Running on Empty

Run, baby, run" - Sheryl Crow

Do men sprint faster than women? Anatomically, they have 2 yoyos swinging loosely and a distended rod to boot, a heavier package to carry around, if you ask me, so why do women breaking speed records subjected to gender speculations? As if it were improbable for females to race in Flash Gordon quickness.

There was Nancy Navalta of recent years. And the latest woman on the stake is South African athlete Caster Semenya. Or is it her family name, evoking masculine visceral representation? Semen, indeed, is a male thing.

Here we go again, back in the first paragraph, being pulled by the inanity of medieval ideas as if Madonna did not make us dance to "I made it through the wildnerness." It's been more than 7 hours and 15 days and yet it feels we have not actually move forward. Kabudlay, oi.

Women are already in the literature on positive politics of peace and being evaluated as a workable ethical model for corrective citizenship and yet, road blocks continue to delay the journey. I remember being asked in either a class report or was it a forum, how the experience of motherhood as distinctively female experience dictate how women engage themselves as political beings.

First of all, I don't subscribe to the notion that as mothers, women care for the world and the future more passionately than men. I don't believe that women crave for peace more than men. Perhaps, there is in our socialization a different perspective being molded but as a whole, I don't see civic participation as a function of gender.

Citizenship, as a masculinized concept, is intimately linked with patriotism. Sadly, patriotism in most cultures, is measured in military defense terms - how one gallantly takes a bullet for one's tribe/community/country and in the enduring age of imperialism, being in the forefront of expansionist projects camouflaged as pursuits of national interest. In short, citizenship is defined along the lines of glorifying the male warrior.

While men are born to run down enemies of the state and run political affairs, women are considered unpatriotic because they burn their bras or run naked protesting against wars of aggression, inadvertently getting in the way of men's preoccupation.Where do women camp out? Mostly they are at the forefront of peace and environmental movements, microfinance, solidarity-building endeavors. Some explain than since women are less exposed to violence or are not instruments of violence, they tend to have a different worldview from men. I beg to differ. Women across socio-economic cleavages get slaps, lashes, and whips for breakfast, and mind you, this is not of the kinky variety. How people readily assume women are less exposed to violence should get married and experience for themselves how it is to cohabit with males and their sharp instruments.

It is false to assume that women are remotely located in the radius of violence simply because they are not in combat gear and raining down bombs on some strange land and annihilating culture. Come on, women are collateral damges in any form of militarization, whether as a source of comfort to soldiers or are the ones massacred and raped. Perhaps, because of these experiences of war and violence that women tend to develop aversion to them and yearn for peace or are more open to dialogues of peace.

But as I said earlier, gender can be a booby trap. To accept the idea that nurturing is a woman's turf is to fall prey to the same socially-constructed binary categories of males vs. females, animus-anima, yin-yang. The machines of war march forward not because boys will be boys. Gender is not in the equation, not by a far shot. That's silly, as if war were some esoteric idea that is hard to explain. It's that simple:war is real, not metaphorical; war is physical, not metaphysical. To some, war is a neccesity to survive as an economy. War has become both a means and an end.

Meanwhile, there's a continuous revolutionizing of the means of production, the pressure of profit, the development of the production forces amidst repressive relations of power - gelling up to fuel more wars.

Yes, we are running, racing, speeding.....towards destruction.

Good Morning, Sunshine

Woke up this morning and realized I need to find new geometries of desire, refreshing cartographies of fantasies. The ache in my back is miraculously gone, as if it never tormented me for a day or two, to begin with. What a normal, healthy body can alter the sky's hue, tweak worlds of possibilities, cajole the mind to take flight, unfettered by physical limits and man-made rules.

Thought about a novel I have been wanting to read to compliment this gem of a book about dogs that Ver gifted me (thanks, Ver!), engrossed me while staying horizontal to give my archaic back a rest. I realized I have not actually finished A. Huxley's "Brave New World" and I can't find my copy. Figured it might be a good dessert after Orwell's "1984." I vaguely remember the blurb about people indulging in sex and drugs but never falling in love - so decadent and attractive. So anti-intellectual. So me. Got to find the book.

A few weeks ago, had this conversation about labels and identities and stereotypes. A friend talked about his various advocacies - I am pro-this, pro-that. Told him, I wanted to preserve my mildly militant spirit and would stick to the 'anti' prefix rather than 'pro', just for the heck of it. So I declared, I am anti-intellectual/ism.

Facing the world isn't exactly my strongest suit, getting out of bed hurriedly, not my favorite occupation. But I get my stride after a quick reflection/prayer/whatever. Today, this poem spoke to me. Entitled "Being Boring" by Wendy Cope. Here's the last verse:

I don't go to parties.

