Washing clothes (again)

 

Recalled a time when there was only one sibling (because the third and youngest one was not yet born or was probably too young to be recruited for such a serious task), and both of us squatted, hunched around this big black plastic basin filled to the brim with detergent suds and dirty clothes that our mother asked us to help her wash.  Our small hands and skinny arms struggled to make all of those rubbing and difficult twisting motions, especially with the thick towels and jeans.  So most of the time, it was simply applying that bar of soap on fabric, and squishing and pulling clothes out of the water for me and my brother, while our nanay does most of the real work.

But those moments were good learning experiences, albeit via repetitive, dull, and exhausting processes.  Taught us system, the value of following proper steps and sequences, patience, persistence, and nurturing interest, even finding some fun in the mundane.  Several decades into the future, and with much gray hairs on my head, washing clothes has now become an integral part of the whole work from home routine, punctuating daily brain-draining knowledge work with some form of physical activity.  Perhaps more than that, washing dirty clothes has now even wormed its way into one's meditative practice, providing an excellent opportunity to try out "no thinking", and simply focusing on all those repetitive actions and the present moment.  Pretty much like noticing and counting breaths ("wall or floor watching") during zen sitting.  Or being aware of every step, heart beat, and rushed breath when walking the dog nowadays.  Or wiping the dust off from all those books and each shelf in the bookcase, and later finding the right spot for each book in each row so that everything is neatly arranged from the tallest to the shortest.  Trying to discover both emptiness and fullness in the ordinary.

Have this pile of dirty clothes and underwear that grows with periodic in-person meetings and events, or with those weekend trips to the mall and the supermarket.  Reducing this pile is the goal, or no-goal.  During a regular remote working day, whenever the need to stand up and move around arises, washing one to three pieces of clothes at a time becomes a much anticipated break option.  Developed a quite efficient system with shirts that involves initially soaking each in water, washing with detergent, rinsing it four times, leaving it for a few minutes in water with fabric conditioner, then finally hanging it on the clothes rack outside.  Water that had been used to rinse a shirt for the fourth and final time, served as initial soaking medium for the next dirty cloth to be washed.  And on and on it goes, until the pile is reduced to only a few pieces and then to nothing.  That's the time to resume work, or take that power nap to rest and recharge the body. 

From macro- to microcosm

 

In one affirmation-sharing activity during a yearend assessment workshop with colleagues at work, someone passed on a note expressing amazement at the Martian's ability to focus on small, practical matters then shift to really big and abstract ideas.  Such feedback was uplifting at that moment, bringing another dimension to the sense of concrete results stemming from these mindfulness efforts in the past decade or two.  First thing that came to mind while deciding on the content and title for this post.  Now wondering whether this kind of whole spectrum thinking, jumping from one end to the other, could have some side effects.  Like not paying enough attention to people, relationships, and other important things around you.  Including this subdued but palpable anger that wells up when such absent-mindedness is finally brought to one's attention.

Something that has to be brought into the Martian's practice in the coming days.  Downloaded Joko Beck's dharma talks recently, to be played and listened to during work breaks and those quick drives to the supermarket.  In one of her recordings, Beck was tackling this whole system of a person's learned automatic reactions to outside stimulus and events that are thus mostly unconscious and generating counter-reactions from and effects in other beings, often negative.  And how having such awareness now of the said system, one can the begin to make some careful tweaks in the links and the chains.  Posted this photo of massive Jupiter (that tiny dot on top) and the much closer and hellish Venus at the bottom to remind one of how this macrocosm of interdependent causes and effects builds on a microcosm of passing thoughts and unconscious actions.  Took it the other night while walking with Sam.

Rage Against the Machine's iconic compilation album Renegades playing now on this antique radio/cassette tape/CD player that only a week or two ago was most certainly headed either to a repair shop or an electronic items junkyard.  Any CD, whether heavily scratched from too much use or fresh from its case, took these irritating pauses (that lasted for a few seconds) when played.  But perhaps many thanks to this summer heat, which must have vaporized all those oily residues on the CD player's lens, been getting few to none of such pauses lately.  Even encouraged an online order for a copy of Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains The Same double album (but perhaps a topic for a possible future post).  Going back to Renegades, no other RATM album in the Martian's CD library, so this one serves as the go to collection when in need of a quick dose of some powerful hip-hop protest tunes.  Definitely nothing like a background of funky noise to get those writing juices really going. Renegades of Funk, which carries the album's title, and with its anthemic lyrics (memorializing famous resisters in American history, from Chief Sitting Bull and Tom Paine, to Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X) and driving rhythm, is easily a contender as one's personal favorite.

From renegade music, mind is then drawn to this message from your aging parents requesting for some therapeutic leaves from a tree.  Last night, it was all about the kasambahay or domestic worker being sick and not able to report for her duties.  Expecting the next one to be a request to come and visit them at the old family home.  Have to start travelling early tomorrow morning. 

New practice

 

Periodic trips to the mall these days, often on weekends but during work days as well (especially on those days with no online meetings), to procure dog food and groceries have also been marked by visits to the branch of this Filipino bookstore chain which has revived its old practice of selling these popular budget books after focusing for a while (i.e., post-pandemic) on just school items, and art and office supplies.  They've been having sales recently, with some books offered on a buy one, take one basis, and both for only Php 100.  Got a copy of David Sedaris' Happy-Go-Lucky which was initially priced at Php 399 prior to the sale.  Bought a pocket book version of Frank Herbert's Chapterhouse: Dune, the final volume of his famous hexalogy, for Php 99 (its original price was Php 315).  A personal version of shopping as stress management.

