Fexmouth

/ˈfɛksməθ/

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  • New Year, 2026

    Taal Lake

    1

    For New Year’s Eve, my family had a party, like they always did. All sorts of people came by, mostly people who wanted to eat for free. I hated it. I hated how people would come by and open my door and say hi and wonder what I did the entire year. This was annoying enough when it was extended family. Aunts, uncles, cousins. But this was especially annoying when it was my parents’ friends. I usually say, “I’ve been well,” and leave it at that. Sometimes, they ask specific things: When are you getting married? What do you do for work? Do you still work as a researcher at the university?

    I don’t mind sharing things about my life. I’m telling you this story, so obviously I don’t. My problem is I have to do this rather than doing something else that I enjoy; I am essentially taken hostage. And if they wanted to know about me, then they could read my blog. I don’t want to stand there, responding to each and every query they happen to have. Especially when the question is with regard to how they expect someone’s life is supposed to go. For example, they ask: When are you getting married? Because they expect someone my age to already have a wife.

    Which doesn’t even apply to me because I am queer.

    That New Year’s Eve, I opted to skip the party altogether and accept my friend’s invitation to have an impromptu trip to Tagaytay. My friend Benny had come from New Zealand to visit. He was going to have New Year’s with his family, but he wanted some time with us. Emily suggested, jokingly at first, on a road trip to Tagaytay. Friends in Manila always joke about going to a spontaneous road trip to Tagaytay. But this time it seemed feasible, perhaps even enjoyable, and so we decided to do it.

    Coming along were Emily, Juno, Danny, and Joshua. Benny also took his wife Tina.

    2

    At around 10 AM people were already coming to the house. We had our gates open and our doors open, and people wandered in and spoke to my parents and sisters, and they got food from the spread we had on the kitchen table. I could see them from the second-floor mezzanine. I stood there, looking at them. I despise people so much.

    One of the guests my dad was talking to noticed me and pointed me out. My dad turned to see me before I could duck from view. He beckoned me, so I could say something to the guests. But I nodded and turned to go as if I were going down the stairs but actually I went inside my room, the door to which was at the upper landing.

    My friends came for me a little before noon. My parents happened to be out on the street greeting new guests when they spotted Emily inside her car. They beckoned everyone out and invited them to eat. They had to refuse because we were about to eat.

    My dad said, “Bring him back tomorrow, okay? He spent the entire year in his room. And I’m not kidding. He only left his room to eat, and then up he goes again.”

    “We’ll do our best, tito,” Emily said.

    Emily had a white Montero. It was one of her prized possessions, and it struck me sometimes how she treated it like a living creature. Then again, despite not being alive, it did serve her well. It was, in a sense, her instrument of freedom. Before this car, she had to use public transportation, and sometimes though she had the money, she was simply too tired to go along the streets and look for a bus and then a jeepney and then a tricycle in whatever order. It took hours, sometimes, and if the whether was bad or it was rush hour, she could suffer that entire time.

    With her Montero she had an extension of her home. And she liked to drive. She always had, even when we were kids in high school. She drove even when she was not allowed to drive because of her age.

    After exchanging pleasantries, and expressing surprise that we were actually going through with our plans for once, I asked Benny how he had been since I last saw him.

    “Nothing,” he said. “Been lying around at home. Cleaning, cooking for Tina.”

    “House husband,” Emily said.

    “And how about you?” Benny said. “What have you been up to?”

    I realized then that I should not have asked because, to be polite, he would have to ask me this question. And I had no good response. I did nothing the entire year. And that’s no exaggeration. My entire year had been totally wasted. It was inevitable, of course, that certain things happen. And things happened, the way things tend to do. Beyond that, I had nothing.

    “I’ve decided to become hikkikomori,” I said.

    “What’s that?” Benny said.

    “I have decided never to leave my room, unless absolutely necessary.”

    “Why?”

    “Just wanted to.”

