The Cult of the body

The body is our vessel and tool and is revered in human history. Thus the phenomenon of the "Cult of the body" is when an individual holds his/her pbysical prowess and abilities in reverence and seeks to continually improved himself/herself in this field. This is a multi-dimensional phenomenon which on a biological level is related to the biological imperative to reproduce and produce offspring. The physical characteristics of the body then serves as bodily markers of hereditary traits. The "Cult of the body" also serves as bodily markers hich are directly or indirectly linked to positive capabilities. These capabilities are those that are held in high regard and tied to concepts of the positive examples of what it means to be a particular sex. To be manly is to be fit for example.

But beyond this, I will explore the relevance of the 'Cult of the body' and its connections with my Moral man theory. Firstly, the 'Cult of the body' can be understood as the conduit of the perfection of the mind through the body. This can be explained through physical activities that the person puts his body through in order to achieve temperance of his mind where the 'mental monkey is caged in the battered body'. This no doubt is a good action and purpose of the 'Cult of the body' where the Moral man can then better understand worldly pain and struggles through first-hand physical experiences. The Moral man can also better understand worldly constructs of what can be accomplished by the human body and thus the limits of the human condition.

But this is only skin-deep. The next level of progression is where the body and mind are both equally challenged and the Moral man harnesses the 'Cult of the body' to express his will in the utmost experience of reality. This is when he stretches his mind and body to the limit of where it can go and he appreciates the co-existence and importance of each faculty. He is no longer purely interested in moving faster, jumping higher for example. He is now interested in how this abilities make his mental perception of the world sharper. He enjoys the light breeze that graces his sweat-laden frame whilst in motion. This combined application of both body and mind gives him joy past pure sporting achievement and social recognition. It also alleviates him from worldly pain and burdens as it is a spiritual recluse for him.

The final and ambitious level of progression is when the Moral man achieves the infinite (mind) through the finite (body). In fact, this is the level where the Moral man gets as close as he can to perfection (God) as he stretches his finite through his infinite. This is also when he can spread this phenomenon to others through infectious displays of physical prowess that inspire others to try similarly. The Moral man should also seek to cultivate this in others so that they too can be as close to God as possible and feel the weightless joy that he does.

Intellectual rebellion for the Good

This post will be a sketch of what I conceptualized upon a paper in University. It was an educational pedagogy, even before I decided that I wanted to be a teacher. It is entitled “Intellectual rebellion for the Good”. This anachronistic oddity is indeed interesting to look back upon and examine if and how my actions within formal educational boundaries have aligned with this unaffected intellectual exploration from the yesteryears.

It firstly involves a macro environment which firstly entails the necessary existence of a healthy socio-emotional foundational basis for the student. Students must also be exercising the practice and of the values of “the Good”. This process involves constant alignment and realignment and concrete fruitful action thereafter in order to actualize the moral learning points and benefit the community. Every intellectual and scholastic endeavour is to be done with the end goal of “the Good” and not peripheral advantages like wealth and status.

Then we proceed with the process of creating an intellectual rebel who acts in the direction of and for the Good. The first stage basically involves the mastering of basics whereby the student must grasp a competent knowledge of the world around him. The educator plays the role of sharing of knowledge.

The second stage involves testing the students’ understanding through reflective processes and later bridge into higher order thinking processes. This stage is important because misunderstandings can lead to greater understandings when reflected and improved upon. The educator plays the role of assessor and guide.

The third stage for the student is to challenge his knowledge. This is executed via open-ended questioning techniques and reflective processes now take on a collaborative dimension in which the student starts to learn how to negotiate and assemble an intellectual product from various perspectives (which would at times be conflicting). The educator plays the role of facilitator in this stage.

The last stage is when the student now becomes an Intellectual rebel for the Good. There are clear lines of intellectual engagement in which the student truly believes in and upholds. Constructive rebellion is the goal, not anarchism. The intellectual rebel explores, challenges, deconstructs, consolidates and finally reconstructs in the direction of and for the Good.

