Writing Samples (December 2010)

ENTRY 1 - DECEMBER 2010

Does it make sense that we want unqualified equality/reciprocity (especially from others), when at the same time we try to create an identity of ourselves? Why is it that we are engaging in these two opposing tasks simultaneously? 

The biggest indicator that we crave equality to be this defining principle that governs our interactions with others is our intolerance of injustice. Every time we experience an act of injustice, of something that is completely unfair for NO reason, it evokes this huge anger within us. The basis for this anger is that it should not have happened because we deserve to be treated equally, right? That seems like common sense.

There are all these rational arguments for equality, stemming from religious texts to Kant to Rawls. The Golden rule and Kant’s categorical imperatives of “act so that the maxim of your action could be willed universally” and Rawl’s veil of ignorance all reveal why equality is in everybody’s interest. Rawl’s veil of ignorance captures it well: if we placed ourselves behind a veil of ignorance where we knew nothing about ourselves, then wouldn’t the basis for our actions derive from the principle of equality? This seems to be the smartest move to make since you would have no idea at which receiving end you’re going to be at. And I think it’s true that our most reasonable choice would be to choose fairly if we had no clue of anything who was what or who will get what.

Equality, in that sense, assumes a throne-like divine aura. But I don’t think that’s the case. It is not something beyond us, constructed in pure abstraction. It is from within is, that’s why we desperately seek it so bad. It’s one of those unqualified good things that we have intuitive grasp in. This is why the concept of morality even makes sense at all. The idea of morality would have no grounding if we didn’t believe in a “right” or “wrong” way. The defining line for actions with right or wrong deviations IS a line of justice or equality or whatever name you want to give it. The words used to identify this line have been interchangeable throughout history, but the essence of it still remains.

Ok so my problem is this though: this principle of equality drives us, I don’t disagree with that. Yet from when we are kids till when we die, even though not many of us are consciously aware of it, are we also not engaged in the task of trying to create an identity/understanding of ourselves? 

This need to feel a connection or attachment to something is our way of saying “yes this is me” or “I accept/feel”. We all like to pretend that we have no baseline to our beliefs/ideas; that we are these completely free spirits that are not attached to anything. Yet the task of simply moving your hand only makes sense if you already presuppose your ability to enact force within your physical environment. You BELIEVE in movement. You may not know why or how, but you do. To have no beliefs is like being completely paralyzed, both mentally and physically, since you can’t even move because to move would imply a degree of acceptance of certain beliefs. I don’t know where I’m going with this anymore.

It just seems contradictory – this task of creating an identity, whereby we attach ourselves to beliefs/things – when what we also want is to be treated in a manner that is free of any identity/personality markers. We want both. That is the problem. It isn’t easy to say “Well I want the first one more than the second one” because you can’t erase this notion of “identity” from humanity. Human beings define all the time. Through their thoughts. Through their actions. We are constantly engaged in the act of “understanding” that kind of demands a system of definitions so we can create or see the final picture of X, before we move onto the next. Yet we feel outrage and a great deal of passion for injustice. This brings me back to the whole notion of whether justice itself is another man-made concept. But if it was truly man-made, since I am also human, I should be able to relinquish myself form it. I belong to the same essence of whatever it was that created it so the power to destroy it also lies within me, IF it’s man-made. YET I cannot. Nobody can. So really, ___ ?

ENTRY 2 - DECEMBER 2010

Jackie said every word means more than the one before – but if that’s the case, why do some words never leave us? I’ve had so many words thrown at me. Those words inflicted a lot of harm yet in retrospect, they are but words. The good ones – the ones that lifted me and carried me through my tunnel days – unfortunately suffer the same fate as the bad words. Actions are different from words apparently. In one obvious aspect (it entails more human labour) actions are different than words. Yet despite our attachment to this belief that actions carry more weight than words, I’d like to argue otherwise. Actions suffer the same fate as words in the end – all that’s left is the event but not the moment. The moment is only accessible by the cursed present.

Many people believe the present contains both the past and future, but what they have instead is something so frail that once it’s shattered, there is no putting it back together. And this, of course, is our beloved “mind”. Our memories of all past actions/words rest on this hidden premise that the human mind is capable of storage. I do not disagree with that. It’s just that, with storage comes something else. And it’s this something else that sustains the weight of the actions/words we experience in life. Therefore it is this something that deflates or injects meaning, and we are all vulnerable to it so I know of no human being that’s free from this. Ok back to these words vs. actions thing. I started this because I find it amusing that many people fight for this idea that actions are lot stronger than words when actions themselves fall to the same blade that cuts words. But before, there are a few obvious objections against this alleged distinction. 

1)  Words themselves are actions – uttering words also requires a particular sort of human labour. Sometimes it takes hours of preparation simply to utter a couple of words.

