Likely Unlikely

I regained my consciousness two hours before midnight and found a different crowd. Still, the spirits have swayed the attendees to imagine intimate friendships – so much for a coffee to gin decision when you haven’t been inebriated for some time. Coffee shops are now a thing in Baguio and La Trinidad, but the old bars in Assumption where we spent our college lives have not lost its charm.

“So who do we believe now?” the younger millennial (or centennial) looked at me like a sage because maybe ten years made the difference on our outlook in life. Believe me, we can sub-categorize millennials further; the ‘Xennials’, or the older millennials who must have breached 35 by now, the “90s kids” like us who had the best childhood, and the “centennials” or the post-millennial generation.

“Definitely not fake news” it hit me that I have spent the last two hours explaining how media works, and how online-trolls become weapons for propaganda – the ‘like-generating-system’ to a web-content which gives the impression that a certain post is popular and therefore publicly-accepted. The teenagers which must have been tailing us for hours, expressed their distrust to the ‘traditional media’, and felt that the alternative/new media is more organic and tells the real stories. If it wasn’t a face-to-face conversation, we would have bashed each other like cyber-trolls do – but, ‘personal dialogues’ will forever humanize us.

From our conversations, I could clearly imagine the alarming extent of social media as part of their lives. Although I do check my facebook a lot, these teenagers confessed of much worse tendencies like; deleting an uploaded photo when nobody hits a ‘like’ button in ten minutes, choosing a boyfriend who has a good camera “so he could take great FB/Instagram perfect shots”, and even joining a certain Facebook ‘FAME’ group which assures hundreds of ‘likes’ and can elevate their posts to ‘viral-status’ (because topping their bucket list is to become ‘viral’ someday). That desperate need of social media attention is definitely today’s youngsters’ tragedy.

“Not everything that is viral is true” I repeated. Having a few viral posts in the last two years, I personally knew the feeling of affirmation in having a post that was ‘liked’ by thousands of people. It will be hypocrisy to deny that fleeting euphoria that it gave. But just like most people I know who experienced brief social-media fame, disillusionment often follows. After their popularity, most of them became inactive social-media users. Perhaps just like in real life, we only strive for something that we do not have. We finally lose interest when we finally get what we wish for. Unless, it is part of our jobs. Hopefully not because we are addicted to it.

In this generation measured by buttons and where our value depends on digital thumb-ups, we have to log out more often to protect ourselves from the chaos and stress of the ‘social media’ world. It is likely unlikely that our idea of social-connectivity through social-media does not connect us at all. On the contrary it divides us to binary codes; Dutertards or Dilawan, Liberals or Republicans, Like or Exit, black or white. Stressful indeed.

What we really need now is to get out more often. Be in the moment, away from the sucking whirlpool of this modern digital tradition. Maybe get a coffee, tea, or gin with a good crowd. It is likely that this is what we need this Tuesday. After all, coffee shops are now a thing in Baguio-La Trinidad.

Artsy Fartsy

So vast is art, so narrow human wit.
                                                  -Alexander Pope

“So you’re scared of the masters?” Sir J. looked at me with calculating eyes like he had known me for a long time, while in fact we just had the conversation for ten minutes. “I am 58, and believe me when I say that I was only enlightened about art two years ago”, he made sure that I am looking at him and continued, “I dreamed of them, you know, Michelangelo, Da Vinci..Rembrandt, and in my dream, although I am quite old I saw myself as a baby.” I just nodded. I have heard of those stories before even in music, most successful musicians claim to have had dreams of meeting their own masters; Dylan, Elvis, Marley…you name it. Sir J. really looked sincere with his story so I didn’t have a choice but to listen. “Our realm of relativity – the idea that beauty, which is the purpose of art, is weighed by subjectivity, is the binding chains of most artists.”

“So without individual judgments, the preferences, the criteria, how do we define what is art and what is not? Is the person who takes mud and smear it on a canvas an artist already? A rich-boy with the most expensive camera can just take a picture of poop and claim that it is his artistic creation? A writer can just write random scribbles and sell it as a literary craft? Art, although a tool of expression, must also require skill and aesthetics to communicate excellently to an audience, right?” I asked.

“Well its not just expression, art is also an escape, an alternative…it is a way of life…no it is life itself. So, yes, everyone is an artist, regardless of how people perceive their work.” He quickly reminded me.

Paraphrasing Tolstoy, I mumbled; “Saying that an art is good, but cannot be understood by a majority people is the same as saying that a kind of food is delicious but cannot be eaten by a majority of people.”