Gateway Drugs: Marijuana VS Alcohol and Tobacco

I do so love it when my students are conscious and intellectual beings who seek to question the ways of the world. What follows below is a Facebook thread between Atiqah and myself.

Me: The people who don't like you just haven't taken the time to get to know you, you are harmless and charming (I'm looking at you, government officials!)- the reason why Medical and legal authorities are against Marijuana is not so because of the effects of the substance itself but more in the fact that it is statistically proven to be a gateway drug...

Atiqah: but if marijuana has an illegal status in many countries because it's a gateway drug, why don't they make tobacco and alcohol illegal too? if it's because of MONEY, then won't marijuana make them richer too? and plus, marijuana doesn't have strong negative effects to the physical being of the user, unlike alcohol and tobacco.

Me: true, ah you have opened another can of worms. Worth exploring none the least. alcohol and tobacco appeared on the scene long before people knew about the addictive effects of narcotics. By the time they knew, various big companies had already established strong lucrative industries around it. They did try to outlaw these substances in various ... See Morecountries in various times. But it always turned out a failure given the influence of the large corporations and ingenuity of the consumers.

On the point of money, you are right. But given the current attitude towards any kind of substance use or abuse, companies can't risk the baggage of adding on one more substance to their shelves. With alcohol, their jobs of maintaining a consumer health friendly product is not so bad. But with tobacco, they have been constantly fighting a scientific battle against cancer-related and heart disease studies. And they have had to constantly refine their product to make it "healthier".

Then the official reason that Marijuana is a gateway drug doesn't really apply like you said since alcohol and tobacco are also statistically proven to be gateway drugs. Perhaps the real unspoken issue is that Marijuana production has been monopolized by drug syndicates who refuse to play with and by big corporate rules.

From a medical safety point of view, that means that the Marijuana products could be tampered with cheaper substances in order to earn their producers more money.

From a more real politico-economical stance, the issue is more about being unwilling to work with and in effect make legal these drug syndicates who are third world black market power players. If Marijuana was made legal on a large scale, this would in turn render unto these third world drug syndicates the opportunity to earn legal corporate status. Trapping them in that illegal status also gives the corporation the ability to condemn Marijuana as a product and draw attention away from the more real health hazards that they sell.

Lastly, the socio-economical reason why Marijuana is frowned upon is the transient and weightless lifetsyle and ideology that it is associated with. (As you mentioned, the Rastafarian influence). This is highly incongruent with the dominant established protestant work ethic that is the life force of modern economies (and I must say, you can see this in so many Singaporeans who pride work for work's sake and count their success as human beings in material and status terms). And as you should know, the abnormal easily and often becomes the deviant.

Note: Alcohol has much the same effects as Marijuana but users over time have become more loose with the temporary mentally-debilitating effects of alcohol by terming it as a "social lubricant".

5. Fight philosophy: On the "Berserk" state and "Rage"

In this post, I will focus on the mentality or ability to switch from a calm and normal societal functioning mode to one that is prepared to take damage and dish out accordingly and even death at extremes which is so essential in both fighting for our lives or in the ring of a sanctioned fight.

Personally, I prefer the cool, calm and calculating detached approach to self and other when fighting. But the mainstream and spectator-projected blood lust upon combat sports and fights means that many a times, rage prevails in the popular pysche of both fighter and fight audience.

Before we delve into rage, I must separate it from the often confused "berserk" state. The berserk stage is a state of mind, body and social disconnection. The fear that a berserk fighter instils in the other feeds off his own self-conception of invulnerability and sometimes limitless god-like ability. In war situations, many documented cases of combatants going berserk later state a foggy memory of the incident. Why would such reckless behavior occur? On a biological level, it has apparent survival value. In the adrenaline-pumped and furious moment, the specimen overcomes all odds and betters his chances of survival since he has nothing to lose and everything to gain from the berserk state. Thus the berserk state ultimately derives from the fear of losing one's most precious gift and escalates into action in the form of an all-out attempt to overcome the odds.