Well, what are they for,

If you don't need to find a new lover?

You drink and you listen and drink a bit more

And you take the next day to recover.

Someone to stay home with was all my desire

And, now that I've found a safe mooring,

I've just one ambition in life: I aspire

To go on and on being boring.

Notes on Insanity

"When I find my peace of mind,
I"m gonna give you some of my good time"
- Red Hot Chilli Peppers, "Soul to Squeeze"

The infamous insanity journal, sheltering dark, furious thoughts, reflecting a frail fettle. Before I burn it or use as a tissue-substitute.

Writing some of those thoughts seemed fairly innocuous, most of the time. At times, you felt unsafe but at the end of the day, it was more perilous not writing them. Like the case of someone hitting the roof and wanting to punch walls. It's not helping your case or doing you any good but it was more harmful not to vent it out.

Writing is a form of prayer. I think Kafka beat me to this proclamation but I am no Kafka. No one is. No one will ever be. I used to maintain a notebook of personal prayers. Obviously, the presumption is that God is literate and does not only read in Arabic.

That notebook of prayers is just hiding somewhere in my mother's house. I am not too keen on revisiting, with the apprehension that I may no longer recognize the "I".

My struggle is not so much a question of faith as it is a debate with the Catholic Church and its pronunciamentos. The Ignatian Spirituality practiced by Jesuits is pretty clear on critical awareness, not blind faith. I take comfort from it.

Organized prayer is a struggle. As I shared in an earlier blog, my prayer life is characterized by departures and returns and with an adorable dog as a prayer-partner, we owe it to the good Lord to demonstrate variety somehow - a hymn today, a poem the next day, a clap exercise the day after next, till we run out of ideas. It's like giving a birthday card to a dear friend - shall I give a personalized one or should I just trust Hallmark to get my message across?

So I talk to my personal Jesus - You may not be pleased with what I am doing, substituting organized prayer with reading or writing or affectionate talks with Georgelablab or whatever it is I'm appropriating as expressions of workship. This is me reaching out with the purest intentions because yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory.

Bridge Over Troubled Waters

The mother of Baan's classmate whose older sister happens to be a classmate too at HIC, was recently diagnosed with cancer. Hear this: the medication costs 20 grand/day and will run for a year. Jesus of Nazareth, good Lord! My math falters.

In T. Wilder's "The Bridge of San Luis Rey," a national tragedy befalls on Lima, Peru in 1714 when the said bridge collapsed, claiming the lives of 5 individuals. A Franciscan from northern Italy by the name of Brother Juniper, in a state of beleaguered grace, set out to make sense of this woeful event. Was it a sheer act of God? What was the common denominator among the 5 victims? Why were they chosen? Was it some sort of natural selection?

The bridge was built by the Incas in the 1600s at the time when brazen bidding practices were still unheard of. It was not of inferior quality and was in fact, a national landmark. Was the accident orchestrated by God? And why on that fateful day in July?

Every person who wanted me to imbibe their optimistic thoughts regarding my own battle with cancer were unanimous in declaring God's deliberate hand in my situation. They all enthused, "it's God's blessing." I try to carry this with me as I give formal and informal testimonials of this blessing disguised in tragedy.

Wilder employs a more accusatory tone, evoking agnostic insight, "to the gods, we are like flies boys kill on a summer day...that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed by the finger of God.'" (p.7)

This goes beyond simple faith, a faith demanding total submission, an absolute surrender of the value of human action, even free will. Who in his right mind would choose to be stricken with cancer? What God in His right frame of mind would brush His finger on ugly cancer cells and give them to His children?

When I was at the hospital, the Wise One shared V. Woolf's insightful description of illness -"how astonishing when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed." Indeed. You travel without roadmaps, for long stretches with no end in sight. Your senses are twice alive - life, all of a sudden, becomes more urgent and yet time, becomes irrelevant. The tic-tac changes, an hour is a day, a week is a month and no one except you, keeps pace - the reckoning of one's mortality renders both freedom and repression.

There is solitude amidst the neighbor's loud radio, loudly thinking that this may be your last chance to hear that overplayed pop song but silently wishing you can endure all of these just to stay a litle longer on this planet. There are legitimate reasons to die but there are more excuses to live.

Yes, Virginia. You gain perspective. You find reaons to be grateful. You learn humility and grace of Hemingway's definition. You sanctify love and love what isn't beautiful and safe.

This is what I pray for my classmate's mother - sanctify love. Wilder's final sentence grips it firmly, "there is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." (p117)

Ai, gugma. So ancient but never out of fashion.

May Saysay ang Buhay

In V. Frankl’s “Man and His Search for Meaning,” there’s an account of a father encouraging his 6-year old daughter to thank the Lord for curing her of measles. The daughter responded, “but wasn’t it God who gave me measles in the first place?”