What comes next is either a hot Spanish latte (that's coffee with sweetened milk; so really sweet), or a hot bowl of spicy ramen coupled with a glass of red ice tea (not that great-tasting, but quite passable as a thirst quencher).  The Spanish latte would be from a stall on the third floor, while the hot ramen would be from the ramen house at the second floor.  A stall in the food court that also sells squid tako balls, has some ramen on its menu, but not quite the spicy ramen being sold by the ramen house.  The ramen from the ramen house comes with three to four strips of meat (probably pork) which are often simply left in the bowl afterwards, in light of the policy that customers are not allowed to take home any leftovers from what one had ordered and paid for.  Not even for feeding one's pet.  No matter - sipping the tasty broth and eating those noodles and boiled eggs, with the chopped onion leaves, prime the mind for those moments of inner stillness and empty gazes, when for a few minutes thought becomes detached from worries of daughters losing interest in finishing college, one's organization not having enough funds to continue its operations and thus finding oneself suddenly jobless, and a dog with damaged liver.

As the first quarter ends

 

That tiny, faint dot at the lower left portion of the picture, framed by the trees' branches, is Venus.  Took the photo shortly after sunset, two Sundays ago, after taking Sam out for her evening walk.  The sky was clear, though with a bit of a haze.  The air is starting to turn heavy and warm, after several windy days with cool early morning breezes.  Hasn't rained for weeks now.  So summer could just be around the corner.  In Cebu, after our workshop sessions two weeks ago, a colleague was pointing out that the El Niño phenomenon had already set in and would bring back dreaded spells of drought.

Meanwhile, read this online article yesterday about plans by other Earthlings to send another inter-planetary probe through the thick Venusian atmosphere and onto its alien surface with its lead-melting temperatures, bone-crushing pressure, and sulfuric acid drizzles.  The proposition was for a probe that looked much like the Soviet-era Veneras but which could survive in the planet's hostile (hellish) environment for more than two hundred days instead of just an hour and a few minutes - a record set by one of the Veneras.  Now that would really be something.  Another stride for Venusian planetology that hasn't received as much attention as that of the Earth's moon and Mars in recent decades.  That is, if all goes well, the said proposal gets approved and receives sufficient funding.

Incomprehensible how such push for exploration beyond Gaia is happening in times of open armed conflict among nations (with the United States government, egged on by Israel and its Arab allies, now contemplating a ground invasion of Iran; the conflict has been going on for almost eight weeks now and has brought devastation to people's homes and lives in Iran, Gaza, and Lebanon, while detrimentally impacting on livelihoods in other parts of the globe).  In fact, a craft carrying four people was launched a few days back and is now on its way for a rendezvous with Luna.  Decades ago, in 1969, men set foot on the moon while American bombers were trying to send the Vietnamese back to the stone age.  And so that's pretty much the same way we'll close this year's first quarter.  With such madness from Earthlings who dream of greatness.

The political game called "hegemony"

 

Started reading works of Antonio Gramsci many years ago back in college, including compilations of selected essays from Prison Notebooks, and other books about his life and ideas written by other authors.  The latter materials often reflected on what Gramsci as a Marxist thinker and a practicing communist in Italy said about particular aspects of the workers' struggle against a post-industrial capitalist system that was on the cusp of another global conflict.  Never got to finish a single title though (based on my vague recollection now).  Except for this one by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe that I recalled reading at a time when the Berlin wall was being torn down, the Soviet Union was collapsing, and the communist regime in China was violently putting down student protests in Tiananmen square.  A bleak state of affairs for most socialist movements, parties and activists everywhere.  Here in the Philippines, a number of independent Filipino socialists that followed the orange banner of the Union for the Advancement of Socialist Thought and Practice (BISIG), a loose aggrupation of left-leaning intellectuals, trade unionists, community organizers, local feminists, and student leaders - fallouts and renegades from traditional leftist groups and failed coalition-building efforts across these organizations - struggled to sustain its discourse around a local brand of socialism that purportedly forged a middle ground between state socialism of the Soviet and Maoist brands, and the hybrid welfare state models being peddled by the local social and liberal democratic groups.

But even BISIG's Socialist Vision, I think, was not quite what Laclau and Mouffe had in mind when they talked about a notion of hegemonic practice towards a radical and pluralist democracy that was shorn of any presumptions or ideas about which social antagonism was "determinant in the last instance", who or which actor had a decisive and primary role to play at this historical juncture, and what revolution as a deep transformative break from the old order should look like.  While it did carefully outline a broader (and in most cases, more nuanced) line of march for transforming the various aspects and sectors of a capitalist Philippine society that was stunted by its dependency on the world market, its articulation of social ills and vision for an alternative future was still heavily along the mold of its anti-capitalist paradigm.  It would have been such a good research topic then, along Laclau's and Mouffe's line of thought, to look into the history of local struggles that were able to frame their own relations of antagonism, define their own vision of a transformed social order, and articulate how they could contribute to a new progressive path working with other groups including socialists without any proposition for a totalizing strategy (e.g., a vanguard role for a particular class or group) and a decisive rupture from the old order.