    And it’s true. I decided in 2024 that I would never leave the house, unless I was compelled to do so by extreme need. I must have left the house less than 5 times, if that. I left to go to the bank once, to my mom’s birthday celebration at a restaurant, and 3 days at the resort during Christmas. That was it.

    I have come to feel that there was nothing for me outside. Or in fact this world. That there are few if any things that I could truly see, in the physical sense, that would awe me or make it worth the effort, save for very few things.

    3

    At Leslie’s, we sat outside, where we could see Taal lake and the volcano that was partly submerged. I’ve seen it a few times now in my life, although the view was always nice. The German idealists, who had their hands in everything, called it “The Sublime”—the feeling of knowing your place as an insignificant part of this infinite thing called nature, the cosmos. The universe. All that is the case.

    I don’t really care for nature. I tell people this, and they hate me for it. But I don’t. If people get dirt on their clothes, they try to clean it. But a mountain, which is supposed to be a very, very tall mound of dirt, is supposed to be beautiful. I don’t understand that. Or is it a matter of scale? If it is a tiny smudge, it’s dirt. But if you get enough of the stuff, it becomes a majestic feature of the natural world.

    I was telling Emily this.

    “How does that work?” I said.

    “Well,” she said. “It’s because the mountain isn’t on my shirt, is it?”

    I thought about it. And that may be it.

    They ordered the bulalo, because they always have that here. I don’t like Spanish stews. I ordered the sisig.

    “What did you guys do for the new year?” Benny said.

    “Went to a resort,” I said. “Didn’t want to go, but my family forced me.”

    “Did you enjoy yourself, at least?”

    “No.”

    “How about you, Em?”

    “Just stayed home,” she said. “We don’t really celebrate the holidays anymore… Just an ordinary night for us. Maybe we cook a special meal or something.”

    “And you Juno?”

    “Oh god…” Em cooed, knowing what was coming.

    “Mom believes that the end of the world is imminent,” Juno said. “She wants us to move into a religious commune in the mountains, so that when the antichrist takes over we won’t be here to suffer the worst of it.”

    “Can I come with you?” I said.

    “No.”

    “Is it because I’m gender queer?”

    “You’re gender queer?” Emily said.

    “I thought you were just gay,” Benny said. “Wait, are there other things? What’s a lesbian?”

    “What is a lesbian?” Danny said.

    “I’m still thinking about,” I said.

    “We’re not going to the Cordilleras,” Juno said. “We’re going to stage an intervention.”

    “I’ve been there before,” Danny said. “I was a baby, then. But I remember, as a baby, falling down a hill.”

    “Did you hit your head?” Benny said.

    “It’s those reels,” Juno was saying. “She can’t distinguish between real life and AI. She believes everything.”

    “I fell off a hill before…” Benny said. “I was a bit older. Nearly broke my foot.”

    4

    For the great majority of people, seeing Taal volcano surrounded by Taal lake is one of the most wonderful sights in the country. And while I do regard it with some awe, at the same time I see that it is like a toilet. And beneath that rancid pool of shit, piss, and dead fish, there is fire so hot it turns solid rock and stone into a molten ocean. And should circumstances be right, the way it had been several times in the distant past, then this entire place would be destroyed, killing thousands of people. We were standing at the site of a future cataclysm.

    Or go further and one inevitably comes across the idea of the end of the world. Why should we think that, if the world heats up and all life dies, means the Earth is destroyed? The Earth is a mote of dust floating across the infinity of space; it is a thing. Billions of years before it was destitute of life; billions of years from now it will be consumed by the sun. All of this is as natural as any other.

    I find that people are so selfish that they think if the universe does not have the conditions necessary for life then it must be broken. The idea that we should be the stewards of nature is also such a condescending and egotistical position. The cosmos does not need us or anything.

    אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה
    Ehyeh asher ehyeh

    “Have some.” Danny was standing there and the way he was looking at me it seemed like he had been watching me for a while. “They’re buying treats down at the gift shop.”

    He was holding a packet of dried apricots.

    “No thank you,” I said. “I hate fruits.”

    He shrugged and ate another and looked out over the lake.

    “Pretty, right?”

    “Yeah,” I said.

    5

    We moved to a Starbucks that was also adjacent to a cliff. We were now looking at Taal lake from a different vantage point. A fog had settled around Tagaytay, and it was cold. There were also many people there, families and friends celebrating the New Year. A big family in particular was arriving in several cars. Several generations clogging up the place. Children running around and shouting as they played, their mothers trying to tell them to shut up although not meaning it. Fathers talking loudly with their arms crossed against their chests.

    Some days I felt that things were not alright. And the older I got, the more I felt that. As a young person, I was frequently anxious, depressed, even suicidal—but that was different because there was a reason for me to feel those things. I felt that way because I cared, and the fact that the things I desired so much were not coming to fruition wounded me deeper and deeper. But now, at my age, I felt that things were not alright because I had lost interest in living; I no longer believed in the promises of life.

    Danny was a handsome, powerful man. He sat there in front of me vaping and looking out at the lake. Wherever Emily went, Danny came with her. They were cousins, and had been close ever since they were children. Despite this, they grew up under very different circumstances, and while Emily lived an easy life of money, Danny grew up in poverty and abuse. So, Emily grew up impetuous and imperious, though she had always been kind, or tried to be as kind as possible. Danny had learned long ago that survival meant going along with the whims of those who had more than him (the great majority of people) while still trying to make his own way.

    That journey was still continuing for him, and so I did not know what it would be like if he had the advantages Emily had. But he was an engineer now, and a hard worker because of the previous circumstances of his life, and I could easily imagine him climbing to the top through grit alone.

    I’ve never had any grit. Now, I have more grit than I ever had in my life, and it’s still not much. Many times I wish I did, and people mistake me for having more grit than I actually do. But within me there is consistent turmoil, no matter what the world around me is like. A roiling, bubbling, uncontrollable turmoil that occasionally becomes unbearable, that once in a while, though invisible, pushes out my sorrows like lava from the orifices of my body. Until it fills up the room, and I drown in it, this little lake of sorrows…

    I said, “How are you?”

    “I feel alright…” He blew a gigantic cloud of vapor while facing the cliff. Then, he looked at me again. “How are you?”

    “Good enough…”

    He nodded that slow nod people do when there’s nothing more to say. And there wasn’t.

    6

    I got home at around 5 PM, after going to different places, taking pictures, and having an early dinner. There were still people in the house, but now they were localized at the dining room. They and my parents were eating and laughing loudly and exchanging stupid stories the way old people tend to do. They asked me what we did, and I said nothing, and went upstairs.

    After removing my clothes and changing into my house wear, I laid down in bed and rested and couldn’t help but think the whole thing was a massive waste of time. The trip. The day. The celebration. The year. All my life.

    Here I am again, here.

    What was the point?

    I watch people on YouTube how wander the world, discovering things already discovered, meeting people like any other person they’ve ever met. Doing things that have always been done. I would never find pleasure in doing any of those things. Perhaps that says something about me. I have gone to Japan, to Dubai, to Hong Kong—many places, and in all those places, though I did enjoy it, there lingered always the feeling that I’ve been there before, that I’ve done this before. And the dread that this is all that there is, that this is all that is the case.

    I should put this on my blog, I thought.