2)  Words, like actions, once received by another person cannot be taken back in the same way an action cannot be undone.

3)  Words, like actions, promise and always deliver a meaning. However it is always interpreted to fit the other person’s understanding. The transmission is never complete. Communication – the best communication we have is with ourselves where no meaning can be hampered or twisted that way. Once you say it/do it to someone else, it is no longer your effort but also their effort with respect to how they take it in

ENTRY 3 - DECEMBER 2010

Leisure provides ample opportunity for reflection, creativity, and movement. The absence of all external forces allows you to finally move where you want – or at least to become aware of where you are moving. Leisure permits the right amount of time for projects to flourish. Yet leisure does not only illuminate the human spirit but it also lets the mind become aware of the enclosed lines that determine its surroundings. Whether these lines are limits, boundaries or merely shapes/structure varies for each mind. Nonetheless, with leisure comes the awareness of these lines.

Often what is movement here and there is seen as a distraction during leisure time. Yet every distraction, like every move, does change the immediate state of affairs. To identify which distractions are useful and which distractions hinder one’s quality of life is not a task I can handle. To define or to state meaning or to infer relations scares me. You must be standing – have a moment of tranquility to let you see – yet I am not standing. I am falling. I wish I could be flying instead the present condition of falling persists.

Back to the idea of leisure now. I find it fascinating what we do to our prison inmates – we torture them with leisure. All that solitude time is really another form of open space and open time to think at your discretion. And what is the main baseline for leisure if not thinking at one’s discretion. The thoughts may be productive, destructive or simply numb the mind. Yet it is a gift that no human being can instil in you (for it is yours naturally); they can only allow/hinder your ability to engage in leisure.

What I have right now and have had for the longest time is this “leisure”. To me I identified it as loneliness but the baseline for both leisure and loneliness do not merely intersect but coil around one another. The shape becomes such that either or looks deformed in the absence of its counterpart. As such, even though I am experiencing loneliness now, I still happen to be engaging in leisure. What I am doing right now – writing on this paper – could be viewed as a productive leisure activity. Me sitting still with tears rolling down my face and an increasing ache in my heart can be viewed as a counterproductive activity.  Moping, wallowing in self-pity, re-creating the past to keep the almost burnt out memories alive – these activities bring one further to mind paralysis. Now this is where I think leisure makes its mark as a significant trait belonging to human beings.

Leisure is a time where one can let the mind move. This movement can be just as refreshing as cold water on your face on a sunny day, or it can feel like jumping off a cliff. But it is this act of doing – whether it’s purely in thought or in actions – that distinguishes the active mind from the paralyzed one. The paralyzed mind is not dead. It would cease to exist if that were the case. Yet this mind is only watching; observing everything with no reactions that could spur movement. I am unaware of how long this state of mind can persist in human beings – if it does at all. But it is the antithesis to the idea of mind. This gives the mind a shape, a structure. I don’t know if that is the case. Just like how I can never reach the sky, but only gaze at its points here and there, the same goes for the mind. I am aware it exists because I experience it every day. Yet I will never know it entirely.

What constitutes the sky are elements that’s ever-changing and what sets its limits are my own eyes and my peripheral vision. For if my eyes did not stop at the periphery but extended all the way to the back of my head, then the sky no longer fits a rectangular plane of vision but rather a spherical one. The main point of this is to demonstrate that the sky itself does not consist of any boundaries (though scientists will beg to differ); but it’s our eyes that posit the boundaries. I’ve come back to appearances now – break. 

Writing Samples (September 2010)

ENTRY 1 - SEPTEMBER 2010

Language and mathematics are two subjects that one cannot escape in elementary or high school. Why is that? The school boards may view math and language to be essential for one’s development in life but is it really that important? To look at feral children and use them as an example of what would happen when you don’t educate a child with math and language is an extreme example. Or is it?

Would we all be speechless dumbfounded beings if not for the basics of language and mathematics? I think the famous saying “money is what makes the world go around” ought to be replaced with “words and numbers is what makes the world go around.” Language and mathematics is what creates the world around us. More specifically, these are the core foundations from which we can derive any of our thoughts, for it is hard to think without any words or structure. Without language, meaning is impossible to capture let alone transmit to another being. Without mathematics – I can’t even fathom a world where numbers, shapes, and ratios do not emerge simultaneously with our perception of the object. The world around us can be reduced to mathematical ratios and still make sense, just like how language enables us to define, thereby solidifying the existence of a thing.

Now an interesting move would be to examine the relationship of mathematics and language itself. Do they co-exist independently in their own right or are they dependent on one another? Normally one wouldn’t associate mathematics and language to be dependent on one another. You have kids – like me – who excel in language but are terrible in math and vice versa. And sometimes there are those lucky kids who are excellent at both.