Been out of touch with such discussions for decades now.  Perhaps the only threads connecting me now with any related ruminations would be my own reading life (and encountering or re-encountering these leftist tomes like Hegemony and Socialist Strategy), these electoral exercises every three years when I go out to register my vote for this pluralistic party-list group (but which unfortunately has not shown any clear socialist or anti-capitalist legislative agenda, much less positions in relation to key issues of the day for quite a long, long time now), and my current work with a development and humanitarian organization that continues to toy with ideas around "broader systemic change".  Almost half a century ago, I recalled reading this book on the German Greens by Fritjof Capra and Charlene Spretnak (Green Politics: The Global Promise) at about the same time that I was poring over Laclau's and Mouffe's work.  Thought then that the West German Green Party's (Die Grünen) formation, with indefatigable leaders like Petra Kelly helping to forge bases of unity across a diverse set of groups (radical feminists, old communists, deep ecologists, religious groups, retired military officers, local activists, etc.), exemplified Laclau and Mouffe's notion of hegemonic practice albeit in its early less sophisticated stage.  But definitely leading to quite radical convergences and positions (federated economic models inspired by the Swiss cantons, zero economic growth, nuclear-free citizen defense, party-run pubs as community-building spaces) and quite unorthodox political practices and actions.

With the hegemonic blocs that the ultra-right has been able to forge and continue to strengthen in recent years, in the Philippines and other parts of the globe, Laclau's and Mouffe's opus around the hegemonic game should be required back reading for radical activists.  Found a PDF version here.  The work has spawned a whole collection of essays and other books representing both sympathetic and more critical reviews of the authors' positions and political project.  I have yet to read any of them though.  Here's one that promises a comprehensive assessment of both the work's intellectual impact among academicians, as well as its more practical legacies.

Grounding being on the inner light

 

Finished reading "Mystics and Zen Masters" by Thomas Merton.  It took me several months, so I decided to read the first chapter again (with the same title) to get a good idea of what the whole book was all about.  Have known Merton to be this contemplative Trappist monk who was famous for his commentaries particularly on the Vietnam war and on his reflections about Christian theology and spirituality in light of such and other key political and social issues of the day, towards the latter part of the twentieth century.  Knew that he died in tragic and quite mysterious circumstances: alone in his room in Bangkok, apparently electrocuted from a toppled small desk fan.  Not sure about the real reason why I have often confused him with another Christian author who had the same first name.  Have one of Merton's several-volume journals (the exact title of which evades memory at the moment - but I know it has "mountain" in it) somewhere on these shelves at home, and could even recall starting to read it years ago.  Might have to find and read it from cover to cover soon, to better understand the man, his life, his struggles, and his thoughts.

Anyway, Mystics and Zen Masters (the chapter) was a good introduction to this work by Merton which was not entirely about Zen concepts and practice but also touched on other contemplative and mystical traditions, mostly Christian, around the world.  The chapter's linchpin story was that of the fifth Zen patriarch in China, Hung Jen, and his subsequent choice for his successor and the manner by which this was done.  The patriarch asked the candidate monks to compose verses that would embody their understanding and deepest insights on what Buddhist enlightenment was.  Shen Hsiu, the leading candidate, talked about the practice of meditation under a Bodhi tree as something that was comparable to wiping clean a mirror and ensuring that it was free from any speck of dust at all times.  This earned his practice the monicker of "mirror-wiping" Zen. 

Then there was Hui Neng who was not even properly a monk (or was the monk who, as his meditative practice, had been assigned to the kitchen to do all the cooking and the dish washing for the sangha or community of monks).  Taking off from Shen Hsiu's verse, Hui Neng's poem essentially put a question mark on the reality of all notions that Shen Hsiu had in his - the Bodhi being a tree, the mirror standing in front of the meditator, and even the grains of sand or dust that were supposed to dull the "purity" of the reflective surface.  The implications being there was nothing at all to polish and wipe clean, and the whole practice of sitting meditation was not that central to attaining clear mind.  Another reminder of the value of not being too attached to any single practice and to the view of clear mind or enlightenment as something to be achieved.

So the story ended with Hui Neng being named the sixth Chinese Zen master, and his no-mind perspective would later be the foundation of the Japanese Rinzai school of Zen with its famous practice around these sudden flashes of insights and the cultivation of even broader and deeper realizations by meditating on spiritual "riddles" called "koans".  Shen Hsiu and followers would be continuing with their own mirror-wiping practice of Zen, emphasizing the nitty-gritty of sitting meditation and honing such practice and the resulting awareness by counting breaths, simply being aware of all the inhalations and exhalations, and focusing on and watching sensations and thoughts arise and go by during each sitting.  They would go on to influence the Soto school of Zen in Japan that organizes these mentally and physically demanding meditation retreats, with their characteristic zazen ("just sitting") marathons and audiences with the Zen master.

As mentioned above, may have to read again the whole book to recall what the rest of it was actually all about.  Had this vague sense that it went on to examine related practices especially of the Christian contemplative traditions or groups, drawing out insights in the process.  My own path took me from Christianity (i.e., the crash evangelical, "born again" variety in high school) to something much akin to the Soto Zen school's frequent zazens.  At one point, the sitting was interspersed with writing down each unique experience and visions that came with the counting of breaths.  But after reading Charlotte Joko Beck's book "Everyday Zen" a couple of years ago, was more and more enamored with the idea that this whole existence, with all the things that it could throw along the way, was both the practice and the path.  So, it has been a journey so far across various spiritual traditions in an effort to continuously ground being on this inner light, rather than a notion of belonging to or being a part of a single school of beliefs or thought. 