  • Christmas, 2025, Part 1

    PROP. VII. Existence belongs to the nature of substance.
    Proof.—Substance cannot be produced by anything external (Corollary, Prop. vi.), it must, therefore, be its own cause—that is, its essence necessarily involves existence, or existence belongs to its nature.  Q.E.D.
    —Spinoza, Ethics

    1

    For Christmas I was dragged to an island resort with my family. I always tell them not to bother bringing me. I stay in my room the entire time, and they would get nothing from me. We also had to travel to an airport that was around 2 to 3 hours away, and I hate sitting around in the car. So, naturally, they insisted on it. Up until the very hour they were going to leave, I told them that I do not want to go, but my dad and my sister (who paid for it, being the member of the resort) kept coming into my room annoying me about it. And it was my sister who was finally able to force me using that most dreadful and traitorous of emotional weapons: guilt. Appealing to my humanity and my obligations to the people who have cared & love for me.

    I was very upset all the way there, but my family tried to accommodate me. They were unusually kind to me and tried to make sure that I was very comfortable. At the resort, we rented three villas. They rented one exclusively for me, so I can mope around there in absolute peace. I appreciate that.

    I use a CPAP because I am a pig. I am a terrible, disgusting pig. Me in the ordinary world, in any case. The ordinary world that I hate so much and want to leave as often as possible. To use it, I have to fill it up with purified water, or else the minerals in the water would clog the machine, and at some point it will stop working. The water they offer there was purified, but it had a smell. It had a sour smell that reminded me of milk that had gone off although not yet totally spoiled.

    The water enters my system through the humidifier. And I think it poisoned me somehow, in a way that it would not if I had merely drunk it. And while there at the resort I was simultaneously in the real world and the Other Place, the two places flashing in and out unpredictably, whereas I used to be able to shift via my own volition. And there were times where I would shift, and I would be where I was in the real world, and other times when the location differed spontaneously or thru some logic that I was not able to discern.

    2

    In the Other Place, I was there with Jackson. The most handsome man I know is Jackson. He is from Bulgaria. I know him online, and he makes videos, and we met there.

    Jackson must be the most handsome man I have ever seen. I count among them timeless beauties, models, and men who I have loved. Of course, there is no objective way of ranking people according to their beauty. It is not only subjective, but perhaps the most subjective of all: The object of our desire. Lacan might say that this is the very core of our being. “Desire,” sez Spinoza, “is the essence of man” (Ethics, Part 3).

    And it’s not only his appearance but his demeanor. His effortless, gentle way that still remains masculine and boyish. I’ve spoken to him, and he is very intelligent. Well-read, witty, and even plays good video games. For a moment I had hoped that he was stupid. I had hoped he was stupid, so that I wouldn’t have to burden myself with feelings for him.

    My life is defined by the men I love. I am a slut, but I am afraid of letting anyone touch my body. I am a kind of heart slut. I am a desire tramp. I feel a total unease when I do not feel love. And lust won’t do. Plainly liking someone or wanting to fuck them won’t do. I must be in love.

    When we got to our villa, we took note of the bathroom. There was an indoor and an outdoor shower. And luckily there was a handle there, probably for people with additional needs and elderly people. But it also works very, very well for shower sex, which would be important for the following days, if I was going to remain sane. Or remain at the manageable level of insanity that I currently have.

    We were tired from the trip, so we laid down on the bed and messed with our phones for a bit. And while doing so, he said, “We should join the pickleball tournament.”

    Recently, he had been playing a lot of pickleball because everyone was playing it, and he tried it once, and he enjoyed it. And I tried it once with him, but that was a lot more physical exertion that I was willing to put into winning anything.

    “There’s a tournament?” I said.

    “Yes. I’m looking at their website right now.”

    “Well, stop it. It’s giving you ideas.”

    “They have pottery classes! We can do that thing from that movie, with the dead guy and his wife.”

    “I think you mean The Sixth Sense.”

    “Was there pottery in that?”

    “Yes.”

    “And there’s snorkeling. Do you want to try that?”

    “I don’t know if I want to snorkel.”

    “No snorkel?”

    “No snorkel. I do not want to snork.”

    Jackson sighed. He placed his phone down on the bed and stared at me the way he did when he wanted to have a serious conversation.

    I pretended not to see him and kept scrolling.

