An Ordinary Account
Thursday, January 28, 2010
♥ Thursday, January 28, 2010
On my right lies a name card. Above the person's name is a huge maroon title, "Sichuan Chinese Medicine Centre". Above that are other chinese writings that I shall not bore you further with. And I must say I was quite tempted to throw that away, if not for certain facts that this ordinary card is attached to.
Ordinary. There is something wrong about this word isnt it? This word is an arrogant belligerent that conquers by way of assumption. Something that is ordinary is assumed to be uninteresting. Something ordinary can be assumed to be meaningless. Anything described as ordinary, loses its value almost instantaneously. This ordinary name card, big enough to be observed and small enough to be inconspicuous, is attached to just a little more.
The name card points towards a location. The location is connected with a series of events. Those series of events, involve certain persons that have contributed to my current emotional state of mind. The ordinary name card has the potential to bring together, instantaneously, past and present. That is why I am not throwing it away.
It brings to the present a very interesting message. And I quote from Robin Williams' Character in Good Will Hunting, "you will never know what true loss is, because that only happens when you love something more than you love yourself." Nope, I have not experienced the full extent of the truth in that statement, but close.
And come this wednesday, a close Marist friend makes his departure. Come the following Monday, another friend leaves for New Zealand. These persons are part of what is commonly described as an ordinary friendship. But no friendship in my life has been ordinary. And I seem to have made it my life's mission to have those persons know that- maybe its ineffective, maybe its wrong- but its me.
I realized that I have not been so personal in this blog, for a long, long time. See what an ordinary name card can do.
an old christian world new.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
♥ Tuesday, December 29, 2009
"See mother, I make all things new", said a man on his knees, his raw wounds stinging against the hostile gravel and unforgiving sand. His wounds were self-inflicted some would say. Surely he could have said something else or denied what he said. He could have been euphemistic, at best. He did not. So where he was, he must have chosen. On him a monstrous trunk set his fated and painful destination. And around him stands a mob relishing the moment in self righteous condemnation with fists and curses- a cruel contradiction when taken in contrast with the welcome the man received earlier in the week.
Strange how the passage of time lends us to witness huge contradictions. Egoes the size of bell towers reduced to humble rubble in a matter of semesters. Ideals so romantic that painters would delineate a square metre of the Sistine Chapel to, by a mere matter of years, retired to a shade of exhausted grey. What two virgins lose underneath the shelter of a blanket, becomes a kicking and chuckling gain in a span of nine months.
And it is at this time when we are at our prime, with our intellect firing and searching for more to devour in a feast of understanding, that we come to witness a huge contradiction within ourselves: our desire to lead a christian life seems hopelessly irreconcileable with the sexual urges that this world tells us to unleash. A fiery beast seems to be awakening and the guard to the gates, with more thoughts and less clothes, loses resolve to cage it in. Is our world ever going to be different, can it be made new?
I would begin by saying that struggles do not make sense unless we know what the struggling is about. And the struggle is NOT about staying away from sex. The struggle is in the wait. The problem is in the meaning of waiting. And i do not offer so much a solution than an instrument for competition. What am I competing for? For your mind's eye. For a perspective that shapes our intellect and our decisions. The challenge I have undertaken is to find an equally compelling view of sex that not only makes sense, but makes sense sufficiently for one to re-orientate his or her lifestyle. It is difficult, but like that same piece of wood, it sets the destination, and the destination is promising.
If this discussion sounds like one made from some high horse, I intend to step down from it immediately. I am excited about the task ahead and I venture into the territories of the ideal, perhaps one more time. But the task is grounded in reality. The task is to have one love knowing. Know what makes us who we are. And to love knowing is to love doubt and to love questions. And to love, isnt that what life is about.
I struggle and fall. And I have realised it is not enough to try to get back on my feet. It is more important to know what makes my choice to fall or not a meaningful one. And although i am in my search, i have found a powerful microscope to tell me what goes on within. And with that I also found within myself the capacity and ability to take the fight to them. We take the fight by making the old, new.
Simple Things
Saturday, December 26, 2009
♥ Saturday, December 26, 2009
What is beautiful?
Enduring the rain. Singing cheesy romantic songs and laughing at ourselves. Love is in the air, among 4 heavily armoured personnels carrying umbrellas, huddled together in a miserable tent. Ranting about the inevitability and inescapability of reservist, but relishing the unspoken fun and enjoyment in seeing a familiar face after a year long absence.
Listening to the breeze. With none other than a close church friend. And church is important because spirituality gives a depth of appreciation to the waters and the trees, that the aesthetically defunct me can never truly get. To have music that are sung by the waves against the shore, by the trees against the wind is to be a part of a More.
A study group taking shape. That beyond the personal convictions, lie an anticipation to amass the creative enthusiasm of persons to bring a new dawn to our Belief. It is life-giving and the seeds that we'll sow are going to be revolutionary. I guarantee it even if I stand alone in this.