Busy week

 

Finished my fourth 5k run for the week last Friday, and brought the total distance covered to a little over twenty kilometers.  And finally fixed the mobile phone's running application which had failed to keep accurate track of both distance and duration of my runs since Wednesday.  Seemed that it had something to do with the said application's setting which automatically turned off my mobile phone after a while.  This also shut off the GPS (or global positioning system), and thus messed up the stop watch and meter counter.  Had to keep on clicking the phone's power or start button every now and then.  But this strategy still brought my total running time per kilometer to a little over ten minutes (a full two minutes slower compared to previous runs).  So had to make a full stop at one point to recheck the application's settings for the nth time.  Finally saw this button which allowed the application to stay up the whole time, turned it on and then wallah!

That episode with the faulty running app was quite stressful, and brought my panting to a whole new level.  In fact, already felt during those early runs that my lungs were about to explode, after jogging and just brisk walking for a few meters.  Going up the road to the next nearest neighbor's house, slow short steps at a time, still produced those quick, painful gasps, perhaps much like the desperate inhalations from a poor drowning bloke.  Either the oxygen-consuming cells of my lungs have not yet fully recovered from all the damages brought about by the pandemic, or my belly has grown way too big and has been obstructing fuller breaths.  Sam, my skinny Belgian Malinois, her ribcage showing again, could have had way easier times during our long walks around the subdivision.  Her own panting and exhaustion afterwards probably due more to pulling me, especially when going uphill, than to her own exertions.  Still, felt good with runs this week.

Definitely helped to lure the mind away from all those recent crazy moments with work colleagues (meeting that research proposal deadline, finalizing those schedules for learning reviews, preparing that presentation deck to cover several agenda items in a meeting with project partners that was scheduled to take around two hours but which would require me to travel by land and air for three times as long).  Felt inspired after that final run for the week last Friday, so decided to collect garbage along the road.  Got a grocery bag full of plastic water and soft drinks containers, juice packs, cigarette butts, and biscuit, chips and candy wrappers.  It was J.'s birthday last Friday.  Had dinner with housemates at the roof deck.  And finally, early this morning, waited at this coffee and donut place while my second daughter finished her online class.  Read a story in Cixin Liu's collection about the heroic efforts of this cancer-stricken teacher in rural China to provide a scientific education to his young pupils, and how such knowledge saved the whole world from annihilation in the hands of a highly advanced alien civilization.  Pretty grim, but hopeful.  Amazing how Liu grounded a whole space opera about a galaxy-spanning war on a realistic description of the lives of poor people in the present era. 

Guilt and control

 

Finished Elaine Pagels' Adam, Eve, and the Serpent this morning, after taking the dog out for her walk, washing the dishes, and checking on the typhoon's current position in this online weather satellite site.  Had some thoughtful moments from reading those last chapters around the theological debate between St. Augustine and Julian on the proper interpretation of the Christian Genesis story, its implications to the nature of human sexuality and mortality, and what it says about people's current capacities to discern and make moral decisions.  

Augustine arguing until his demise that Adam and Eve's disobedience in Eden caused a major shift in nature, with such "original sin" bringing about all the imperfection, suffering, pain, and death that are now plaguing the existence of all beings.  People, having lost all their power of discernment in the process, fell prey to such uncontrollable passions and strong sexual urges.  Church injunctions and divine grace thus now play a critical role in guiding the individual along the path to forgiveness and salvation.  Quite an attractive proposition, according to Pagels, for both the church leaders (mostly male) who were then slowly contending with the adoption of Christianity as the Roman empire's state religion, and for lay people in general who saw in the whole arrangement a means to control all the suffering that they see or experience around them - their profound feeling of guilt in relation to Adam's and their own transgressions against God's rules, in exchange for a way to somehow make sense of their daily existence and struggles, and wade through all the perceived chaos, meaninglessness, or evilness in the world.

Julian, bishop of Eclanum and championing Pelagian theology, on the other hand denied that the episode in Eden had any effect on the structure of creation or people's capacities to make moral choices.  It was simply in the nature of beings to suffer and die, and these had nothing to do with Adam's disobedience or with the individual's exercise of will.  The latter, rather than having to do with physical death, was bound to lead either to spiritual and moral decay or to reconciliation with the divine.  And people' sexuality, far from being an unnatural faculty, constituted instead a "sixth sense" representing a neutral life-giving force, divinely ordained, and subject to this balancing act between an individual's reason and animal feelings.  Such reliance on individual discernment was of course the main difference and crux of the matter with Augustine's theology.  Less useful and even dangerous to early church leaders of the fourth or fifth centuries who were then involved in this project of slowly shaping the emerging Christian orthodoxy and influencing state power.

An interesting thought experiment: what if Julian's position and similar Pelagian thought prevailed over the early Christian communities and movement?  Would Christianity still have been adopted as state religion of the Roman empire?  Would celibacy among church leaders and priests still be the policy today?  How would present Christians view human sexuality, and position themselves around related issues like reproductive health, women's rights and leadership in the church, and gender identities and sexual preferences?  What would such positions mean in terms of current forces vying for political power in countries with significant presence of Christian groups?

Some key take aways in terms of learning and scholarship: 1) Important to set and make sense of ideas and claims within their proper contexts when dealing with such elements in documentary materials (e.g., what were the attendant situations, meanings or thinking in relation to the author's ideas?); 2) Our own views and previous experiences could shape our readings of these materials - thus the need to be aware of and continuously interrogate such influences; and, 3) Beware of compartmentalized readings - always situate statements within the whole text or discourse.