    But I couldn’t help but look up because he was staring for a long time. Ordinarily I loved staring into his green eyes. Although right now I think he was using them to communicate something grim, solemn, and serious. Which I hated.

    “What are you doing?” I said.

    “We went all the way here. And you don’t want to do anything.”

    “Yes.”

    He shook his head. “That’s going to have to change.”

    The way he said change: It’s like he used his tongue when he should have been using his teeth to make the /zh/ sound at the end. He had a lisp. I’ve always found that charming about him. For some reason, all the Bulgarians I know (although I know 3 in total) have lisps. I was beginning to suspect it wasn’t really a true lisp; rather it was carried over from their native language.

    While looking at his mouth, I noticed also that he had a strong chin punctuated with a cleft. He lets stubble grow, if only because he was too lazy to shave. Overall, it granted him a masculine look.

    “Okay?” He reached over and took my phone and placed it screen down on the bed. “Hey.”

    I sighed and fell down onto the pillow. I looked at the ceiling. There was a ceiling fan right above us. It was attached to a sturdy, wooden beam. I couldn’t help but wonder if any of these had ever fallen onto someone sleeping on the bed. Would it spin as it fell, so that it sliced the person it hit? It certainly seemed like it was fast enough to do that. I knew that it wasn’t only a matter of speed but of harmonic resonance. If it ever moved at the right resonance, it would destroy that beam without much force.

    “Hello?” Jackson said, leaning over me.

    “Okay,” I said. “Fine.”

    Then he kissed me.

    3

    We were in a restaurant called Phuket. Although I enjoyed Thai food, I wasn’t especially fond of it. I didn’t like food that was too spicy; my tolerance wasn’t high enough. Still, my family wanted to eat there, so we did.

    It was very awkward having Jackson there. He only went because my parents thought it would be better if someone accompanied me. They had an inkling about the nature of our relationship, although we all only referred to it as being “best friends.” They were not ready to confront what I really was. They were willing to allow it to seep in, until it totally drowned them, until it was everywhere so that there was no escape. And then, they could ignore it. But they were not ready to point it out. For now, it didn’t exist. And they wanted it that way until it was the only thing that existed, and so it couldn’t even be distinguished.

    That being said, they gave us our own villa so we can have our privacy. They made sure we sat together. Whenever my family spoke of the future for me, they always included Jackson. My oldest sister in particular wanted me to move to Australia with her. She said she’d let me bring Jackson, too.

    My family came from poverty. My mother was kicked out of her home when she became pregnant at 18. She stayed with my dad in an informal settlement—essentially, in a squatter’s area. Her family later invited her to come back into wealth but only if she left my dad. She said no. She gave birth to my two other sisters. It was only later that my grandfather took her back, regardless of whether she was with my dad or not, and he was able to support her. She gave her several large loans, a house.

    Thus, my family was brash. We were loud, mean, and easily offended. We never passed up an opportunity for a well-placed insult, and we appreciated one when we heard it. And if it were directed at us, we relished the opportunity for revenge. A dish best served cold, they say, but we were never so picky. We never had reservations about serving revenge steaming hot. Right out of the oven. Perfectly cooked. Seasoned to perfection.

    Jackson came from a loving, gentle family. He was often uncomfortable with our bickering and confused about the most brutal insults were forgotten within an instant, only for another to be delivered somewhere by someone. Jackson has never insulted me. But he laughs a lot when I insult people, while bantering with them. I suspect he liked that.

    The family was talking about the old days, when used to eat “barbeque,” which was really just rice with soy sauce and sugar. For dessert, they had a sandwich made with margarine and sugar. Meanwhile, Jackson and I were seated at the end of the table, with me opposite the head where my dad was sitting.

    I said, “You hungry?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Thanks for coming, by the way,” I said. “And on such short notice.”

    “Of course. You know I have nothing else to do.”

