A Pledge

Now, truth is valued in speech and action. Because it serves as a guide to our need to predict and make stable the external environment. Only when we consider the environment stable , can we make the most optimal of choices.

When we speak of personal mottoes/ principles, we are in effect pledging and communicating a stability of our actions.

So consider Love, which as we all understand now is an unconditional act and emotion.
When we say that we love someone, it is our ethical responsibility to mean it.

Next, consider the case of privileged position. When we speak of anything and pledge of any action, let it never be from a privileged position.

When we speak of and pledge a positive action, it may have good origins (principles, desire, motivation). But a good origin does not necessarily translate into a good action.

We may not be at fault for our dispositions and character but we are definitely responsible for our actions and their very real consequences upon others.

A privileged position never bears truth because it does not test our actions in a case of otherwise. Thus we should never speak of and pledge a positive action from a privileged position unless we have the means to test ourselves and prove our pledge true.

13. Love: Anakin and Padme

I have already written on the "imperfect" nature of romantic love and its possible inhibition to the discovery of pure love. But I was watching Star Wars so allow me to use an analogy. Consider Anakin and Padme. Anakin is training to be a Jedi. The Jedi love. They operate on an all-loving level that objectifies all their actions. Their love is unconditional to all, even their enemies. The Jedi represents "Moral Man" and their love represents the "Love of Moral Man".

Padme represents the very human level of romantic love. Where happiness is only accessible when exclusivity and reciprocity is achieved as conditions.

With romantic love, conditions set in. And with contingency, comes fear. When we act so as to escape pain and fear, we are not allowing ourselves to think. We act first and then use thinking to justify our actions when we should be thinking, considering and then acting upon our best choice.

Romantic love then traps Anakin and prevents him from ascending towards the free state of the Jedi.

And a slightly disturbing reality that I just realized is that so long as I never engage with someone in romantic love who loves on the "Moral Man" level, I will always be the one who will be hurt. But this is the prize and burden that I have to bear at my level of understanding. And I rightfully bear it. As Tenzeeng said it, "We cannot expect anything back from them, we can only make them happy as it is our calling (for lack of a better word)."

Since I am of this understanding, I should have the ethical responsibility and moral bravery to perpetuate love as a force for humanity. So I will be brave.

12. Love: Temperance and the Weak-willed as a Curse to those who love them

From Aristotle's "Third glass of Champagne", we understand that what separates an individual with temperance from one without is strength of will.

Now it is very correct to understand of strength of as an executive will, something that is needed to be executed for all humans (as we are never truly complete and fully virtuous beings).

Strength of will allows one to assume and carry ethical responsibility and to do what is right (temperance). Our strength of will is constantly tested and it is a struggle to maintain it.

When one lacks strength of will and the ability to exercise temperance, then cursed are those who love one. Why so?

For firstly, there are many distractions from doing maintaining one's strength of will and temperance. Common ones include pain and temptation.

Let's discuss pain first. One's strength of will would then here be assessed on a threshold of pain and one's ability to make the right action despite of and in the presence of pain.

When one suffers from a low threshold of pain (be it emotional, mental or physical), one would not be brave enough to endure pain. This would translate then into actions made based on escapism and not ethical responsibility.

Temptation would also skew the weak-willed individual from the path of temperance in that they would lack the moral strength to resist missing out on pleasure. Basal instincts take over ethical responsibility.

The weak-willed individual then is a curse to those who love them because they are no able to endure, engage in self-serving transactionary relationships and are unable to extend and return acts of grace (since this would require leaps of faith when one transcends oneself).

The weak-willed individual who engages in love is then the anti-thesis to the free agent that I praise and advocate. The weak-willed individual breeds and feeds cynicism and the cycle of distrust which reinforces the ego of individuals and makes the true nature of moral man more inaccessible.

But it is not hopeless. The intemperate individual may act wrongly but he/she can still remedy the action and its consequences upon reflection.

3, Art: Irene's Quotables

So here's what Irene has contributed to my understanding of why Art has moved away from its role as a tool of bridging towards the Truth.

She explains it as Postmodern Anxiety when artists stand at the edge of the abyss with the accumulation of all that has been done behind them. Can they do more? Can they add to it? Is it even possible to add to this?

The two extremes ends of the continuum that maps the reactions to this anxiety would be at one end, embrace and celebrate as opposed to the other end, focus on the trivial (and bother on hedonism).

Thanks for the insight. Adds more depth and dimension to the topic. I will be analyzing and adding on from this viewpoint tomorrow.

The Death of a Tree

So I have died. I am no more. The eternal dustbin of the abyss. The fault-line of nebulous grey lines which are continuously tumbling into and unto each other, mixing and mashing and in effect delineating and forming.