I wish to posit a very thin hypothesis: there is a connection between language and mathematics as they both require a certain type of “thought structure” in our brains to be enacted. Consider for instance numbers. Mathematics is not possible without numbers, yet one can argue that numbers themselves constitute a certain language. They can be re-arranged or situated alone and still ring a bell. The same applies to equations as the variables can be moved around or left alone, but they will still continue to hold an influence. Maybe that’s it. Mathematics and language influence us because they are what enable us to influence our surroundings, namely the world. It makes sense that the tools we’re using to understand the world are indeed the ones that helped us create it in the first place.

The other easy similarity evident from the two is that they are both extremely hard! But perhaps it is by virtue of being hard that mathematics and language pushed our minds to grow and develop. Otherwise we still might be running around with clubs in our hand. Well, good food for thought. Maybe I ought to give math another chance.

ENTRY 2 - SEPTEMBER 2010

What difference does knowledge make? Does the right/wrongfulness of knowledge only become important if one presupposes a final end/answer? Yet what if there is no end? That cannot be. There is an end – we all die. Our death is our end. You cannot deny the end. And if there is an end, it is necessary that there must have been a beginning as well. Yet why does one have to think of a relationship between the beginning and the end? The classical response is that one necessitates the other, but is that really the case?

This notion of narrative that shapes the “I” from which we derive everything else out of is scary. Immediately the first slap is the fakeness/possibility of falsity that emerges. A story in the typical sense is created. Ayer wants to show that even though we are not writing or designing a plotline consciously, we are still writing our story. We create it and colour it with remnants of the past. History can be broken down into “his” story – very scary. Scariness evokes a natural response: fear. Yet the fear of this can never be overcome. You cannot deny or avoid this – that you are writing your story through existing.

Our desires for closures and lingering regrets reveal the strength of this notion of narrative. When we can justify or get “closure”, we somehow alter the final conclusion of the story as well. We change it. It’s the possibility of changing, thereby controlling, the end of your story that gives us peace. Our desire for control is indicative of this subliminal storytelling that we engage in. We need to be in control physically because we are aware that in our minds, we are the ones on top of the food chain. It is through our eyes/experience that any of this is even possible. See if it was not for me, I wouldn’t be glancing at this sheet of lined paper, seeing the pen etch out lines that we call words. I would not be hearing music right now if I did not exist. Sounds very egotistic but it stands true nonetheless. 

Writing Samples (October 2010)

ENTRY 1 - OCTOBER 2010

The idea of mind power is interesting. For some reason, despite the societal instructions of “listen/follow” in my head, I can still zone out while inhabiting a time/space where I hear/see/touch noise, instructions, thoughts etc. This is not an unusual trait – it does not specifically pertain to me only yet I think might be one of the few to recognize this trait as an indicator of my own mind’s strength/power.  This implies that my knowledge is not completely subject to whatever my senses perceive. Human knowledge is fallible – I’ve added that as a law to my constitution, even though I feel I should give knowledge a bit more credit by allowing the claim “knowledge is possible” to stand.

The sceptic, in the traditional sense, denies any affirmation of knowledge based on the belief that evidence is not mere evidence in the world; it fulfills other roles as well. This is what makes it so difficult – the fungibility of the nature of things classified as “evidence” for claims of knowledge. To bring up fungibility is to bring up change. Ah change. You are my friend and hangman for I gain and lose by the very same token of what it is that you promise: no permanence. Consistency is big for knowledge insofar as it can smooth over or gloss certain rough edges that can scar the individual if they get too close for examination. I believe a certain message is trying to be relayed.

The other issue that emerges out of a lack of consistency is that elements of narrative, namely describing the past and future, become extremely difficult. I believed once, and still kind of do, that it is only time that guarantees the conviction that truth demands. Consequently, the past nor the future can never be undisputedly true as they both lack the essence of present time to validate them. Time is only revealed or manifest through the senses.

Without the senses, there is no time. I suppose that’s how death feels like – absence of time. Wow. My brain cannot even fathom such an experience or state of being. What is the relationship between time and motion? Do they have to be connected together? Presumably yes as motion depends on time as an active principle to perform its objective of transference of light/energy/w/e it may be. Ok, so can motion exist without time? No. Quick realization here as I realized to answer this question I must define what motion is first. Surprisingly it turns out that motion – once chased far enough – reveals itself as “change”. Great so now I’m stuck with change again. It always appears to wait for me at every corner. The constant flux is a battle for the mind each time. Heraclitus perceived change to consist of permanent tensions between opposites. But I wonder whether even that relationship that we draw between opposites is contrary to what actually is the case. We, people that is, have a tendency to create relationships out of everything. What if it’s us that’s positing the relationship but that’s really not the case once our mind has left the picture. Another interesting question is what happens once our mind has left the picture? Once the music stops? Silence is all I hear around me right now so I will leave it at that. Silence – take your floor

Writing Samples (November 2010)

What influence did ancient Greek philosophy have on Roman law? What is it that Roman law sought to preserve? What are the core values/beliefs it revolved around? Who were its enemies? Did the system work? Is law more than a system of thought, if so – whose thought was it?