Things are a-changin

Took this picture of Venus about three days ago, when all of the remaining cloudiness from super typhoon Kristine has dissipated, leaving this dark bluish sky.  Just accompanied Samantha on her evening walk, but had to go back outside with my mobile phone to take some shots of this bright dot that is about to set behind the clump of trees in the southwestern horizon.  There were just a few dim stars around at that time, fewer in the vicinity of Gaia's sister planet that could be captured in the frame and provide additional reference points.  Some white clouds still visible though on the upper left corner of the picture.  Could simply imagine how early humans must have gazed up in awe and wonder at that point of light in the heavens, as they felt the cool night breeze on their skin and listened to the soft chirping of insects in the fields around them.  Still have to discover though how to adjust my phone camera's settings for such amateur astronomical photography.  And so, had to "cure" the photos with these automatic editing functions which offered quite a wide array of options, in terms of focus, brightness, colors, shades, etc., but still left much to be desired when it comes to capturing what the eyes are actually seeing at that moment.  May need to get a pair of binoculars.

Meanwhile, somewhere on the other side of Gaia, people of this country are deciding on who they want to lead them for the next four years - their current vice-president, a legal practitioner who if elected could become the first black woman president of their nation, or a former president, an unabashed millionaire, and white male bigot and demagogue who has lashed out at minorities, his own party mates who refused to support him, and his political opponents who he has labelled "enemies" of the state.  More at stake in this election this time around, as wars and destruction rage on in other parts of the planet, brought about by the same populist and authoritarian leaders who have brought out all that are dark, reprehensible, and inhuman among their populace.  Not to mention future global action on protecting the environment and addressing climate change, humanity's biggest existential threat at this point.  Thoughts of a grim future are what often drive this mind to imagine retreating somewhere far from other people.  Perhaps not so different from the bunker mentality of these survivalist groups in the U.S. who prepare for just about any chaotic event or emergency that could happen and end up in complete social chaos or breakdown.

At work, new people continue to come in as colleagues for the past several years have left or are about to exit in the next few days.  An old familiar face is coming back though, but with prospects of shifts in approaches, structures, and systems in view of the changed context.  Congressional investigations into the drug war, Chinese gambling operations, human trafficking and sexual offences of this religious cult leader who was a close ally of the former president, and the controversial and improperly accounted expenses (millions of Philippine pesos spent in eleven days) of that former president's daughter who is now the vice-president of the republic continue to hog the limelight in social media.  New people brought in to serve as resource persons, including the former president himself who rambled on and spewed vitriol in his responses to the senators' queries.  Definitely more movements in the coming months, up until the elections.

Morning run

 

Went out for a five kilometer-run early today, after almost a month of going through all my other daily routines and without any form of physical exercise.  Well, except for the short walks with Sam, my three-year old Belgian Malinois, or the weekend jaunts to the mall and back (that secondhand book stall, pet store, and grocery).  It was the same old route, with my first kilometer just going round and round this cul-de-sac near our place (total diameter: 10 to 15 meters), where Sam usually does her morning and evening rituals, while hidden among the tall grasses growing on vacant lots.  After around ten to fifteen minutes, she was ready to go back home.  Had to clip and secure this short leash to her body strap and guide her back to our place where she then got her probiotic tablets for the day (her first meal had to wait).  Went out again to finish my run.

As with my previous runs, my next four kilometers took me to this tree-lined asphalt road going up past the gate of this former drug rehabilitation camp (already abandoned and closed for years), and then to this intersection where the next nearest houses in the neighborhood were located.  Hardly have the stamina now to run uphill (since those three bouts of COVID, or maybe with these lungs just getting old), so had to walk most of the way until the first house at the intersection.  

That was where I made my turn and ran downhill, all the way back to the dead end street.  A complete lap was around 200 to 250 meters, which meant about four laps to finish a whole kilometer.  Took me more than 46 minutes to finish the whole run.  My lungs felt like they were about to burst most of the time, and my stomach felt like it just had a full breakfast (took only half a glass of cold water prior to going outside with Sam though).  But, despite the struggle, the really good things about this run were the silence (except for some pedestrians and a few passing motorcycles) and nearly blank mind during that almost one hour.  Well, a few thoughts as well about these changes that were bound to happen again soon at work.  Including changes in personnel as a few more people resigned from their jobs.

It's like 2018 all over again, when I first joined the organization after two years of doing just freelance work.  Lots of adjustments in terms of relating with various colleagues and partners (including some new faces from beyond the country office).  Would be needing more of these down times and recharging breaks in the coming days.  These quiet runs in the morning and on weekends seem to do the job quite well.  May have to bring back some of those stretching exercises and sittings too.  And those occasional trips outside the city.

Weekend reading stack

Other than those shown in the picture on the right, there are about six or seven more pocketbooks (not including other paperback and hardbound volumes) in my reading stack these past few months.  But chose to focus today on reading just these six titles, dusting off each one with my flat horse-tail paint brush before finishing at least ten of its pages.  For some titles, it would be my second or third attempt already to read the entire thing, having stopped at some point before (in one case, way beyond the volume's midpoint) and, while bookmarks were left in place, having completely forgotten what the initial chapters or sections were all about.  And thus the need to start from the beginning.  For Anderson's first book in his The Saga of Seven Suns, this would be my second time to read it, as it has been quite a while since that first reading, and I found it simply impossible to go through the second volume in the series without a proper review of what has gone on before - how humans have colonized worlds beyond Sol's system with help from the Ildirans, used this alien technology to turn gaseous planets into new suns, and ignited conflict with such worlds' previously unknown inhabitants.