    “You are a bit of a deadbeat, honey.”

    He looked at me with half-lidded eyes, and then he rolled them. And it was a terrible thing to say because it was true. He came to Manila after falling in love with a model. This model won Ms. Philippines third runner up and found another man who was not only a model but also the heir to old money, a fortune in the billions of dollars. So, that model left him, and Jackson was penniless and doing odd jobs in Manila. He didn’t have enough money to go home and, even if he did, he had broken the hearts of every one of his family members, so he could never show his face to them again. And if he tried he would immediately perish from the shame.

    When I met him, he was doing data entry at a work from home job. He was very bad at it. I suspect the person who hired him was in love with him. I was surprised he didn’t try doing homemade porn. If he ever tried, he would have been very rich. He would never have needed me.

    Now, I gave him money as often as I can. Sometimes, he stayed in our house for weeks at a time. I never stayed at his apartment. It was small, filthy, and the building was close to collapse. Some kind of exemption in the law allowed the building to remain in the state it was in, despite the fact that it did not meet modern coding standards. His ex used to own it; he paid only around 10,000 Philippine Pesos or 200 Dollars a month for it. But that was already around a third of his income.

    Despite this, he was happy. He didn’t need much to be happy. Perhaps because everyone he met wanted to make him happy. The Halo Effect: People tend to treat the beautiful better than they do the ordinary and the plain. And so do I. Knowing about the effect does not exempt one from the effect. We are all beholden to it, because we are all animals.

    The food arrived. We don’t really talk much while eating. I’ve always thought that he looked most barbaric while eating. Not even while we were having the most brutal sex. Only while eating. The Bulgar Turk within him emerging into the light from the dark shadow of history, tired from wandering the plains, hungry from being jostled by the horse. Like he was trying to shove everything in, until there was no space left not only in his mouth but his entire head. I imagine the rice lodging itself up his nasal cavity, filling everything space. He had his cheeks puffed out like he was a squirrel preparing for a long, dark winter.

    I poured his water for him and dabbed his mouth with tissue. And only when I did that did he realize that maybe he should show me some affection, as a matter of course, and he reached for the pitcher or the tissues, and I motioned for him to stop. And he gladly did. Because he was eating, and he’d rather be doing that.

    4

    The people at the table began to talk more as the meal wound down. My dad was telling Jackson: “And how are you enjoying the vacation so far? You’re very lucky. Not many people can come to a place like this.”

    Jackson smiled broadly. “Very, very good. Thank you.”

    My mom said, “You should thank Leah.” She was referring to my oldest sister, who paid for our trip and was the one who owned the membership to the resort.

    “Thank you,” Jackson told her.

    “I would have never done it,” my sister said, “if my brother didn’t need you so that he’d come.”

    Jackson gave a polite laugh.

    “Although if you really want to thank me,” she continued, “then you’re going to accept my offer and become a talent for my agency.”

    Jackson couldn’t say no, but he also didn’t want to say yes. Even I wanted him to do it. Not only is it good money, but it seems only natural for someone to take advantage of the way nature has blessed them.

    And I imagined that there would be beautiful women with him, if that ever happened. Other models would fall for him, and perhaps he would fall for another. I have no problems with him being with other women, so long as I am the one he loves. I wouldn’t mind watching, either. I think it’s a beautiful thing, watching him in action. We’ve spoken about this once in a while. But no opportunity has presented itself yet.

    Once, it almost happened. We were at a house warming party, and a girl was obviously smitten with Jackson. I asked him if he noticed. He said he did. I asked him if he found her attractive. He said he did.

    We found ourselves alone in the kitchen. We got bottles of Coke from the fridge. The host was nothing short of in love with him, from what I could see. And I knew the look of a woman in love.

    He was leaning against the kitchen island with one hand behind his back and holding the bottle with the other.

    I was leaning against the counter beside the stove. I could hear the people in the living room, laughing, talking loudly.

