The Moral Duty to Read.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
♥ Saturday, June 21, 2008
Whilst Jodi Picoult brings her audiences into the darkest pits of human tragedy, she spiritly lifts them up with sensational heroism displayed in the quotidiary actions of a mother or a lawyer or a police or a judge or a sister making inconceivable moral sacrifices. The beauty of human transcendence thus becomes encapsulated in about 560 pages. And that is a glimpse.And a glimpse is all what we need,really. If the eyes are the windows of the soul; and like a plant in a dark room that requires light for life, our eyes have become the means in which the soul finds its light for life. What can that light be, really? As Francis Bacon says, its Reading that maketh a full man. So through the eyes of Jodi Picoult, one becomes a child struggling with sexuality; the eyes of Khaled Hosseini, one experiences the vast depths of human unforgiveness and the paths one has to go through for liberation; the eyes of Aldous Huxley, he is plunged into the world of utter enslavement. These glimpses throw light on the soul, literally and metaphorically. For reading lucidates and reveals simultaneously- the reader learns and reflects, a part of him is left with the character, the other part of the character becomes forged within him. And this paradoxical dynamic that takes place is really what gives rise to the most noble of human ideals- compassion, forgiveness, sympathy, empathy. Should i be required to even emphasize the need for such humanity in a disenchated world?At the top of Maslow's hierachy of needs is self actualization: the need for morality, creativity, acceptance of facts, spontaneity. As reading feeds the soul, it provides the intellectual platform for such needs to be fulfilled. For the cliche that knowledge is power isnt without its merits. Creativity begins with plagiarism as according to Friedrich Nietzhe, and what can one really parrot apart from the knowledge that he currently has? The best Man is to be, begins with the acquisition of knowledge. And reading thus becomes the well in which Man must drink for the intellectual soul to be quenched and satisfied with truth. What is the connection between reading, truth and power? Reading reveals truth. And as the saying goes, "by the power of truth, i whilst living, would have conquered the world."Aesthetically speaking, we paint our world in only so few colours from the palates of our intelligence. Yet, the shades of grey that often keeps us from leaping to our self righteous conclusions often arrive in the form of a text. Either a satire or a lyric; either through the lenses of the great Oscar Wilde or the quixotic Milan Kundera. Those are the moral quandaries that keep us thinking. And as far as Descartes goes, to think is to be. The philosophical freedom that language promises, is a journey that the intellectual must embark upon. And that begins with the first word of that first story book, be it Fulton Sheen, Platos' Symposium or plain simple Nancy Drew.Read. For life. And for Life.
What holds us together.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
♥ Sunday, June 08, 2008
There is one problem with rituals and traditions (apart from the fact that we struggle to find its meaning after a while): it makes us perfectly fine with the status quo. It is the perfect excuse to refute change and challenges, it is the guise one uses to indulge in a skepticism of sorts (when you hear "it is the way it's always been!") one stops searching for answers to questions, but stick behind the rigid past of habits as the solution when in fact, it is the problem. MSC experiences this in a very very tangible way today-we are tuned to turn up on tuesdays and sundays (or saturdays when there are sessions) and AGMs. The basic commitment, they call it. One that is so necessary that they'd have a pledge to entrench these fundamental demands within each person . That is all well and good. Just that we arent so much friends in community, more than club members- the way we pay our bills every month (like how we turn up for sundays every now and then, to assuage our nagging conscience), the way we use the club's gym and swimming facilities (like how we occasion ourselves to pop up for sharings at our convenience), the way we use the studying room when the exams draw near (uncannily similar to how we seek a spiritual companionship to dispel the dark dryness within?). The assault of habits on the meaning of community has won in certain respects- we are so involved with our daily turn ups and commitments to our projects we've become completely indifferent to the vacuums that make us strangers; we know more about what it means to be in community, than the "each other" that makes this community one worth commiting to. A community that focuses on what is common, is no different from a clique. What makes a community different from a clique, is its ability to challenge and accept, to reach out and care for another. It is my opinion that fundamentally,. quinessentially, what distinguishes a community from any group that the secular world has to offer, is its ability to care. When that is lost, we jusdt cant help but ask "what then is the difference". So question is. Have we lost it? "Friendship is like the trees we plant in the backyard; we always want to tend to it, we just leave it to next week."- Jerry Espenson from Boston legal. I think care/ friends/ community must be used interchangeably as words that express our relationships between each other; that underpin our ideologies, and however you want to debate this, you cant deny that these words are ones of feeling. And as far as feeling goes, I feel as though MSC is just made up of individuals. Not friends. If care is the yardstick at which i use to measure friendship, then fair enough, maybe we just dont care enough. As i am part of the community, i understand that this comment bounces back to me as i say it, but how can we deny the glaring irony that we're knowing each other less and less? That whilst tuesday sessions allow some of us to speak from the heart, one leaves the session room feeling more lonely than ever. For when one shares, one leaves behind a bit of himself or herself and whats left from that part of him or her, is now a gaping hole. The hole is not filled by the comfort of a person who will be there, for there is none. The only words that significantly acknowledges this person's existence are "sorry i have alot of things to do, another time maybe."And we've all become fine with it. Why? Because talking has taken the place of being. We no longer are there for someone, we only say we do. And this is why people leave. When people find out that this place that stands for persons being free to be themselves and accepted for it, has become anything but that, it is no wonder that they seek their niches elsewhere. Sure, our metanoia sessions has taken a great deal out of us when we render our services to the young adults of our parish. But i cant help but wonder, what services do we render to each other, apart from services of the lip?So yes, maybe we need a pledge. For remarkably, that is what we've come down to.