I have died. The once great tree. Now a sordid lifeless and meaningless form. Now I contribute back to the earth. Now I am what I am.

Poets when passing me will sense my struggle and write about me. Musicians will crack their craniums in attempts to represent me. Artists will try to transmit my essence in graphics and form. They will do all these, as if my whole essence of unbecoming was worthy of documentation and celebration.

And oh, how the other trees laugh at my demise. At my expense. For all that I am contributing feeds them and fuels their leaves. Yet, for all their brilliance and self-righteousness, they do not see that one day they will be joining me too.

Then when they are as I am, when we merge in nothingness and coarse through the veins of other younger trees as particles of nourishing life, only then when will they stop laughing and realize that death comes to all. It comes to all: even the young, even the weak ones who hide from the rain in the shelter of others and siphon their earth essence, even the strong ones, even the pretty ones, even the ones who tell themselves that their self-serving daily actions are for the benefit of others.

So I do not despise or loathe them. Instead I pity them and the fate that they will face unknowingly. At least me, who has fallen knows how to fall.

And yet, it feels alright. It feels natural as I say goodbye to what I am. Goodbye to what I was. Without all that I am, all that I need to ensure my survival, I am free from expectations and obligations. I don't need to live anymore. I am free. You may say that death accords no freedom, I say, "Join me and we will see."

I feel the Death of a Tree

The snow is subsiding in its relentless tide.

I have successfully tilted in order to allow snow to accumulate in my hollows. It is a nice defeatist feeling. I repeatedly ease the process along by chanting my mantra, "It is okay. I am just dying. I am fine."

But if you were to look at me now, you would see that my roots have started to show. They have crept up out of the ground, in search of what I do not know. "They" seem to be no longer part of me. Their instincts and purpose have always been to preserve and seek out life. So it seems like my roots are launching a coup against me. The despot who has resigned himself to the final lonesome path of no return.

So it interests and humors me with morbid curiosity to see just how much and how far they are willing to go despite my will, despite my "rational" choice.

Yet it betrays me to see how a part of me yearns for hope, for life. They say that we can never lie to ourselves. Now I am starting to fear that they are right. That I can not even commit myself to an act of self-destruction and spare myself the slow process of dying. That I cannot take the cowardly way out. That I have to continue my ordeal. This hollow and sad existence.

And all around me, on the periphery, healthy specimens of trees mock me in their state of completion.

Some roots go deep. Very deep.

I feel the Death of a Tree

All is white death everywhere. My green friends have fallen under the sheet and weight of it all. I stand in isolation. These past few days, the snow and I have become good friends. It is numb and listens to no one. I speak and it shits on me. In my silent moments, I pretend that I have a friend.

So the snow shits its pretty self all over me and the landscape for as far as I can see. From what I gather, I should use the cold to my advantage, albeit for as long as it continues to be.

Numb. Suppression. If I opened up and tilted my holes in certain angles and let it snow into my insides, it should help. At least, that is what I gather. It is torment to ebb away, so it should make the process more easy-going if I were not able to feel it.

A crow then lands on my crown of lack-luster branches. Cawing, it looks out into the bleak abyss. Nails claw into my crown, I feel the prickle of pain. The heat gathers from its claws and its feet and makes its insidious way into my heart. Actually, I do not know what this "heart" is. But I guess I call it my heart since its essence can be felt at my core. One summer, I once heard a boy talk about it and punch his fist to his chest and proclaim to a female, "I love and feel you, here!" So that is why I call it my heart. Laugh and mock if you want. I realize that the idea of a spiritually mature sentient being like myself borrowing frail human terms is certainly ridiculous. I was never a sensible tree.

Now the heat gathers and the hollowness strikes again. I can feel it in my hollow trunk. I can feel the lack of material slowly spacing out and up into the higher recesses of my trunk. Hot air rises and apparently so does hot nothingness. It chokes me. You would never imagine nothing to be heavy. Yet it is! It is heavy in its immaterial, in its nonchalance and scorn for the laws of physics and my well-being. It suffocates and bears down heavy.

I know the crow is the blasted cause of this! I want to crane up and eyeball it. I want to see it in all its grotesque beauty and feel the heat that it brings expand the hollowness more and more until it consumes me! A cowardly wish and desire, you may say. Another measure would be to grab hold of the crow and just let go of that particular perch and let them crash to their colorful demise. Yes, I could channel the nothingness there and then release it, killing two stones with one bird!