Needless to say that not all of the volumes in this reading stack require the same focus or concentration.  The collected works on Marxism, edited by Arthur P. Mendel, Nietzsche's The Gay Science, and Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World all demand to be read slowly, with some lines requiring a repeat scan so as to get a good grasp of their main points.  While for some titles, like John Gardner's The Sunlight Dialogues, and Twain's short stories, light reading would suffice.  A whole morning could go by with just one pass through a reading stack like this one, with short breaks only to get a glass of water or a shot of black coffee, or have those quick toilet breaks.  Gets the mind off from that work day routine of poring over one's emails or writing tasks, or attending all those online meetings or calls.  With music - Jesus Christ Superstar, Portishead, The Cure, Led Zeppelin, Incubus - playing on the background and providing some kind of white noise to block off all these other sounds from the surrounding and the frequent stray thoughts. 

One takeaway from today's readings: Nietzsche's point about how individuals nowadays seem to be losing the capacity to shape their characters into strong "stones" (or "wooden iron") that could help build society's "edifice" (perhaps similar to Marxists' concept of the "socialist man"), and the imagination to conceive of such projects that extend well into the future and point the collective or spirit of the age into ever new directions by always positing the exceptional (i.e., the great "architects").  There is instead this belief in one's capacity to play just about any role like an actor, to re-invent one's self quite easily, and enchant everybody else with their artistic acts.  Reflected afterwards on how this whole life may have veered towards the tendency to play accidental and transitory roles (e.g., pretending to be competent or being an expert in some areas, to be able to immediately talk about, perform tasks, or take on jobs, etc. about such things).  Definitely had a hard time thinking about what long-term character-building projects these past five decades or so have been devoted to, or are on the agenda for my remaining years on the planet.

Blogging in 2024

 

It has been almost five years since I've last written on this blog.  Thought earlier that it was already lost and buried with finality somewhere in cyberspace, Blogspot having hidden it in its archives, or perhaps erased it permanently.  But the full address slowly came to mind, and there it was, the familiar tagline and background picture of the cold, desolate planet in its masthead.  It did not even require me to log in and recall my password (which would have been impossible).  Seems my log in credentials in Google (or was it Gmail) was enough to give me access to the Blogspot platform.  So, pretty soon I was editing that last post from way back in 2019.

Quite a nostalgic trip going through my past posts.  Like reading what this other guy has composed through the years - some corny lines here and there, a few familiar or resonating entries.  Went through the comments of a few friends, fellow bloggers at a time when the world was just beginning to discover the internet and what it can provide in terms of connecting individuals from across the globe.  Facebook - that allowed short posts, quick re-shares, and those iconic reactions (the ever present emojis) - was still in its infancy.  YouTube still had all these low-quality, often pixelated videos, shot from Nokia phones (3310) which were as tekkie as one can get when it came to owning a mobile phone then.  Had a blast watching such videos of these two Chinese guys lip syncing their favorite songs in their dormitory room, while another guy, his back to the camera, nonchalantly works in front of the desktop the whole time.  Often brought some laughs back in those days.

Composed this entry around a picture of Jupiter in the night sky, taken with my phone's camera (a wooden post across the street, that held all these electric cables, visible on the right side).  Was simply amazed by this bright light which I first thought was a supernova or asteroid (temporarily captured in an orbit around our Gaia).  But according to my smartphone's application, it was the biggest gaseous planet of our solar system.  Thought it was a good photo to signal my return to this safe space, and all the new things that I could be writing about in the coming days.  Nice to wallow again in that long-forgotten feeling of struggling to put into words thoughts that linger between one's daydreams and conscious moments.  All because of that one small dot of light. 

My shadow's shedding skin

Tool's albums now playing on the LCD television with its five-speaker system, while coaxing this sluggish mind to compose again for this blog.  This old and weary soul has often found heavy metal music quite to its liking these past few days, with all the stresses at work and my parents' place.  Those strong hypnotic beats, deeply layered rhythms that sounded like they could go on and on, those lyrics that tackle transcendence and personal change by coming to grips with one's dark side (yes, pretty much like what a Jedi master had to go through), and some weird sounds thrown into the soup - all contributing to get one through the long hours.  Perhaps not so different to the effect created by Mozart, Chopin, Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Vivaldi, Wagner, etc. when their creations allow the mind to block off the outside world for a while, dive into the depths of one's being, and bring forth a life-sustaining nugget of wisdom.

This existence is aching once more for some change.  Maybe out of fear about what the future might bring, in this age of mindless surrender to new tyrannies.  And there's still that brooding thought of one's failure to create a better world for the next generations, or at least of being responsible for the peril that life is now facing on this planet.  Perhaps some side-effect also of reaching one's half a century on Gaia.  Struggled to sustain one's interest in new things these past few years.  Imagined building a small virtual community of solitary individuals across the globe, discussing science fiction novels, Japanese films, music, Nietzsche, space exploration, literature, zen, environmental activism, running.  But then the era of short status posts came, and this blog was set aside for some time.  Tool's song, Forty six and 2, has this line which served as the title for this blog post.  It talks about change by digging through one's shadow - representing all the confusion, delusions, insecurities - and coming through to the other side, consumed with this will to live and grow.  So here we are again, back to this old online journal, with all the anxieties and ramblings and belly-crawling that we could muster.  At a recent birthday celebration for a dear teacher in college, this former colleague told me how while volunteering abroad, this blog served as his only link (and kept him grounded) to the old realities here at home.  Well, here's hoping that resuming with the blogging will help keep such will and sanity intact.