Having an old friend celebrate christmas together. An old and good friend.
the piractical perspective
Friday, November 27, 2009
♥ Friday, November 27, 2009
"Captains of our fate", my brother quotes. Lets take it further. If we are captains, what we also are guilty of, is an unending web of piracy.
Our ships cross paths in the high seas of coincidences. And the ships that are directed in our path are diverse. And hostile. There are those who attract and those who repel us. Those who make us intimidated and the others whom we terrify. Whether its trepidation or admiration, they act unisonly and singlemindendly- to conquer. Some of us are just nicer- we steal instead. We steal the corners of what makes others who they are, by injecting them a dose with our worldview. A view they neither asked nor welcomed. But no matter, because it is inescapable.
Now, this is what happens when two ships collide. We attempt to avoid a titanic fate. So we try to change the language of our problem. We are no longer faced with the end as long we are each other's means. What happens is the conspiring of other ships to create a floating wreck that CS lewis reminds us not to make "a floating hell" out of. Just as well then, live in the peace of staying afloat. With the undeniabiltiy that what was once ten different glorious vessels, is now just a chunk of moving metal.
But every now and then there is an anomaly. A mutiny arises and the captain is thrown abroad. A new one takes his place. He finds that there is now a need not to avoid collision but a desire to embrace it. In his mind, that is the only way he gets around being incommunicado. And the only way to create something out of nothing, is to have a big bang. To throw not just heat and sound, but light! To render the intangible intelligible. The only way that is going to happen, is not then to convince the other to form a wreck- that is too highly controversial. He instead creates one.
And after the subjugation he sings a different tune. Instead of the crude language of means and ends, he invokes the romantic notion of a friend- the most providential gift of grace that he could only praise the heavens for. What the old captain calls a wreck, the new calls an island. We now speak in the collective. Its "ours".
The UN convention on the law of the sea calls piracy any act of violence committed for private ends by the crew of a private ship on the high seas against another ship. No wonder its universally accepted.
a deeper sense of being human
Thursday, November 12, 2009
♥ Thursday, November 12, 2009
So whilst Unger argues for the full human flourishing in the freedom of men to smash their context, he to that extent places freedom above the current morality embedded in the existing institutional materials. The sense of freedom is placed at the core of what it means to be human. Mill says how can you impose your morality on someone's freedom, Devlin says sorry we've got to, and Hart says we're just doing what a dad would- would you let your kid play with fire?
The catholic on the other hand, argues not a freedom from but a freedom to- Finnis and Aquinas being two of them. My conception of freedom is built on Unger's but yet departs from his at this significant point- whilst freedom for him is to be free to re-imagine the context, freedom in the sense i am talking about, is a movement towards a reality that makes sense of all that is human, that no longer rejects but appreciates the context. To that extent, yes it is an emotional one.
Are we free to disagree? Of course we are. In all circumstances? Of course not. Our very agreement to disagree derives from our understanding that we are both unique human beings with vastly different experiences. But that also sets the lowest floor. This lowest floor that we cannot and must not cross is that we are being humans. So what is an affront to human dignity, what goes against human logic or rationality, we must disassociate ourselves from. We seek to do what is right, and that is a responsiblity accorded to all of us precisely because "we are made in the image of God". The freedom discourse here only looks towards a unique appreciation of differences after a fundamental and irreducible agreement is met.
But we face a fundamental contradiction. The fundamental contradiction the Crits talk about is this- on one hand we look to belong, as part of a community. On another, that very community subverts and threatens our need to be separate individuals. The freedom in the sense i am proposing seeks to reconcile the two because whilst men's boundaries should not be annexed, neither should he be an island. And this can be achieved if one looks beyond himself. There, freedom is attained because the individual looks towards the common good, whilst in achieving that good asserts more of his individuality. So both the community and the individual are means and ends for each other. The community is built on the reliance that its interests are that of the individual, and the individual adopts that in furtherance of becoming more human. We get a win-win.
I think the movement of each individual lies with the first choice of being human. Men wont be able to conceive of being divine before they can start choosing to be human. When Pontious Pilate said "it is custom to release a prisoner every year" men chose to have barrabas. The choice to be human therefore must also include a freedom to make mistakes. That does not come as an easy message in today's totalitarian culture of efficiency. But that is the price we must pay for full human flourishing. It requires a gentle yet assertive embracing of each individual to be confident enough to make mistakes so that he would be confident enough to admit them. The virtue of honesty and responsiblity definitely compensates for the economic disbenefits.
What i have strived to do is to provide a context by which freedom could be used as a means to make sense of what goes on around. In this I have put forth three angles by which one could consider both for society and the participant in society; for the church and the church goer; for the community and the member.