At various points in my life, Frankl, proponent of the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy, silvered a few disconsolate nights and pulled me from the gulch of desolation. In psychology, there are 3 major conceptions of man’s primary motivational force: Freudian’s psychoanalysis centers on pleasure: Adlerian psychology emphasizes power; and Frankl’s logotherapy focuses on man’s groping for life’s meaning.

Informed by Nietzche’s existentialist thought, “he who has a WHY to live can bear with any HOW,” VF’s patented couch session style was to floor patients with the standard question: Why do you not commit suicide?

Why indeed, if we feel life is forbidding, stifling, why do we insist on surviving anyway? Variations of this trick question have helped me deal with self-doubts and self-hurt as well as counsel a few friends to slay their own demons, enthusing that the more devils we kill, the more we form angels.

Existentialists argue that surely, if there is a purpose for life, there ought to be a meaning for everything trapped with it – suffering, dying, etc. but is there truly a meaning, an ordered sense to the randomness of this world?

Existentialism is quite simple. The challenge it tosses for each of us is to seek that purpose and life will be superfine in a non-metaphorical sense - contentedly inhaling all the shit on this earth and calmly enduring all indignities.

A quasi-bible, I keep revisiting the pages highlighted in green marks (a folly of youth) whenever I need a rope to hang on to, staving off despair with philosophical oomph. After losing my mother rather unexpectedly, Frankl gave me a different perspective on my suffering mode that makes me less unsettled. There is meaning to our suffering, he reassures.

A week ago, I hinted parting with the book, thinking it has already served its purpose and another friend might be needing it more. Baan expressed her mild protestations. Only then did I discover – she too, leans on Frankl for enlightenment and drinks from his cup. Tough luck.

Our taste in literature differs. She, of the no-nonsense type buries her nose on medical journals, books on spirituality and psychology while my bedtime leisure is usually spent in fiction-land. Henceforth, the stuff we commonly savor are celebrated: Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s “Gift from the Sea,” the Anais Nin diaries, “Tuesdays with Morrie,” and YES magazine, to mention a few.

YES magazine may not lead us towards our purpose in life which could be quite an elusive pursuit to most of us really, but Jean Paul Sartre sways us to invent our own essence. Frankl, however, argues that our essence is not invented by us but by a Higher Being. Our only sweat is to unravel that essence.

As a whole, I cannot claim to fully internalize my 'essence' but parts of my anatomy, I know what they are for. For instance, my hands – they were made to make one man happy, ahoi!; my tongue for some gastro-carnal delight and moody lashings, my clavicle for that blatant body cue for mating and so on and so forth. Ole!

Frankl’s faith in humanity is nothing short of colossal. I think eminent writers/thinkers are those that bare the madness of the world, swerve our attention to the “unbearable lightness of being,” conceal their skepticism poorly and yet in the end, feed our soul with hope and pull us inches closer to this Supreme Being, this Central Force most of us conformingly label God.

Like that 6-year old finding irony in a God that allows unspeakable suffering yet at the same time, heals and comforts, I, too, quibble with His impotence, His indifference, His contradiction but relieved I am not in His shoes. Because according to G. Bataille “being God means that one is in harmony with all that is, including the worst. The existence of the worst evil is unimaginable unless God willed them,” an obvious paraphrase of Epicurus lambasting that if this God cannot control evil because He cannot, He is impotent but if He can actually prevent evil and is just unwilling, He is malevolent.

Oh, to be culpable for everything – our misfortunes, our sorrow, our grief, our turmoil. To be ignored most of the time when everything is peachy. But I am exercising free will here, a gift some people consider overrated. I choose to be buddies with this God, maybe not the Abrahamic God or Job’s, but my God still, and share some occasional banters and healthy tirades.

Wood Hath Hope

Stooping down as if to say everything amounts to nothing – my towering height, my dependable force, wisdom brought by years of interacting with the elements: earth, water, wind, and fire.

Arms reaching to the heavens as if to say “we are nothing” amidst the barbarism of humans who do not respect the fact that we were here first.

Lovers carve their names on our bodies - they desecrate us with the emptiness of their promises. Capitalists break our arms for profit.

Protect us, God of Creation, whose wisdom for giving us life cannot be questioned. Bless us, God of History who always sides with the oppressed and exploited.

The Coconut Nut

Rocking with the pulse of the wind because everthing belongs to the wind, after all. Leaves bend not of their own whim. The roots detach from the earth to another world. The fruit leaves its nest because it is TIME.

What remains is a fog of a memory but even that cannot be trusted because like corks of wine bottles, the fit loosens with TIME.