Thursdays

Thursdays have turned out to be one's much awaited day of the week during the past three months or so.  It's that day when one gets to pick up the two teens from school.  Both their classes are supposed to end sometime in the afternoon, and they often stay on for a while after that for their school club meetings.  But then the road trip for this part-time dad starts early in the morning.  That gives just enough time to pass by the mall, buy those regular pasalubong (a box of donuts), browse through those floor-to-ceiling shelves and the waist-level stacks at a favorite secondhand bookstore, and have that cup of steaming cappuccino while going through the new reading routine: twenty pages per book per day (the reading list consisting of around two to three books).  And then the second phase of that road trip, which takes one to the girls' school a full hour or two before their dismissal.  In the school's parking lot, one patiently records details of expenses for the day - an old personal finance and budget management practice revived for this period of self-imposed freelancing.  Then another intense bout with the books.  Lately, one has also taken on the practice of jotting down full-page notes and reflections on the planner (as there hasn't been much meetings to schedule these past months since giving up that full-time job).

The long drive (no matter the state of the traffic), those minutes spent just sipping coffee and eating donuts and looking for new books to buy (as many as the new personal income flow would allow), and the quiet hours in the car taking in lines and whole paragraphs - all tranquil moments in these crazy times.  One also gets to talk to the kids, a few exchanges now and then, in the car and at their mother's place.  Or simply sharing the dining table with the youngest one, and with laptops open - the daughter chatting with friends, while one composes this blog entry.  Perhaps not far from what Tom Robbins might consider as meditative and potentially satori-producing experiences.  A state beyond hoping and not hoping, beyond accepting and not accepting.

Finding the strength to keep on going

Rain pouring outside.  Not sure if it's just the monsoon rains, or a low pressure area that is about to turn into a typhoon in the coming days.  Here in the living room, thinking of starting a workshop design that was supposed to have been submitted two weeks ago.  A side of being which seems to resist taking on this kind of task now - one that would mean doing a presentation, facilitating a discussion, and talking to a lot of unfamiliar and quite opinionated people later.

My last job drained away whatever self-confidence that was left in this body.  Two years with hardly any affirming moment.  No time for reflection.  Just that daily grind of relating with people who are either too sure of themselves or who couldn't care less.  After all those cheerless days, the soul is reduced into this shabby state that shuns any form of human interaction save with family and friends.  Longing to do a Steinbeck with a dog somewhere in the countryside.

Listening to Billy Joel's three-volume greatest hits album.  Playing right now from the television, via a USB stick.  Drowning anxieties from a fast-dwindling savings account, an uncertain income flow from current consultancies, and upcoming bills that need to be settled.  Resisting the urge to open Facebook and add another distraction.  Looked instead for the Wikipedia entry on "New York State of Mind" and learned that it was inspired by Joel's return trip to his home in the Big Apple.

This monkey-mind keeps on hurling disturbing thoughts about the current situation in the country - of the wanton killings, the fanaticism around the president and his irrational pronouncements, the disregard for life and democratic principles, the rehabilitation of a dead dictator's image.  Enough to make one swear to shut out such news and information from hereon, and simply focus on staying alive and "sucking the marrow" out of this existence.  But you know you just can't.

Saved by a fairy tale

Was about to leave my favorite secondhand book shop, at peace with the fact that I won't be making any purchase, when my eyes happened to catch this slim volume inserted among those stacks of pocket books.  It turned out to be this 1974 Farrar, Straus and Giroux reprinting of Hermann Hesse's Strange News from Another Star, an early collection of eight short stories which initially appeared in 1919 as Märchen or Fairy Tales.  Not sure at first if I wanted to buy it.  I knew I already have one such collection of Hesse's short works, bought from another book sale at the university a few years back.  Made some quick scans of Strange News' contents - the titles did not ring any bells.  Decided to buy it (and this graphic book adaptation of Bradbury's classic The Martian Chronicles - another lucky find, which could be the subject of a separate post for this blog).

Eagerly devoured Hesse's first fairy tale, Augustus, with a rich, but lukewarm cup of my favorite coffee - cappuccino.  Basically a story that tried to answer the question: what if somebody receives this extraordinary gift of being loved and adored by every other human being on the planet?  How would his life turn out?  Not really that appealing, according to Hesse, with his main character becoming more callous and indifferent through the years, getting practically everything that he desired as favors willingly given by his hordes of fans and admirers.  Existence as one unceasing experience of luxury and pleasure, albeit almost meaningless.  Things began to unravel for our Augustus when he failed to win the affection of a young married woman whom he met in one of his travels.  Experiencing incompetence at handling rejection and frustration once more in his life, he started to spiral down into this dark, unfathomable, and overwhelming depression.

Until he met again his mysterious godfather who gave him one wish (as he had once bestowed it to Augustus' mother).  Augustus' wish proved to be an important turning point in his comfortable but drab existence.  Amidst the personal suffering that followed, he learned to bring forth and nurture an important facet of his humanity, one that led to his redemption.  Hesse's novels - Steppenwolf and Siddhartha - once similarly saved a young man from this life's dark episodes, bringing some understanding and experience of the numinous into those confusing times.  His fairy tale has done the same trick now - pulling this old spirit out from the mire of self-indulgent fear, doubt, hatred, and depression into which it had sunk these past few days.