“What?” he’d hardly heard it, but I decided not to push it further. Artists, as they call themselves, are complicated people – sensitive and free, structured but liberated, exclusive and universal at the same time. Some say that everyone is an artist, yet an artist guild may not include those who do not share their eyes…or their skills, or their eccentric personalities and maybe, weirdness – that sort of kindred, they say. Universal…but exclusive, depending on who you ask anyway.

“But, you cannot become an artist by just owning an expensive camera…”

“I know that.” I quickly retorted. “Its not even the subjects, one must have the eyes you know, the skills to utilize light and time.” I suddenly realized that he is bringing out his cellphone, perhaps to show the things he took”

“See this?’ he swiped his middle finger on the screen to show a nude woman. I grinned at the joke, men will always be men, regardless if you are an artist or not. But hey, Sir J. here said that we are all artist, even that random guy you meet on the sidewalk.

“Which do you prefer, a letter written by hand or an encoded one using the MSword?” I realized that this guy may not know about the MS softwares so I quickly explained the metaphor. “What I mean is that the heavy reliance of technology in art, will kill art. Musicians use autotune a lot and it will not sound sincere anymore. Photography using too much editing will not appear artistic anymore. Instead of using the machine…” “The machine uses…us”, we finished the quote together as we smiled at the duet.

“Did you take up philosophy?” He asked. I decided to give him his own poison: “Everyone is a philosopher…everyone asks why…everyone gives his own take on everything; the existence of a god, aliens, angels and demons; the inquiry of life and death, and what happens when you trip over to a shithole. Just like everyone is an artist, everyone is also a philosopher.” Again, depending on who you ask though.

“Interesting. I  like you.” He flipped his sketchbook to explain the concepts of art which he thought I must absorb as a pre-requisite to his art therapy. The basics of lines, shapes, contrasts and perspectives, and what have you. The Irony. Discussing the “musts” of art, the requirements of beauty, the standards…and also preaching that art has no standards at all.

“ What I mean is…” Feeling that I have not explained my point, I raised my voice so he would understand that I wanted to talk. “What I mean is, I can draw a perfect dog, all the tiny strands of its fur and the complicated brush strokes on its face…and so what?” I was reminded by a craftsman who explained that not all skilled people are artists and not all artists are skilled.

“I agree, that is why I pointed out that the art’s beauty is found on the effect of it to the audience. Example, your art work was bought meaning the buyer felt a certain connection to the artwork.”

“How?”

“Life imitates art, art imitates life…if he can relate to the art, maybe he finds something in his life in that art…a sort of relationship…then he would definitely take it home, put it in a frame, and hang it in a sacred space…its like adopting a child, you know…” I nodded in understanding. Its hard to let go of an artistic creation because there are memories in every strokes, time in every execution of techniques, a sort of attachment will definitely be there.

“I remember a doctor whom I talked to who visited the art village. After admiring the art works in the gardens, he turned to me to declare that if he will have a second life, he would want to become an artist." Then he searched my eyes before he continued; then the doctor asked me, ‘how about you sir, if you have a second life, what do you want to be?'"Sir J. waited for my reaction before his revelation.

“What was your answer?” I asked.

“Still an artist.” He smiled.

On Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica: 'God'

(I wrote this for my Educ1b subject when I was in college - hence, the poor organization of ideas. It may not reflect my present views of the metaphysical, but it does comfort me to know that I have thought of these before. :)

One of the greatest discussions and debates on the early cold centuries of humanity is the the existence of a god, or a transcendent being – the ultimate reality that rises above all other existences. Throughout civilization, loads of theologians and philosophers have come up with various propositions and philosophical ideas to disprove or approve the existence of a higher being. The debates never really ended as it was, at a point, not really understood – many modern thinkers have regarded it as if it was without a purpose, nor a meaning.

It was on the 11^th up to the 15^th century when much of the theologians used rationalization and reason to justify a higher being’s existence. It was called scholasticism, which was primarily employed by Thomas Aquinas – one of the great Christian theologians who used this mode of thinking at that time. He published the Summa Theologica in hopes to enlighten the world, and resolve the existential debates, but just like most discoveries and works of man, it faded – buried by tons of counter-prepositions and principles.