Yes, I am referring to it as a perch because since if I dare to amputate myself, I should have the fortitude to call it what it is and should be. Not of me, not of my hollowness but a sacrificed physical pain in order to aid my cowardly escape from the expanding hollowness.

I feel the Death of a Tree

The air is thick. And slow. It is static and heavy as if pregnant.

Then the wind swoops in from the sea, unsettling the trapping of time. The air had time trapped well but now it was breaking free. So all things rushed forward in their individual dances of hurry, to try to catch up with lost time as much as possible before it would be trapped again.

So I watch on as the blades of my green friends twist and turn and shout in glee with all abandon. They are so happy that they open their mouths wide as if they were trying to eat happiness. As if they were trying to eat it and imprison it in their stomachs so it would not escape. And then upon their will, they would be able to regurgitate it and experience it again. Their mouths are so open that their faces look ugly and contorted. Of course, I do not tell them this. I just smile and wave. They smile at me and wave with a childishness that I so enamor.

But yet, there I stand. A tree. A huge dying and hollowing tree. My bulk stands the rush of time as it tries to sweep me into dance. It only manages to ruffle my leaves, upon which many fall off. Oh great, death and baldness.

So time sweeps past me continuously in a barrage, howling its name in my face and upon my skin. But unable to sweep my frame into dance, it can only do its best and meander around my existence, caressing and tickling my sides. If only I possessed my insides, I would giggle.

But time moves on. It has to. It bends its way past me and re-envelopes into itself behind me and carries on its way. I can't be sure as I can't turn, you see? But I think it was shouting my name as it blew past, further and further. My green friends stop their dance as well and droop, the thick air already crushing them once again. In silence and apparent disappointment, they await the next rush when time would escape the thick air again.

3. On Beauty: From John Armstrong's "The Secret Power of Beauty" Part Three

Schiller identifies an "Aesthetic Necessity" in what we deem Beautiful. This is in contrast with practical necessity which stifles us and impinges on the sense of who we are. There are also moral necessities which make impositions on us.

Aesthetic Necessity is then liberation as we are presented with how we would like Life to be. Consider an experience of beauty when we come into contact with a piece of music, Schiller describes it as the feeling that each note "has to" follow but this does not make us feel constrained. Instead, we are thrilled by this apparently inevitable sequence and makes sense.

Now, Armstrong takes into account a very important change of perspective. From the viewpoint of the audience, the work of art looks smooth, cohesive and natural in its sequence. But this would have taken a lot of anxiety and doubt on the part of the artist who is trying/ tried to make the parts flow and fit.

When we view our actions, we often are the artist, filled with doubt, uncertainty and anxiety. Our lives, when seen from this perspective, thus can never be like the "perfection" that we see in art.

We now move onto the discussion of Paradise: the imaginative space where beautiful and the good always coincide.

This is a double-edged sword to the contemplative since the more elaborate, refined and serious the longing, the harder it is to realize.

As I advocate, idealism must go hand-in-hand with pragmatism as Aestheticism is an extreme and distorted attachment to beauty, a form of idolatry.

A proper love of anything requires an acknowledgment of its real nature and hence its limitations. Without such recognition, it is not really that thing which one loves, but an idea of it.

Donnie Darko

2. On Beauty: From John Armstrong's "The Secret Power of Beauty" Part Two

I will be skipping the chapter of "Friendship of Parts" in my analysis as it supports the part about the Holistic nature of Beauty.

I will instead be examining the relation (if any) between the experience of pleasure upon coming into contact with a beautiful human form. I find this important as modernity has taught us so much about "need gratification" to the point that we become obsessed with fulfilling our desires and often feed the confusion of desire and neglect the appreciation of Beauty.

Yet again, another post that requires philosophical maturity. So yes, only read and consider if you are of such. If not, please do not attempt the thought-experiment.

Moving on, Kant theorized rightfully that Beauty does not always coincide with the Good.

These two qualities often coexist (but do not necessarily lead or lend existence to each other).

So that leads us to often confuse an object which is a source of pleasure as something which is beautiful.

But the experience of pleasure cannot be divorced from the experience of Beauty.

So balance must then be achieved so that we do not allow pleasure to dominate our appreciation of beauty. It should not dominate but should enrich.

Likewise, if we are too involved with the idea of beauty (the symbolism of beauty then in subscribed onto the object), we cannot engage with whatever beauty there may be on offer.

Let me explain, imagine that even though the characteristics of the beautiful object may change into something ugly, we may still find it "beautiful" because it is "meant to be" beautiful (when we are overly involved with the symbolism of beauty).

The advocating for Balance is emancipating and yet perplexing. I wonder if the problem of the chicken-before-the-egg is truly understood and able to be abstracted from the experience?