Rage however has different roots. My personal experience of rage is "getting even". I recall being hit straight on in the face and then something changed in me. I hit hard and squarely out from a bad position. That rocked him. I rushed forward with my guard high and thinking to myself, "Oh, you are gonna pay for that." And accordingly, he pulled back. But I calmed myself down and smiled it off as I remembered that it was a friendly bout. Here in lies the first difference in rage and the Berserk state, I was able to remember my social time and space. This is what I believe rage boils down to. A sense of injustice, of something that needs to be righted. It greatly bolsters one's fighting spirit, to throw out that one hard strike from a defensive position which would rock the assailant who was peppering on raining blows and turn the initiative. It also achieves the same purpose as the Berserk state in instilling fear in one's opponent.

This then leaves me thinking: How do we de-escalate from a moment of rage to prevent the trappings of a mental state predominantly focused on offense (since the objective is to make the other pay) and thus leave one open to clever defensive strategies?

AND

Does a state of focused rage exist? Is it beneficial to maintain a focused rage in a bout?

4. Fight Philosophy- On Tactical Krav Maga, drawing from "Meditations on Violence"

Violence is real and is unlike sparring. The intent is not to score points, secure dominance but to kill/harm/damage.

This post is an affirmation and refinement of TKM and the methods of instruction that I must impart to my future students.

Violence is real. It is raw. My humble experiences with it do not triumph the author's. But I recognize the numbing chemical cocktail, the rush and the mental playback on loop after the event as he mentions.

I strive to add in more mental preparation into TKM defenses. Verbal disarming and acting submissive are good enough. But to make things better, a deep cleansing breath, check your footing and a "Go" mental switch to attack must be flipped on. When jumped out of nowhere, the student must be trained to shut out all pain and information and just act: attack!

TKM's ladder of survival options fit with Sgt Miller's. It is better to run, de-escalate, fight than do nothing in that order respectively.

Avoidance is the biggest cure. If you do not go to troublesome places and look for trouble, trouble will most likely not look for you. But when it does, "Big Dog tactics" and circumventing conflicts with deliberate and purposeful submissive acts should also be taught to students as skills to deactivate the situation.

When we make the "Go" mental switch to fight, hit hard, fast and against vital areas (distinction must be made against pain and rehabilitating areas). TKM does this well as chained combatives and defense drills are effective and fast and yet simple, thus surviving the jarring effects of the adrenal chemical cocktail that floods our bodies in cases of confrontation and violence.

Things that need to be made better
"Big Dog tactics" and circumventing conflicts with deliberate and purposeful submissive acts -> role-playing

More focus must be done on getting hit and carrying on despite getting hit.

More unpredictable situations must be added in to drill students who have mastered basic principles in order to test and stretch them.

3. My name was Muon

I once had a friend. He was always fast ahead of the rest of us. One day, he exclaimed excitedly that he would be going away. "Where?" asked the more slow-witted and brow-knitting ones among his peers. "Anywhere!" he replied with a crazy grin which hinted at an eccentric truth.

He was literally fast ahead of the rest of us. He built me a device so that I could forever see him in motion despite our distance and difference in speed. "Just keep it tracked on me, will you? And I will know that despite it all, I at least have you, my best friend, to keep an eye on me." And so I promised him. What else could I do?

So the day came and he bid us a nonchalant farewell to mask the sadness in his heart. He did not want to leave but yet he was never meant to be with us. Not at our slow and bogged down existence. The kind of existence where we allowed ourselves to be weighed down by worrying tendencies and minute pains. No, he was meant to fast ahead of the rest of us. And so he broke into a stride and before we knew it, he was not in our physical sights anymore. I peered through the device and saw him waving in slow-motion at me. Of course I realize that this was just an optical illusion as the light waves took longer and longer to reach me as he sped further and further away. Now we would always be behind him in the real sense.

