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.  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 moral capacities.  

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 church leaders 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 and wade through all such chaos and 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.