It seems to be that modernity has taught us to be more concerned with the idea of pleasure. How do we then transcend?

The pleasure of viewing the beauty of the human form is born out of desire (most dominantly sexual desire). And Armstrong is right to posit that we could not appreciate the beauty of the human form if we were not sexual creatures. How do we then move beyond desire?

When we put pictures of pin-up girls in our rooms, we ogle at their physical attributes. We take pleasure in the viewing of their female form and that honestly is about it.

How many, actually then move to contemplate and appreciate the fully beauty of form beyond desire and in non-relation to desire?

I find this thought experiment highly poignant as I have often found myself to be "Shallow but not Shallow enough". Let us proceed.

Consider this pin-up. Now I have purposely chosen this specimen because of its obvious shock value. Most males would be pre-occupied with this particular female specimen's upper bodily assets and remain fixated. Now we remember Armstrong's advocating of Balance and non-domination of Desire. So we must look beyond.

I then notice her shapely biceps which means that she is probably in good physical health and strength. That is beauty. I notice her smile which is girlish and playful. That is beauty. I notice the sun and the nice play of shadows. Sun is life and that is beauty. I also notice her strong angular neck and a prime physicality is beauty. I am starting to appreciate her beauty more and more as a prime physical specimen and am moving past and away from her upper bodily assets.

1. On Beauty: From John Armstrong's "The Secret Power of Beauty" Part One

Poignant snippets from the above title as part of my investigation on Love

The Hidden Cause: "Beauty is the promise of Happiness"- Stendhal

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. But this is invoked to end, rather than initiate discussion.

We are often inarticulate when we try to communicate our love for the beautiful.

Hogarth, as the first formalist, tried to find the basis of beauty in Curves and the psychological aspect of change. We are entertained and stimulated by change. But change must be measured.

Thus the experience of Beauty is the mid-point between boredom and exhaustion.

He tried to place an emphasis on our confidence in the experience of Beauty and not be susceptible to corrupting influences.

"I don't want to know how it works, I just want to feel the effect." (Man, the echoes that these line reverberates in my memory and heart are heavy.) Our first impulse is to dwell in silence and to give ourselves over to it to Cavour and prolong the engagement.

We do not spoil our pleasure when we analyze the experience. Instead, it intensifies and deepens the enjoyment.

But this is flawed as he was proposing a fixed Rococo-ian ideal of Beauty.

Let us consider "Fitness", the adaptation of an object to the purposes for which it was intended.

Our enjoyment is governed by an understanding of what something is for. For example, a desk when seen in abstraction from its function looks quite odd.

The purpose reveals the "integrity" of the object- our sense of it as a coherent, complete and unified thing so that they all make sense together intellectually and visually.

A perfect fit between form and function then arises and this idea of beauty if grounded in reason and practicality.

But the notion of function is not precise. We cannot merely operate on the level of a minimal function. And when we do consider function widely, it loses its power to determine the form an object should have. Also, the ideal of Functionality presupposes that we always know in advance what we want something for.

Pythagoras championed the idea of Proportion. From music and octaves, he sought to pinpoint "rightness". This had deeper meanings as the structure of the soul (in appreciation of Beauty) was the same as the structure of the universe. Thus there is a morally valuable state of mind in which beauty, goodness and truth stand in close proximity.

Palladio then used Proportion and developed the Classical Architectural style.

But yet, we cannot simply abstract fine proportions from one thing and expect them to yield a beautiful template for making something else.

Next, we consider the "Law of the WHole" whereby it is the holistic character of something that can explain Beauty. We are receptive to the impression of the overall character of the object and there is not just one thing each element is doing and just one relationship because everything counts together.

Neglect of holism can mislead us when we fasten onto an element that was lovely only in a particular setting and mistakenly suppose that it would be just as nice anywhere.

I feel the Death of a Tree

Courtesy of Nigel Tan

11. Love: The Often Mistaken

I am going to be adding onto Secomb's description of Modern Love. Secomb rightfully asserts that we have mistaken quantity for quality.

With each new romantic experience that comes and goes, we are not more proficient in loving. Instead, we only learn how to better manage our "hellos" and "goodbyes". In fact, we become more proficient at de-loving, the ability to meet and disengage and not the actual process of loving (the management of the state of being in love).

This is born out of modern realities and mindsets. Secomb states that it is due to our economic lens that we apply to even our romantic experiences, everything then becomes an investment. When the experience deems to be unable to yield, we reinvest elsewhere. I add that our evaluation of the our romantic experiences are informed by the Cost-Benefit Analysis.