One primary flaw of Thomas’ Scholasticism is its very own design. Faith, in which the movement should protect, had been ironically made an option -- scholasticism created a world where reason and faith co-existed (perhaps a perfect excuse to cure its imperfections). However, faith can never be one with reason. The Judeao-Christian concept of faith is to believe without question, that is faith. It will be a great contradiction for Christianity to betray its own foundation by engaging itself to the same weapon which was mainly used by its enemies and critics – logic and reason. It is also very interesting to note that Aquinas used limited objectives on the complicated question of whether a god exists or not. He did not consider any  ‘other’ objectives that ‘may be’ present outside his own mind. Many philosophers, especially existentialists and atheists had come up with hundreds of objectives and questions which were challenging even for Aquinas to answer using his few objectives and propositions (the biggest is Science). In the later years after he died, numerous critique by modern day philosophers dug a pit for his work by citing a comical  cherry-picking on the application of faith and reason in interpreting the bible. From Noah's ark to Yahweh's 'favoritism'.

Thomas Aquinas’ main idea of a 'main mover' in his ‘God’ chapter actually encompasses his sum of five ways. Considering that he used the realm of logic to explain an illogical phenomenon is not just ironic but irresponsible on his part ("since everything that is moved has a mover" logic). The bible cannot explain the universe, at least logically; it cannot explain the event when a woman sprouted from a man’s rib, the  friendly co-existing animals in the garden of Eden, among others. In the realm of reason, the bible stories play like myths and fairy tales. It is also inconsistent to select which part of the bible uses logic, and which part uses faith. If we think that, say, an eternally burning bush is logical, then we are betraying our faith; if we use faith to validate such unusual experience, then we cannot be logical in its sense. See, no matter how impossible and illogical an existence can be, if a person has faith, then he or she must not need any explanation. That is faith, far from the logic used by Scholasticism. To use the Scripture to explain a universal existence damages the fact that other civilizations believe in their own god, outside the Jewish and Christian belief of ‘God’. Would it not constitute prejudice to the different civilizations on the corners of the world to assert a predisposition which intends to serve a selfish desire of personal salvation? Or the; “if you don’t join us, then burn in hell” mentality? Perhaps faith, is simply a belief taught by a society which one, in the sheer accident, belongs to - I, for instance, would've been a muslim if I was born in an Arab country.

Another of Thomas Aquinas’ greater flaw is to 'assume'. How could he be sure that all his reasons exist in such a very enlightened mind (such like his)? How could he assume that there should be an order and a mover? How could he use the system governing the inexplicable universe  in explaining the system that could explain a god’s existence? What made him rank his ways into a more obvious or not? If there is really a prime mover, how could he be sure that the prime mover was the Christian God? How could he say that ‘all man’ recognized the Christian God as their own god? What made him think that he can lay and post his own premise and answer it in his own theories alone?

Questions.

See, ‘truth can only be achieved when it survives numerous questions’. Throughout centuries, the existence of a god was mostly reduced from a debate to a choice – only the person can choose and decide what to believe in. In the 16^th century, Agnosticism was developed for people who choose the middle ground. It proposes that we cannot talk of something that is beyond the facts that we know. That, our minds, which is capsuled in a mere piece of flesh, cannot grasp something that is really vast and transcendent. In the words of a philosopher; ‘how can a god, who has thoughts higher than us, expect us to think like him and know what is to be expected from us?’ Can we really prove or disprove the existence of a god? Whether it is just a concept created by mankind to justify their own existence, whether we created god, or God created us, may not be as important as it was before. A certain joke proposes that ‘debating whether a god exists or not is like lice or flea debating if there is a dog; debating who the real god is like those lice debating the name of the dog’. A drunk I overheard at a bar even shouted, ‘Yes, God can do everything except for one thing…to show himself to us!’. We have to wonder why, just like that drunk; why not show himself and command us lower beings? Why not show him once and for all to settle the minds of the skeptics?…but then, when all questions have been raised, all the faithful will comfort us with the same idea(excuse) that the god/s who can’t show himself/themselves only wanted us to have faith in him/them, even without seeing anything. Faith and reason may never blend.

Just like the tiny ant who will never know the name of the American president, or the dog who will never know the Diplomat of Iraq, our limited consciousness is only restricted by what we experience – far from the knowledge of the gods we want to covet to understand the world, and our existence. We are mere dust and this vast and limitless universe that we know or we wont ever know, and we are only sure of one thing – life. And, if there is that one good thing which can come up from these debates, it is humility and humanity. That, our short lives may be spent for the purpose of living and co-existing with other lives in this world of nations and institutions which pale in comparison with the size of the universe and vast ideas that we will never know. Perhaps, that is what matters most.

(Read Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica here http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/aquinas/summa/index.htm)