And the real sense of it all edged its hard and cold unyielding self upon him. He thought that he had to be beyond it all to be free. But what he found was that the price of being exceptionable was often nothing more than cold and harsh loneliness. And so there was my best friend, fast and all alone. I could tell that he was upset for I could see him crying through the device. His tears crystallized and rolled down his cheeks in ever-slowing shades of emotive grey. Yet the constant in motion wanted to keep him constantly in motion. And to even attempt a stoppage of his course would require an extreme amount of counter-energy. Another vector in the opposite direction with a unthinkable amount of force. Why had he not taken that blatant option up, I pondered. Perhaps he knew that it would literally disrupt his core and he would tumble into non-existence in a colorful fireball that would rupture sadly and slowly like a kaleidoscope of colors before my eyes. But I think that the truth was more simple and foolish than that. He was too proud to try to slow down.

2. My name was Muon

As Einstein put it, "time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live." Goethe too said, "it is optical illusion but optical truth." But yet, it was always simpler and more mentally convenient for your kind to believe and plan and judge and act based on your perceived reality.

I said these exact two sentences to her as I awaited her response. "But it is all so implausible and utterly mind-boggling," she stammered as she found her thoughts. "Is it so hard to grasp that all that we see and think we know is unreal? The Hindus speak of this as Maya. Look, it is just a simulacrum effect. Mathematical constructs are abstract representations of the real. We can't possibly have no correlates of knowing or perceiving the real," I answered coaxingly. "But all is that we see. Or rather all is that I know, I think. See? Now you are casting doubt on all that I know and this is edgy stuff," she then took a sip of her Mocha frappucino. Looking at the water particles edge their way down the sides of the frozen surface, I gathered my thoughts and plunged in once again, "Light is all that we know and base our perceived reality upon. We know that nothing is faster than light but yet we know that light has a definite speed. By that logic, there could be something faster than light."

I remembered walking home in my heavy suit and tried to place myself in the three impossibly unified levels of reality. Where would I be? In the limited perceived reality of the homosapiens? In the upper limits of their scientific philosophies- general relativity? Or in the lower limits of matter and processes- Quantum mechanics? And I remembered smiling because I realized that it did not matter which level of reality I could conveniently categorize myself into as my love for her transcended all and was independent of all.

1. My name was Muon

My name was Muon. I was a sentient being and was of a parallel universe. But I managed to live among you electromagnetic (EM) beings in your perceived reality for a long time. I chose to do so as I came to love you. I came to love how your kind stretched the realities of your limited perceptual field with beautiful mathematical and scientific constructs. Pure genius is what I told myself, they must be genius of a species. But of course, there were some of you who were so rigid in your ways of scientific realism. And it was this group of you who ultimately banished me from the warm existence in your EM world.

Of course I had to do certain things in order to live among your kind. I did not interact with matter as you do. I only interacted with most material in your world in what your scientist termed as 'weak interactions'. It seemed to imply that I did not possess the ability to connect on a deep emotive level with any matter or any being. The sad and plain truth was that I did not repel and attract like most charged particles. Or at least I did not do so with most of the matter in your perceived reality. It was just not my style. Thus to prevent myself from free-falling through the empty spaces in your world of EM interactions, I had to wear a specially designed suit made out of a few meters of iron. This stopped me from being muonic. But yet at the same time, wearing and moving around in this awkward suit made me what you kind called "moronic".

So sometimes I recalled slipping out of my iron skin and just existing. Since I already knew of your kind, I could contemplate and imagine your existence. I often occupied the same physical species with your kind and your matter without you ever knowing I was there. This was blissful times. I could be without judgment. This parallel coexistence was not a trick. It was not science fiction. It was just a matter of size. I simply slipped in between the room that existed within every atom of your universe. No, I never felt that I was being selfish since there was space for about 100,000,000,000,000 parallel atoms like me to live within every atom of your universe. As you can imagine, there was plenty of space. Whoever said that size doesn't matter?