Coupled with the dominant Individualist mindset that comes with modern Economic theory and practice, the Costs and Benefits are always calculated and weighed from an egocentric position.

This then is not love. It is, indeed the anti-thesis of love since all calculation takes place from a self-centered and necessary selfish position.

I will be moving on to compare White's take on Post-Romantic Love with my idea of Romantic Love as bridging towards Pure Love.

10. Love: Snippets from Linnell Secomb's "Philsophy and Love"

Diotima’s description of love as ascent, as a ladder leading from a lower form of individual love of a particular beloved to a higher form of love of the good and the beautiful in general. (This is in line with my idea that romantic love, though imperfect serves as a safe realm within which to practice and cultivate Pure Love. Diotima though is more optimistic of the possibility from what we will see below.)

Love of a physically beautiful particular other leads to appreciation of the physical beauty of many: then to the recognition of attractive minds and in turn to beauty in knowledge and wisdom and then to the “everlasting happiness”

When an end is posited, there is a failure of love because an end is put in the place of love (as a process-in-being) instead of allowing it its natural perpetual journey.

Levinas: all ethical relations are an expression of love

Does not mean that we are reliant on the other to give us existence

We do not approach the other with empty hands but instead offer her or him our plentitude.

Love as duty: Prioritizing the other involves accepting that I cannot impose upon the other

Recognizing the other’s difference an avoiding subsuming the other within my experiences, understanding and categories.

The other as the highest and yet the most destitute

To love is to fear for another, to come to the assistance of his frailty

Erotic experience returns us to materiality, absorbed by the sensations of the body (us and our partner’s), dissipating our constitution as a subjectivity or identity

Erotic relation should not be understood as fusion of as possession since this would destroy the alterity of the other

On Being Rich

I am in support of this statement, "The Rich man is not he who has the most but he who needs the least."

Why? Let's see, shall we?

First off, from a rational economic perspective, the ability to acquire and objects that we can possibly acquire are limited and finite in nature whereas our desire and greed is limitless. So there is a fundamental mismatch.

When we look at the statement closely, we see the word, "need". Are we operating from a self-knowing position? Do we know our needs from our wants? We often do not know the distinction and thus compound our "needS" and in turn have to possess more and more.

When we think of possession, I wonder if we do actually even possess anything? I understand possession to mean to own or have ownership of things or people. We apply the "my" to these possessions and they enter into our realm of control, exclusivity and access.

Ultimately, I realized that possession is never permanent. So we can never truly possess anything. We shall begin by analyzing various ways that we can come into possession.

We can possess objects by way of force. Then whoever is stronger will possess it. So possession is not permanent because we cannot be the strongest permanently.

We can possess them by legality. Laws are rules of the game, placed by a legitimate authority and supported by force. Laws are amendable in their nature and so possession is yet again not permanent.

Objects, in their essence, deny permanence of possession since all objects are perishable.

With regards to Objects, even if we are in permanent possession of them, they still remain external to us. They do not add meaning to us, only layers at best.

What about people?

All people definitely deny possession in the simple fact that they are subjects with a unique will and not objects. We cannot have or possess anyone. When we are involved with another person, we are sharing of each other. More aptly, we are in a state of temporary interaction and engagement with each other.

The degree of exclusivity and access and terms of interaction then inform the nature of the relationship.

Why would our "possession" of people also be temporary in nature?

Firstly, as physical beings, we are perishable and even in the exercise of our wills (As it may change)

Secondly, we cannot effect the way in which another chooses to enact his/her will. We can attempt to condition it but this is ethically questionable.

So we have determined that we are never in true possession of anything. We now move on to investigate how does one then make himself Rich and to need the least?

Be self-knowing. Identify and distinguish between wants and needs.

Understand that since the external possessions are impermanent, the internal dimension is of greater gravity. So I ask, can we possess an internal dimension that is of permanence and exclusively our's?

Though it is true that conditions and externalities can influence the wavering/change of our inner dimension, at least we are in greater control and have the best access to our inner dimension, thus we are most able to possess and own it.

Practice self-management. Manage one's own perspective, state of mind and attitude.

Be appreciative. It is often hard to be appreciative because we compare. And this comes from our competitive drive. But the value that we place upon things are often informed by social conditioning. What's more, we already understand that the inner dimension is of greater gravity since all externals are impermanent and do not add onto us.

SO if we look inwards, does the competitive spirit still have a chance to make appreciation difficult? Ultimately, from the viewpoint of a moral-realist, Self-comparison is desirable as it serves as a mode of self-assessment and yard-sticking. However, it should be conducted in a positive spirit and desire for betterment. Also, since the subject of comparison is one's own self, the scope of betterment spans into infinity.