Was it my dear beloved Plato who believed that philosophy had the right answer to everything? Plato didn’t like rhetoric yet all the orators fought on was the basis of rhetoric. Plato wants us to fight and achieve using knowledge, not rhetoric. Rhetoric changes and is contingent. Knowledge, on the other hand, is everlasting and binds you to what’s real. I truly believe Plato did believe in a separate reality of Forms.

The belief of something more, something beyond doesn’t always have to stem from imagination. Even so, where does imagination come from? That line dividing rationality and imagination – can’t it be argued that we imagined that line there? If so, well what does that say about our rationality? This project of reconciling ancient Greek philosophic thought with Roman law seems to have gone off track. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know how much of Plato’s idea survived? Plato believed in these innate principles of goodness, beauty, etc. He held onto the notion that these principles were not simply man-made but that is transcendental for our mind’s eye.

The law is a man-made structure, yet I feel it is also sustained on this notion of innate irrefutable principles. That’s why law has the power it has. It is viewed as everlasting, objective, and right in its own right. It is another thing beyond our control. It exists. It changes form many times but we can never really get rid of the substance. Just as water evaporates into air, it still exists everywhere – just in a completely different form. Law attempts to give things structure – a form that is intelligible. Plato believed that real Forms were intelligible through our minds. Does the same apply to law as well? I am at a blank now as to what the relationship between Plato, the individual with his theory, and Roman law or law in general is.

Okay, moving onto Aristotle now. Does the Aristotelian system fit the Roman law context? In a way it is much closer than Plato, given that it defines and categorizes things on a much deeper level. Aristotle viewed the world to be explained both by theoretical and practical sciences. Everything in the world has a final end. This belief in the “final end” entails a belief in the beginning as well. The whole span of existence/living then is the purpose of that thing. All the stages it goes through, it endures in order to fulfill its natural purpose. That might be the key word here: natural. There are certain things that are meant for specific particulars, Aristotle maintains. This brings forth another emphasis on the innateness of certain principles.

The innateness is what seems to connect all these schools of philosophy to law. Innateness evokes a kind of impossibility – like the law of non-contradiction – that makes it desirable as the foundation for a superstructure like law. Now, determining whether there really is something innate is what’s extremely hard and pushes some towards scepticism. Like me, my position now is a floater who cannot fly because I’ve realized that to move is to admit that there is bivalency between the “me” that exists and whatever else is beyond me.

That’s the hard part. How do I know what’s beyond me? How can I even know what’s beyond if I can’t even see my own shape in the first place? A lot of this sounds like metaphysical/metaphorical language that’s simply figurative. Yet the figure of what emerges on this paper, in my imagination, can carry the same validity as textbook explanations for me. The only reason why no one else can completely understand what I’m saying is because other people cannot experience my imagination. But why should I discredit my imagination just because other people can’t relate to it? For the sake of living? Don’t get bogged down with all these questions they say; at the end of the day, you still have to live apparently. Don’t I know it. Every day I make the conscious choice to live. My contract is no longer tacit. I’ve made it explicit by recognizing my own discovery of existing within a contract. I really did not ask to be here. I did not ask for many of the things I’ve received. Yet many things happen independent of my will/desires. This is supposed to signify that the world has this “order” or something beyond my own power that I must consent to coexist with if I want to live. Uncertainty/never-ending change is what I must get familiar with.

Ok, I’m back to change. I keep returning back to the phenomenon of change as it underlies as the bedrock for everything that exists. Yet I don’t understand it! In me, in the world. I feel like I’ve stopped thinking now. I can’t understand it. I’ve tried so many systems of beliefs, but they all fall once I see what it’s comprised of: hope. Hope that it’s right. Not knowledge or “wisdom” as they call it (that it’s right). No, instead what sustains our entire system of beliefs is hope. From words to numbers to God, it’s all based off hope. You know what’s beautiful and scary about hope? It’s that it is both beautiful and scary at the same time, it is everything that defines this notion of bivalency we have. We believe that contradictions cannot exist because to exist, it no longer fits the meaning of contradiction. No, this is wrong. Contradictions exist because it is in our vocabulary. Hmm… interesting point: is what exists only what’s in our vocabulary? Well, the intuitive response is no because there are plenty of things that we feel but we cannot express through words. Yet can the mind comprehend anything that does not make itself present through the form of language, whether this language be in the form of words, numbers or pictures? Break