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Monday, January 07, 2013

Old Philo Notes - Not Really

So I was cleaning out my external drive today and I came across some, for a lack of a better term, random blurbs from my Philosophy professor from college. And yes, it's the same professor we commonly referred to as GTO (as in the anime).

I've been reading them again for the first time in years, and it's funny how a lot of them didn't make sense back then, or were met with bewildered stares or hushed laughter. I'll be posting some of the, er, more maudlin ones for today. Is maudlin even the right word?

As a side note, some of the others are a bit too anti-establishment so I guess I could only provide them on demand.

Anyway, without further ado, here goes. Enjoy!

On Changes

Did you know that I attended UP Law in 2001 only to leave after barely two months into the semester because I missed teaching? Sometimes, we don't know what we want until it is in front of us. Ten years later, I want to go back to law school and be a lawyer. Sometimes, we don't know what we want until we are ready for it.

On Wanting

If you're in a relationship because you wished someone to want you, then you're in a relationship for the wrong reason. Love does not hurt. What hurts is when you can't make someone want you.

On Home

Home is where we find peace and quiet. That's why we call it tahanan in Tagalog.

Some of us look for it in the big city hoping that they could find it somewhere between bus stops, or elsewhere they can doze off and momentarily mute the traffic noise. Others can only dream it as they fancy of a rustic life in a house by the lake during their coffee break.

Some of us see it as that place where they could enjoy baking cookies and cakes, chasing cats and chickens on weekends, or elsewhere they can be alone and voluntarily disappear from the maddening crowd. Others who lack a better imagination can only fake to have found it in the cramped cubicle of their work station.

Home is a variety, from a single mother who goes home to her beautiful daughter to a married mother of four who eagerly awaits for her husband to come home, to a bachelor who locks everyone out to do home work on his doctoral dissertation.

On Exes

There are times when we only remember what love is when we remember those who used to love us.

Often

Often, we ignore those who adore us and adore those who ignore us. Seldom, when we don't ignore those who adore us, it's either we're just faking it, or we've found a love that we can't refuse to requite.

She

She who is afraid to seize the magical moment ruins it. Ovid said, "Fortune and love befriend the bold. Fortune and love favor the brave."

Checklist

When you're older and you've grown tired of trying too hard to tick off every box on the checklist that society has prescribed for you, you'd realize that you can actually leave out some of those boxes empty and make your own checklist.

On Conversations

Judge friendships by their conversations. Friendships are as shallow or as deep as their conversations. Friendships can only go as far as their conversations take them. By keeping conversations alive, you keep friendships alive. Like conversations, friendships can start with a word, can end with a word, can be steady for a while and can get out of hand quick. Sustained conversations fuel lasting friendships, like traveling on a full tank. Cranky conversations drain shaky friendships, like traveling short on gas.

Crush

"Paano kung crush ka rin ng crush mo, pero you're not ready to push it up to the next level?"

That's when the fun stops. That's when it begins to sour. Taking a "crush" seriously is a different story. It's like waking up from a dream, like you're pulled out from a fairy tale back to reality. All of a sudden you realize that you're not dreaming, you realize that you're not ready to deal with a dream becoming true. And you'd wish that you never woke up, that it stayed a dream. Then, you make excuses that you can't, that "friends lang kayo".

Animus Anima

Men have an unconscious feminine inside them, while women have an unconcious masculine. In Carl Jung's psychology, the unconscious feminine is called "anima" and the unconscious masculine is called "animus".

If I understood it correctly, in Jungian psychology, life is like a hero's journey to know oneself, to find completeness and individuality. This journey would be successful only if it ended like Buddha's or Christ's, where Buddha achieved his nirvana in his life and Christ ascended into his heaven in his death. Nirvana and heaven are figures of speech that refer to the attainment of completion, which Jung called "individuation", when man has united his conscious masculinity with his unconscious femininity and woman has united her conscious femininity with her unconscious masculinity.

Normally, we seek our completeness in others, instead of within ourselves. Men look for women to complete their masculinity. Women seek men to complete their feminity. This is problematic because we end up incomplete and dependent on others instead of achieve our own completeness and individuality in ourselves. Perhaps this is why couples fight and end up tearing each other apart. Instead of men looking for their anima in women and women seeking for their animus in men, men should recognize the anima in themselves and women should embrace the animus in themselves.

That is, by men recognizing their femininity, their gentleness, tenderness, patience, receptiveness, closeness to nature, readiness to forgive, and so on. Likewise, by women embracing their masculinity, their assertiveness, the will to control and take charge, fighting spirit, and so on.

Only when men and women are truly individuals and independent and complete in themselves can they truly love each other.

Cinderella

My student asked, "What if Cinderella's glass slipper didn't fall off, or it fell off but the prince didn't see it, would he have found her?

I replied, "Even if Cinderella's glass slipper fell off and the prince saw it but he was not interested in finding her, she will never be found."

Love is not enough in a relationship. It has to be wanted. Love is right when it is wanted. That's the only time when love is right.

Doubt

What makes us afraid to trust what we feel is the doubt that the other person doesn't feel the same way.

Yield

Paramore's "I Caught Myself" is as unyielding and as in denial as "Decode". Falling in love makes one vulnerable to hurt because one reveals one's weakness, that one likes someone more than one likes oneself. It's like forsaking oneself, putting oneself second to another. The first impulse of those who are afraid to trust what they feel is to fight it.

Those who trust, yield.

Misconception

Boys are visual. We drool at girls. But we don't stop on the surface. We have hearts in our chests and brains in our heads. We feel pain and we can say "No".

It's a misconception that boys are shallow. Just so you'd know.

All

Kill my demons and my angels will die too. What makes love special is that it is either all or nothing.

Brake

When I was about to graduate from college, a female classmate gave me a tip.

She said, "Men are in charge of the wheel, women the brake."

That was twelve years ago, when I was twenty yet clueless about relationships. Obviously, she was hinting for a courtship, which at that time I was too timid to start up. In a society where women are used to being pursued, men should be bold enough to turn on and drive a relationship to their fancy, but gentle enough to listen when women tell them to slow down, pull over and take some detours.

Ironic

Ironically, some people are so focused they lost track of what is important.

Commit

"Do not do anything that we will both regret," boy told girl in a letter asking her to wait for him while he works abroad for years.

Quoted from the movie adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel "Little Women".

That's commitment. Commitment is holding on to a conscious choice, keeping it strong because the future is not certain. If the future is known to us beforehand,
of what use is there for a commitment?

Friend

Having many friends makes each one of them less special. You can't be a friend to many people because you can't be there for them all at once.

You won't have much time and resources to spread to many people. Spreading yourself thinly among many people makes you take them for granted.

Arguably, you can only have two friends, five friends if you are extraordinary. That makes a friend special.

The rest are acquaintances, familiar strangers.

1 comment:

  1. Some parts are very interesting that I refuse to find my own resolve on the matter.

    ReplyDelete