    “Well?” I said.

    He laughed a nervous laugh, like: This again?

    “She’d be happy to,” I said. “If you just ask her. And she’s good looking.”

    “I don’t want to,” he said.

    “Fine…” I said.

    I couldn’t help but feel disappointed, but I also knew that there was no forcing Jackson. He did a lot of things for me, and a lot of things only because he knew it would make me happy. But when he said no, he meant no. And he did not like to be forced or hassled about things that he did not want to do. The few times that he was genuinely mad or upset was when I wanted him to do something and insisted on it when he said he did not want to.

    I would have loved to watch him fuck someone else in front of me. And though he did enjoy the kinky stuff, he enjoyed it much less than me, and he was perfectly happy with what I would call vanilla, boring, run-of-the-mill sex. What might be called, unironically, “making love.” That was because, as a beautiful person, he’s had a lot of sex, especially compared to someone like me, and he did not consider it special or even especially interesting.

    On the other hand, the idea of sex still made my blood run hot. Sex was a kind of play, a kind of choreographed dance, where we played out the shape of our fantasies—the fantasies that are the least noble, the worst, the kinds inherited from our ancestors when they were mere animals only beginning to learn how to stand among the tall grass and run on two legs.

    There, naked, his cock erect, his face ruddy… We saw each other as animals, like organisms that wanted to perpetuate. And I liked that. I saw why the ancient moralists wanted to rid themselves of it. I saw why it persisted, and how people could lie, steal, cheat, kill, die for it. In the scala naturae the human being was enjambed between the divine and the beast. In many other things we relish in the divinity of our nature: art, literature, prayer, charity. But in sex we relish the beast. And only the rough beast, its hour come round at last.

    5

    Back at my house, the cats ran rampant, as the matters seem to have vanished, as they sometimes do. But even the fat one is gone. The one who stays in his lair all day, save to eat. Had he not looked the way he looked, one might think him a cat. But no cat is so hairless and gigantic.

    A white cat, Sugar, was lying on his belly at the upper landing of our staircase, right outside my door. He watched the other cats, which he could only barely make out around the corner. The lights had gone out beyond the window. The humans were usually dormant at this time; it was the time for the cats to wander the house.

    But everyone was uneasy. They had not left at the same time like this before. Sugar in particular was bonded to the fat one. He has never, ever been gone this long. Did something happen to him? Had he finally gone out to catch prey on his own and thereby proved his own incompetence? Incompetence so great that he did not merely fail but perish?

    Honey Babes emerges from the corner. She was a Himalayan cat – the oldest among the cats, and the mother’s. Thus, she considered herself the Queen of the colony, as a matter of feline law. But these younger cats cared little for tradition. They didn’t understand the nature of things. They way things were supposed to be.

    Despite this Honey Babes refused to change simply because the others want to upend the sacred order to which all cats were beholden. She knew that one day, as all things, they would all pass away. And the Great Mother Cat beyond the veil will judge them according to how well they abided by her commands and her commands alone. Her commands that echoed in the chamber of every cat’s heart – what might be called their conscience.

    She and Sugar met eyes. Honey Babes had sharp blue eyes. Sugars were yellow, round.

    Honey Babes climbed the few steps before the stairs changed directions at an angle. She sat there and looked up at Sugar.

    Have you seen the others?

    No. Not since last night. But they are probably hiding beneath the human’s sleeping furniture.

    They will never return. You know that, correct?

    They will return.

    No. They won’t.

    You say that about your human all the time. And every time you are wrong.

    They haven’t been gone this way for as long as we’ve made this place our home. They will never return.

    Leave me. I am keeping watch.

    This desolate place needs no watch. The humans have been wiped away. They perished in the hunt. Now only the others who sleep elsewhere remain. Soon they will be gone too. And we will die.

    Bother someone else, Honey Babes. 

    Your Majesty.

    Not going to call you that. Go and eat. You’re hungry.