Marriage of Music and Philo

Ok, so I know. I do not normally duplicate posts among my blogs.

But this time, its different since these two songs are a genuine cathartic effort for the first time in a very long time so I think they deserve a rightful place among my space of thoughts.

Know you

L is for your name and what it means to my soul
O is for the only hope
V is for very much in love with you
E is for everything (that I wear upon my sleeve)

Together it spells you
that captures my breath and delivers my only
drive-through that pauses for no one
the swing that swings for only you

I don't know her, she doesn't know me
Baby, we are growing old inside
Hollow and still, it comes like a shadow
Lady, I am here to know you

L is for your laughter that wraps the very earth beneath me
E is the elephant that now can fly
A is for asking us why, N is for no answers
N again and again it repeats itself cuz A is all about you

I don't know her, she doesn't know me
Baby, we are growing old inside
Hollow and still, it comes like a shadow
Lady, I am here to know you

Refuse from Comets

All the colors of day reside here in you
Everyday I speak of the truth
Captain of my heart, he helps pull me through
The sea is dark, like fog and ground in two

Throw it away, like refuse from comets
pummeling into space
Throw it away, like refuse from comets
pummeling into space

Are you a spy too?
Sent here to find the truth
I am telling you it is no use
They hold onto it, its their excuse

Grow it away, like leaves from my heart
Showing my love for her
Burn it away, reduce and reuse
Haven't they heard of the phrase

I am talking, I am talking, are you hearing me maybe
Confusing my words, its all turned into murk
Your heart does not listen and mine does not speak
A slap in the face and take out my teeth
Burn out my soul and find my tin heart
Bestow it upon the Tin man who has come
Grant my lion courage and take me away
from this yellow road of dreams

Throw it away, like refuse from comets
pummeling into space
Throw it away, like refuse from comets
pummeling into space

2. On Pain: The Intensity

Now I recall when person A was cheated on. The following will be a recount of the physicality and psychological aspects of emotional and mental pain that person A felt. Interesting as a recall experiment.

I have to stress once again that this reading requires emotional and philosophical maturity. If you do not possess the following, please do not read on.

Firstly, A remembered feeling very debased, very belittled and very wronged. This was of course due to the fact that A was partly basing his self-worth on the socially-prescribed ability of the male to remain in control of the situation and not be taken advantage of (by the female partner or another male specimen, which would even greatly debase his worth).

Secondly, A recalled the intense taboo mental visualization of the coupling of his partner with the other male specimen. It was very gut and heart-wrenching and obviously a sight from which he wanted to pry his mind's eye away from. But this is where it gets interesting and perhaps I will need a psychological reading for this on top of the philosophical investigation that I will carry out soon. At the same time, he wanted to and reveled in watching it in all its grotesque horror. This will require more analysis.

He wanted to feel the pain swell up at the point in his cranium just behind the bridge of his nose and the spot manifested itself so physically that he wanted to claw at it just to rip it out from the sockets of his soul.

1. On Pain: Understanding and a Noble Nature

My friend was in intense pain due to a wrong committed unto him by another. And he understood the nature of the pain and had felt its intense nature, so much so that he said that he said that he would not want this upon anyone,even his enemies.

I smiled. I had felt the same before and still do.

Only those who really feel pain understand it and it is so terrifying that we naturally would not want others to feel it.

"I feel the death of a tree."

Forgiveness

Why do I find it hard to forgive myself?

Multiple mental incursions (especially when emotion is strong and overpowering logic) result in a sea of voices over voices. I cannot find a clear mental voice from which to speak.

An inability to grasp the full extent of a contextual me that exists from time to time. Also, the perfectionist in me teams up with the harsh criticisms of viewing the subject matter from the view point of hindsight and presentism to clash heads with my understanding of a non-abiding self.

Maybe it is because even from the viewpoint of a non-abiding self, I understand that the nature and quality of decisions should and can still be judged. Even within the microscopic lens of bounded rationality, there should be clarity of accountability. There still exists good and bad decisions, better and worse decisions.

So yes, when I analyze my actions, they were bad. They were not good, not good enough.

I have accepted the blame. I want to learn. But I can't forgive myself until I prove otherwise in the cauldron of future experience. But what constitutes future experience?

I want the field of research and test to remain similar, so as to speak. And suddenly I wonder if the paradox of the non-abiding self may also apply to situations, can I then ever say that I acted better in this situation as compared to that?

And till then, as usual I hold my hollow breath. Hold it, hollow and still.

Life is a series of Hellos and Goodbyes

And sometimes its how you said Hello that determines the gravity and weight of all that will transpire from that point on. With the single action and its determined nature, you shape the possibility and expectations pinned upon the relationship.