Enjoying chaos.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
♥ Wednesday, October 14, 2009
It's what i have to do, it's an assignment due this friday, another one due on Tuesday. It's an exam i have in three weeks, and readings i have not so much as begun. It is the Nicaragua case, and the legal arguments for collective self-defence, the analysis behind customary norms, it is the dismal grades from an assignment returned, a morale lost in the heat of all those arguments and then its church, its people and elections. And its exercise. In short, it is chaos.
Having a schedule only brings me into the deeper illusion of an order. Knowing what comes next is not the same as knowing what i am doing. And so today i am just going to make clear where exactly am i headed, and in that direction how does everything fit in.
I am headed to this uncompromising, unforgiving place called litigation. It, in perhaps its greek-roman-spanish-paganistic origin, must have been founded in some sort of war. They call it an adversarial system. In the past, they used to fight with swords. Now we use words. I am learning all those tactics. I am learning this is in a painstaking and absolutely degrading manner. What I have done is to subject myself to the scrutiny of the professors and my peers, to their eager minds waiting to challenge my logic at its very foundations. Necessary, as i said in the previous post. But none in the least bit, because of this mere necessity, more comforting.
So the course i am taking, is a good reflection of that. Might be a matter of coincidence or grace, depending on the perspective you incline towards- it is arbitration and international moots. It is jurisprudence to open my mind abit wider. Its debates held in class, the framing of arguments. It is about the my writing style and more importantly the manner in which i organize my thoughts. And from what you can tell, that seems to be in quite a mess.
But I can assure you that this is an exciting life. It's an action film that those great explosions you see on TV, the glamorous sword fights between Hector and Achilles, the light saber exchanges between Obi Wan and Anakin, the Face Off between Nicholas Cage and John Travolta, pale in comparison to. But these movies do go some way to delivering a metaphorical description and encapsulation of the process in which I am pursuing my subject matter. It is about manuevering through the thought processes, finding that argument that clinches the deal- and then delivering it with the force and precision of a tomahawk cruise missile.
Yes, they say litigation is destructive. I dont think my pictorial descriptions could save it from such an accusation- if anything it would reinforce it. But that is the joy. The achievement lies in the control of the situation through the use of reason. THe side stepping of issues by framing an argument in a maner. It is the assertion of facts in a way that does not render it challengeable. And its a world of battle out there. I would say most of that battle takes place within. Those raging feelings of inadequacy are paralysing and decapacitating.
So necessarily, we need to have a place of calm, where there are no fighting and no wars. Church is that demilitarized war zone. That no-man's land between the North and the South, the ultimate cease fire. But that is not completely true, in church there is also that same tension occasionally. A lot lesser though- after all, it is demilitarized. But all things considered, it is that peace and quiet, the place to recuperate. Church is the chance to recover, where there is humanitarian aid on a physical, emotional and spiritual level. It is rejuvenating.
In a perverse manner, I've enjoyed my life, and am relishing each excrutiating moment.as they come along.
Art of Argumentation
Saturday, August 22, 2009
♥ Saturday, August 22, 2009
I am writing this for two reasons. One, as a consolidation of all that i have learnt from this course; and two as an act of indignant and ferocious protest at my analytical incoherency.
First, style. i am to talk slowly. In talking slower, i get to think. It is about sending the right message across. No point not being able to deliver something so well prepared. In fact, when you talk at a normal pace, and deliberately slow down, the person listening latches onto the description you propose.
Next, Roadmaps. What are you describing, what are the reasons, what are the elements to be satisfied. State it so the judge knows where you are headed and what element you are trying to reach.
Eye Contact and hand gestures. Keep it there for the former, and keep it down for the latter.
Phrases. Short is good. Less is more. State why the argument should win the case in a single succint sentence.
We move onto substance. Here, i am brought to the extremes, where the argument must not just hold water, it must sustain the niagara falls. Stretched to its logical conclusion, does it mean that in every case where there isnt/ is this element, this conclusion must be reached?
Think about hypothetical scenarios.
The strongest argument is the one that faces the least resistance. Think about a counterargument. Then a counter to a counter. And bring it all the way to a point where there isnt any. If it stands under that amount of scrutiny, it is a good argument.
Infuse it with policy.
So these advices are responses to things i am omitting or comitting. Evidence that there is an irritating bug distracting my mind's eye everywhere else than the forming of a concrete argument or the locating of an indefensible position.
The power of language here makes all the difference. Each person would have prepared a generally similar amount. The way it is delivered and crafted separates great from good, lawyer from senior counsel.
However, this is not all, because if it was all, we would have failed right at the selection stages and in our place would a great national debater or former mooting champion be. We were selcted on potential. The aim was then to nurture it. Analysis can be strengthened and the irritating bug can be squashed.
We were also selected on other criterion. A competitive streak, a loveable personality, a knowledge of areas of law, an eloquency in interactions etc. They saw it in us- that something that said this would work; and they went along with it. We cannot be so inconsiderate as to demolish that faith.
So battered, bruised, scalded and other words synonymous with wounded, we may be. But it is not over, there is always another fight. And what does not kill you, makes you stronger.
