
and instability of matter in a state of singularity.

The point is
that when people point to the gaps of scienctific knowledge as evidence of God,
they fall into the fallacy of trying to prove the existence of something
because there is no evidence saying it doesn’t exist. And when evidence is found, they’re notion of
God is pushed further and further into the edges of what is yet to be explained. Is there any room for God in a universe
explained by science?

Another problem
with the spiritual worldview is the problem of predestination. In a series of conversations with a student
from UP Cebu, the question arose of how to reconcile the idea of God’s
omniscience with free will. On one hand,
Christians claim that God allows human beings free will, to choose to believe
or not. Those that believe are bound
into an eternal relationship with Him, while those who don’t are sent into
eternal alienation. But if God is
omniscient, then He knows who will choose an eternal relationship or not. And if it is supposedly in His nature to be
all-loving as well, then why does He create people who are, without any doubt,
going to be sent into eternal punishment? In a sense, there is no free will, because our paths are already known
even before we are created, and the act of our creation is the will of God, not
our will. We have no choice but to live
out a predetermined life. On the flip
side of the coin, if its true that human beings are given free will, then we
have a choice. God doesn’t know what we
will choose because He’s giving us the prerogative to determine what the future
will hold. If God doesn’t know this,
then He is not omniscient, and consequently, not omnipotent. If He’s not omnipotent, then He’s really not
God in the Christian sense.

As a Christian,
it is important to tackle the questions that logical thought poses to what is
professed by faith. There must be
underlying reasons for why we believe what we believe, even if the reasons are
do not point to a black and white answer. Like I said above, blind faith is not worth much. It must be tested and tried. Only then can we say with convictin that what
we profess to be true is something we truly believe is true.

*acknowledge the contribution of Florin, Samantha, and Dr. Thurling for the ideas that are cooking in my head

Sonnet LXXXI

And now you’re
mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.
Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.
The night turns on its invisible wheels,
and you are pure beside me as a sleeping amber.

No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go,
we will go together, over the waters of time.
No one else will travel through the shadows with me,
only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon.

Your hands have already opened their delicate fists
and let their soft drifting signs drop away; your eyes closed like two gray
wings, and I move

after, following the folding water you carry, that carries
me away. The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny.
Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all.

- Pablo Neruda

I want to feel this.

Shall I dream you a dream of passion?
Shall I set fire to the halls of your heart,
to the hidden rooms
and ivy-covered walls?

You keep me silent
with look
with a stray strand of hair
with a touch
reaching towards the stars
While I take a painful fall
Into you

Shall I dream this dream
of frightening clarity?
Shall I set myself on fire
in the halls of our hearts?

*Before you all start shooting potshots at me with your weapons of choice, let me just explain that most of this stuff is actually being written with a purpose in mind, to bring a taste of la vie boheme to the boring life of Silliman come Feb 14.  I’m so sick and tired of the same old mushy-gushy cliches, so I’m taking my sidewalk chalk and wreaking bloody vengeance to bring the coolness back to romance.