Does One say it first? Or is it a furtive mutuality? I recall the beauty of the spontaneous neutral moment.

But as life goes, everything went pear-shaped. With the inability to control our speech to one another in between, the Hello crushed heavy on our minds and instead started breeding doubts.

I regret, as all finite sentient beings do, that the Goodbye was rushed. It was hurried. It was loud and did not want to hear anything other than its own echo. Like the sound of a train exiting the station and its last exhaust shout, it was hurrying to leave. The path had been charted, the coal was in the furnace and no matter where it went, I knew that it would have no Me there.

So I sat, the platform emptied. My luggage still in my hands. And of course, the ticket stub too. Strangely, I had this article of faith torn and inspected. By whom? I never do know. And so I wait, like the stupid ghosts of lost villagers awaiting a return trip to their village of the "yester-years".

The air is cold, it hollows me out. I lay like Buddha but sink like Machiavelli. I cry like a child but curse like an adult. I am torn.

The train is in the berth again! But the doors are shut. I bang on the doors. The cat businessmen inside look at me and scratch their noses. They wonder what the fuss is. The train has been repainted. The smell of the new paint sickens me and I smudge it with my rabid fists. I am disturbed by its presence on my skin and they say paint leaks into one's soul. One's essence. I guess my heart is now green and red.

The train chucks out slowly. It never did open. But the fat balding conductor tells me that it may be back. He has bad teeth. I try hard not to smell the stench emanating from his bile.

So it may be back. Now the Goodbye may sound its antithesis, a Hello. It may never. The platform stretches on. I hope to be able to inject more into this narrative. Hold my tentative hollow pause. Hold it.

May. Is my sister's name too. I never knew she held such power.

2. Art, ON MUSIC: As means of bridging towards the Truth

We are to delineate Art in terms of the real and imagined senses that it engages and the tools of its art-form that it employs.

So let's take a look at Music in its pure form. I understand music to be the organization and application of sound.

Music's tools consist of volume, rhythm, language (word-play and word-idea), melody (tune, pitch, progressions), acoustics (tone, timbre) and dynamics (variations of arrangement). Music engages hearing (the real sense). In the processing phase, the imagined senses (all the other 4 senses are engaged which are largely informed through association with prior schema. The senses engaged are also inclusive of space-time awareness) and the production of meaning is achieved.

On the second level, Music can also exist as an image and sound-scape (of a musician producing music). This is where problems set in.

When producing music as a means of bridging towards the truth, the ideal situation is that the musician self-empties and becomes a medium and/or facilitator through the production of music and his/her bodily and emotive actions.

But what often happens is that the audience may interpret and add on dimensions which in turn causes further layering and distancing. They may get distracted from the capture of the essence and instead be mesmerized by the performance. This then leads to music in its less purer form: as Entertainment.

When we examine the idea of Music as Entertainment, we can see that there are many non-art elements involved in what we deem as contemporary music appreciation. These include the attractiveness of the musician, the dynamics of the bodily and emotive actions involved in the image-scape and the pageantry of the performance as an event.

Music then suffers from a confusion of Form VS Function whereby Form gets overemphasized over Function. It then renders music not as a phenomenon to be processed but instead to be consumed.

1. ART as means of BRIDGING towards the TRUTH

What I am concerned with is the purification of ART, away from the crushing of Non-Art and how to reinstate Art as means of bridging towards the Truth.

Art and Truth share similarities. They are both finite in action but infinite in existence.

Art belongs to two realms; that of the Subjacent (of the contemporary which is informed by the current space-time configuration) and of the Core (which lies its essence).

How does Art act as a bridging means? Let us turn to these diagrams.

In the first example, the Artist uses Art as a means of allowing the audience to bridge the void towards Truth. This is the less desirable method of bridging. Art acts as medium.


In the second example, the artist acts as a facilitator. He/she allows Truth to speak for itself through Art. This is a more purer method of bridging.

As we have noticed from the two examples above, Purity is highly important in these multi-chained process. Purity ultimately demands different requirements from both the Artist and Art.

Of the Artist, he/she must operate from the position of a Non-ego. This is to deny any imposition. As a facilitator, the Artist must also know how to capture and recognise how Truth wants to speak for itself through Art.

Of Art, it must be stark (to be the closest possible to the truth), void (as it must carry with it no imposition)and confrontational (to allow purity in the decoding process. Confrontation breaks the audience from their ego and allows for them to gain access to the truth from the position of a non-ego.)