Running and the thought train

Came from one of those weekend runs around the university's academic oval.  It was late in the morning, but many joggers and strollers were still doing their thing under the oval's dark green canopy of acacia leaves.  Telltale signs of summer's end in the Philippines: grasses, trees, and flowers thriving everywhere, drizzle or heavy rain in the afternoon becoming more regular and extending through the early evening, sometimes with loud and frightening thunder or lightning as prelude.  Not much sun this morning, which made running easy and pleasant.  Though I still had to walk after a few hundred meters to catch my breath and ease my heart's pounding.

One thing that caught my attention while doing my laps today was how running takes the mind away from the usual stream of thoughts that flows through consciousness.  Like what a former boss used to describe as "going into the balcony" and just observing all these ideas, and notions, and feelings parading "below", with all of their antics and noises.  Something like reading a good book or watching this movie, with moments of excitement to know what will come next and a determination to persevere and push on, and moments of simply giving up on the whole business altogether and being just this passive, disinterested (though not inattentive) observer.

This latter state often proves to be the more interesting one.  Physical exertion mixing with a certain level of detachment.  Yet the detachment is not complete - but awareness is here linked by a tenuous umbilical cord to being and existence.  And its focus broadens, or attains this new level altogether: not anymore concerned much with what has gone by or what is yet to come, but simply noting and letting go while nurturing insights into such mental materials and processes.  Insights too about the body, like how that sharp pain in the ankles or those shaky legs, or that tightness in the guts are so intimately connected to recent thoughts of inadequacy.

Reflections and thoughts along these lines are what I'm expecting to read from all those books and materials on zen and running.  Like this one title in my personal library that I have yet to open in the coming days.  Something to include in my daily To Do lists before the next weekend comes, before these feet carry me again through another meditative and self-reflexive journey around the campus.  And enjoy the unrelenting thought train from a distance.

Nirvana day

Today is Nirvana Day.  Spent most of the morning at home, on a gray couch, viewing Brett Morgen's "Cobain: Montage of Heck".  Finished downloading it a few days ago.  But only had time to watch the whole thing today.  Loved the film's dark moments - Cobain's teenage angst about his parents' divorce and that embarrassing sexual misadventure, those first rapturous forays into the rock band culture, his heroin addiction, his suspicions about his wife's infidelity - and how all these blended well with snippets of the cute, and the ordinary, and the happy.  Those crazy doodles and random jottings from Cobain's mangled notebooks gave a rare peek to the guy's often tortured inner life, and to his creative (although chaotic) genius.  Horrific images of mutilated dolls, drawings of monstrous figures and gory scenes, those angry words and lines that have been covered with cross hatches, blasphemous and irreverent statements, are mixed in with lyrics of famous Nirvana songs, old concert videos, audio recordings, and expressionistic animations.

A few more things have to be said, noted about those animated sequences.  Never did like these kind of materials in the few movies that I've seen recently (such as in one installment of the film adaptation of this literary series about some teenage wizards and witches).  But this time, the animated portions of Montage of Heck really did a good job filling in for those undocumented episodes in the grunge hero's brief existence on the planet.  And artistically at that, with this one meditative, almost spiritual scene of a rainy night in the forest, accompanied by Cobain's restless guitar playing - a rain drop from the forest's canopy crushing what looked like a flower growing at the foot of this imposing tree, and with the dark purple petals then slowly turning to black.

Then watched Nirvana's unplugged New York session in the evening.  It took me just a few hours to download a fairly decent version through Torrent.  Been listening to the album for decades now.  The magic has not faded a bit.  The concert video in fact heightens the whole experience even more.  You've seen videos of those wild performances, with the band members destroying their instruments and doing all these crazy stunts on stage, and then you are given this relaxed scene of Cobain and band mates amidst flowers and candles - Cobain's soul-baring and gut-wrenching singing providing this excruciating contrast.  And you find yourself transported to a different plane.  One of those rare occasions when a rock performance produces an enigmatic movement in one's inner experience.  My own favorite tracks are Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam, Lake of Fire, All Apologies, and Where Did You Sleep Last Night.  Each of which could probably inspire and provide enough materials for a full blog entry here in Red Planet.

So what's next after today?  Well, perhaps it's a Grunge Month.  I've already downloaded several iconic albums from the era.  Some creative energy starting to flow back through these old brain cells, made stagnant by the daily grind at the office and this most recent bout of depression and insecurities.  Mind, bathed in such loud and sludgy music, urging this aging body to rock on.

(Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Back to blogging

Inspired by Jessica Zafra's strategy in dealing with procastination at work, started drafting and revising again these blog posts in redplanet.  As Ms. Zafra has noted in her own blog, there is no single path to greatness.  Realized that blogging could be quite a productive endeavor as writing those impressive concept notes, project proposals, and work plans.  Definitely more productive than just clicking all those "like" buttons, sharing links from other bloggers, and composing terse status updates in your newsfeed in an attempt to capture one's ever flowing state of mind.

Reviewed all our hundred and plus posts, and rewrote most of the lines to fit this new justified alignment (many thanks once more to this obsessive-compulsiveness).  Reduced the number of tags to streamline the labels' sidebar.  Adjusted the pictures' sizes for that more seamless text wrap (and bigger images for more recent posts).  Removed some obscure words and phrases (which should be a continuing project in the coming weeks).  And changed the entire layout, to use Blogspot's new template (that magazine format - went well with the justified alignment).

Guess the only decision point remaining now is whether to allow these advertisements and make some money out of the activity.  Or just keep the whole blog ad-free and maintain a modicum of privacy, albeit with a little tweak on the content to make it more relevant to the community.  Produce some public value with all these articles so to speak.  Be a responsible netizen.

In any event, we're finally back to blogging folks.