8. On time- Time made relative (animals and us)

Our appreciation of time is relative and meaning-driven. When we have a weak concept of our mortality, time may seem draggy. It may drip like a stale droplet of paint clinging to a wet wash wall and refuse to dry no matter how we stare at it and wish it so. However, the closer we get to our graves, the more rich an appreciation of time gets. Every moment has a gravity to it. Indeed, our appreciation of time depends on the meaning to which we attach to a subject matter with which it occupies. It impregnates and makes time laden.

Thus before personal meaning gets attached to any event, self-awareness is key. Manoj Thulasidas argues that animals are unlikely to have a sense of time since they do not possess self-awareness. I argue otherwise since animals with no self-awareness do have a sense of time, albeit not as sophisticated and meaning-laden as we do. Why? They may not know of time as limited in absolute. But I argue that they do know of time as limited. This is because they exhibit knowledge of moments and duration of such moments with which they often need to perform and complete important biological imperatives within.

They certainly can appreciate the sequential nature of time as well since they display appreciation of key moments that lead to each other in key processes. They are also able to link and harness previous memories into cyclical utility for the future when the cycle perpetuates itself.

Slipping away

We forget. I have forgotten how I have slipped away from my craft. My craft of viscerally tearing away at the surface of assumptions and surface-level thoughts and feelings. Too wound up in living the "real" life, I have been. Finding a home, working, fighting. All this has taken their precedence over the hunger. Yet it still bites and claws at me, reminding me of the nibbling and eager promises that I have failed upon myself.

Happiness also drains away. Contentment satiates. I am feeling like the full man. But this is good in a sense. I can't imagine it any other way.

Maybe all I need to remind myself once in awhile and not neglect the project is through the mediums which most enthrall and represent me. I have to write music and write again. I have to bend and create. I will do so. I will find the time for what is time if not an instrument of my disposal?

Plato- The cave

3. Fight philosophy- Wisdom From the "Five Rings" (Musashi)

No man is invincible and therefore no man can fully understand that which would make him invincible.

It is doubtful that anyone truly understands the 'real' way of strategy, much less truly lives it. Yet military leaders must have some understanding of strategy and they must pass it on to their warriors, regardless of the limitations of their own understanding. Strategy demands that you know the difference between yourself and others.

Do not mistake that it is sufficient to finish one section of a job without having planned its continuation. Masters plan for contingency even when it appears that they are only improvising.

The warrior is quiet and strong and seem to be doing nothing. They do not appear to be tense and do not appear to be in disarray. They simple appear.

Perception relies on intuition and is developed through practice. Sight is purely the physical ability to use the eyes. One must be prepared for the possibility of losing one's sight in combat.

The warrior must be loose and tight at the same time. He must be firm and resolute, yet pliable.

Regardless of combat circumstances, you must remain calm. Calmness is attained through meditation and belief in your own skills.

The warrior must be flexible enough to change the entire structure of his attack at any moment.

To become one with the attack, you must strike as quickly and directly as possible without giving the enemy any room should he retreat and not give him the time to regain and regather himself. You must stick to him like glue without worrying whether you will be hit in return. When you go into the attack, you are essentially telling the enemy that you don't think much of his spirit. Plus there is always the possibility of missing the block, if you approach the enemy with resolve, you will be in a better position to finish him off.

There is no need for the enemy to start combat, you go into the attack and if the enemy decides to go in at the same time then you must be quicker, more focused and resolute.

You must learn different combinations till they become part of you and come without thinking.

Falling on the enemy is attacking without preconceived ideas as to how to conclude the battle.

You must continuously strike and counterstrike until you break the will of the enemy.