Now, allow me to try to put across an example of an idea in itself. A wordplay-idea: MAX SIMULACRUM. (as opposed to Wax Simulacrum) This denotes an idea of Maximal imagery, maximal representation and far removal from the moment of being.

This is the image-scape which occurred to me spontaneously.

This portrays an infinitude of cameras taking pictures of a dude who is taking pictures of a vase of flowers on a table.

The subjacent elements consists of pop art and technology. Whereas the core points to the representation of re-representation to infinity and objectifying the
subject to infinity.

I am unable to capture the desired infinitude of cameras so I have left that up to symbolism. So I learn that purity of art and starkness is also contingent on the reduction of symbolism. However, it is highly effective in enabling the capture of non-being or unimaginables. But at the end of the day, with regard to symbolism: LESS IS MORE.

Allow me to end off this post by stating the difference between Art and Propaganda and with this, our understanding of Art should be sharpened. Both are very similar in many ways and indeed Propaganda exists in the guise of Art but Art leaves the final question open whereas Propaganda uses the tools of its art-form to manipulate and condition towards a message. The final question is not open. The art-form and artist is not the facilitator but a one-directional medium towards a predetermined message.

9. LOVE: Why HATE does not help?

Posit yourself in such a situation. You love person A romantically. For whatever reasons, person A does not reciprocate your love. A very common reaction would include the possibility of hating person A. In fact, it is a very reactionary and useful tool to overcome your love for and pain suffered in the situation. Why is it useful? Because you are fixating upon a anti-thesis of Love and choosing to feel that in place of your unrequited Love. But most importantly, does it help in actuality? Let's carry on with our analysis.

And a large part of you would want person A to hurt, mentally (you may want yourself to hate person A so that person A hates him/herself) and in the extreme physically.

But what would you achieve in this outward projection of your suffering and pain? If you were to succeed fully and ultimately , it would be pointless as the pain would not subside. This is highly counter-logical as most would expect it to be a cathartic exercise.

This is why: By causing person A hurt, you would only achieve sadistic glee (not real happiness). Unlike real happiness, it is contingent on the suffering of another. If you would to succeed in sadistic glee to the point of brimming and culmination, in essence you totally give into and become the pain. You may laugh till you cry again since pain is the root of your actions and "happiness". And then what would you do after you have become the pain and cried/stopped crying.

So since that would not cause your pain to subside and instead render you helpless by becoming the pain, what should you choose?

So how should you handle a position of suffering in such a situation: You can and should choose to own the pain since it is yours to bear. (it may not be right that it is yours but since you have extended your love in hope of reciprocity, it is a very real gamble that you are now paying the price for.)

Next, you can and should choose to learn how to overcome it. Only then can you choose to put it aside one day and not be the pain.

On a very real level, what person A is and does has no consequence on this favor that you are to extend yourself.

8. Love: PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (the re-watching of)

SO ya, it has been years since I last watched this.

And now, it bites so much harder because I am a more mature viewer, I guess.

I am impressed by the lack of sound (and when it does come in, it really packs a punch. Like the scene when he feels cornered at work when his intrusive sister drops by to visit with his prospective date in tow. The crazy crescendo of industrial sounds then starts drowning out the dialogue and you feel the anxiety and mental-collapse of his character very powerfully)

Also, the mundane image-scape and elements makes the whole experience out-of-sync with what we normally expect from a film. Thus the "Indie" effect is well-achieved.

But this is purely the cinematography. This film is so layered. I will be writing a bit on the philosophical content now.

Firstly, Sandler's character is fixated as the central point of psychological disorder. However, when we actually analyse the behavior patterns of the other characters, many of them are rightfully in a similar category of psychological disorder. I want to touch on his sisters as a group. As a group, they corner him, belittle him and project their perceptions upon him. They do not even seem to be aware of this. Thus he finds himself having to maneuver in such a hostile environment and his reactions remind me of what Fanon talks about. Moral of this little sub-plot is that most of us suffer from a certain kind of mental disorder in the slightest (at least) but it is the power matrix and relationships which govern which are exacerbated and highlighted.

Then I wonder, does his character experience Love? On the surface, it seems that he is not even attracted towards her at the start. His initial reaction towards Watson's character is of apprehension and withdrawal. He does not actually show any interest towards her. Then when she visits him, it seems to me that he starts to reciprocate her attempts at communication because of an attempt to overcome and brave his own state of imminent mental collapse. In fact, in the end she is the one who asks him out.

During their first date, his only clear action is one of reacting negatively towards what his sister had told Watson's character. And then when she initiates the kiss, he does put forward some initiative which denies him pure passivity. But still, I am not convinced. He seems to be just filling up a void of loneliness.

Meaning