Use everything to your advantage at all times. When outdoors, keep the sun behind you. When indoors, keep a door or avenue of escape behind you.

By constantly creating difficulties for him, you will force him to deal with more than one thing, giving you the advantage.

If perfection were attainable, it would have no value and there would be no reason to pursue it.

Feint prior to attacking strongly in order to open up the enemy.

There are weak spots in all armor. Chip away at the weak spots and he will eventually weaken. At times it may be difficult for you to continue the attack when the enemy is not beaten in body and spirit, this is when you must reach into the abyss and bring yourself to totally destroy the enemy.

Speed is relative, it is dependent upon the speed of the enemy. You must adjust yourself accordingly, if you move too slow or fast, you may give him the advantage. So you should instead strive always for quickness.

2. Fight Philosophy- Combat sports and Honor

In this post, I will be exploring the relation between fighting and honor and link it to modern sanctioned combat sports. First, I shall define "Honor" which is the evaluation of a person's trustworthiness and social status based on that individual's espousals and actions. Honor is the external expression of a person's character: whether or not the person reflects honesty, respect, integrity, or fairness. Accordingly, individuals are assigned worth and stature based on the harmony of their actions, code of honor, and that of the society at large in our concerned arena of Fighting.

Next, I trace the roots of modern fight sports which are derived from hand-to-hand complements to shield bearing and weapon slashing combat systems. This is because in ancient war (and even now), empty-handed combat has its relevance in keeping the individual alive. All modern combat sports are watered-down versions of such fighting systems and have come to be through the implementation of rules so as to limit fatalities and make it more culturally acceptable and in turn economically viable in a the modern world context. Also modern sanctioned combat sports are means of outlawing legally and culturally deviant forms of dueling in a world of state sanctioned violence. But ironically and perhaps intelligently, modern sanctioned sports borrowed many rules from the various sets of Code duello that existed. A code duello is a set of rules for a one-on-one combat, or duel. As we can see, Codes duello laid the foundation for modern sanctioned combat sports in their role of regulating dueling and assuring that non-violent means of reaching agreement be exhausted and that harm be reduced, both by limiting the terms of engagement and by providing medical care. Very importantly, they also ensured that the duels be witnessed. The witnesses would allay doubts of foul play to grieving members of factions and help provide testimony if legal authorities become involved. This would be the pre-modern equivalent of referees and medical doctors who could call decisions and for the fight to stop.

Moving away from Dueling and refocusing on warring, we find that it is precisely in the context of warring that honor came about as a linked concept. For one of the main purposes of fighting was the assertion or testing of one's masculinity since warring was predominantly a male occupation. The secondary implication was also that success in fighting and winning one's enemy meant that one could increase his economic resources which would indirectly add onto one's social status within his group and confer somatic and reproductive advantages. This still holds relevance in the world of modern combat sports.

Honor has to be validated by an audience. This was why private challenges often occurred in ancient warfare and was viewed and cheered on by their brethren on both sides. Successes and failures alike would be recorded down into folk cultures in the form of stories and songs and be re-consumed and passed on down to future generations. Thus "Pain was temporary while Honor and Glory was forever" but many fail to recognize that this phrase would not hold through without audience validation. Losing could mean the infliction of a negative social response upon the loser whereby others would take him to be weak and exploit him in the future. Thus honor was a very valuable social commodity that would be guarded to great lengths. We see the modern recognition and conferring of honor upon combatants in the form of medals. In modern combat sports, marks of martial excellence are enabled by the keeping of fight statistics and in turn can be constantly assessed and reassessed by fight audiences.

Honor is also dependant on one's enemy. The more skilled one's opponent is and the more spirit that one's opponent displays adds to the overall difficulty and value of the fight and confers upon the winner more honor for the act of subduing such a worthy opponent. Thus the modern conception of weight and skill classes which pit "equals" against each other. No or little honor is to be gained by defeating a minor.