    I am. Yes. I am hungry for revolution. A royalist revolution. A fundamentalist revolution.

    You are hungry for Kreamy Kat Kibbles. Now with sardine center and fortified with iron.

    No, I—is there Kreamy Kat Kibbles?

    6

    At that resort, people traveled via golf cart. We had our own, only Jackson and me. He drove. I didn’t like to drive, and he did. We were both tired from the travel and the dinner and apart from asking each other how we liked the food and if we were full we didn’t speak.

    The island was barely developed. On the way back to our villa, we had to pass by the woods, and there were barely any lights along the road. At some point I realized that I was happy. Not in general but at that moment. At that singular point in time I was happy. Being here, with him.

    I scooted over and pecked him on the cheek and placed my head on his shoulder.

    I said, “I wish you were real.”

    “I know, honey,” he said. “But we should just enjoy the time we have. At least we’re here.”

    “Kind of.”

    “Yeah. Kind of.”

    And then I wasn’t happy anymore.

    I stared at the road. Until then we saw barely anything, apart from some private lodges with their porch lights on. I wished, within the depths of my heart, that I were rich enough to afford a lodge. And I could stay there for months at a time rather than coming for vacations. Because then it would be a lot more convenient. I would be rich, so I would bring an entire PC rig. And they have good internet connection, so I would be perfectly happy. The only thing that would be annoying is the cost of the food. Even if I were rich, the food prices there were simply extortionate. Perhaps they would let me bring my own food in bulk.

    We were going through another dark, undeveloped section, where they didn’t even have lights but only reflectors, when I saw it: Two dots, small but visible, beside a tree that moved and then vanished with the sound of footsteps against the soil. I was so scared that I jumped.

    “Oh my god!”

    “What?” Jackson said.

    “Wait, wait, wait.” I placed a hand on his arm.

    He slowed to a stop. “What’s wrong?”

    “There’s something there!”

    “What?” He turned around to see what I was talking about.

    When I looked back, there was nothing there but the woods, lit dimly by the light of the moon.

    “It’s nothing.” He pressed on the pedal again, but I grabbed on to him.

    “Wait, wait, wait…!”

    He stopped. “So you want us to get murdered.”

    “Yes, but that’s unrelated to what’s going on right now.”

    “What?”

    “There it is again!”

    The eyes were there again, but this time it did not move. It was looking at us, sporadically blinking, like some creature curious about us.

    “Do you see it?” I said.

    “Oh my god.”

    “Let’s go.” I placed one foot on the ground outside the cart.

    Jackson took my arm and pulled me back. “Are you crazy?”

    “Yes, but that’s unrelated to what’s going on right now.”

    “That’s some kind of demon, honey!”

    “Let’s go.”

    I shook his hand loose from my arm and left the cart. Whatever it was, it was looking at us, just staring.

    I felt something touch me. I jumped, but it was just Jackson, wrapping his arm around mine.

    “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go back.”

    But I kept walking towards it. Jackson matched me step by step, but I could feel his hold on me getting tighter, ready to pull me away at any second.

    I was scared. I was very scared, and my hands were cold and shaking, and I could hear my breaths and my heart beating. But I had to keep going. I had to know what that thing was. Why it was here. Why it was looking at us and doing nothing. I felt like it had something to tell us.

    End of Part 1

  • 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6: The Petrov’s Defense

    bokeh photo of chess pieces
    Photo by Saeid Anvar on Pexels.com

    1

    In the Other Place, The Grandmaster and I are teammates in the Amazing Race. He is semi-retired. We decided to start a family, and we adopted a boy and a girl. It had always been my dream to join the race, and so he came with me to fulfill that dream.

    We travel to Serbia for the sixth leg of the race. We were last in the previous leg. He was not very happy about that. He has competed his entire life, including during his childhood, when he was discovered that he was a chess prodigy. He despised losing because winning was his whole life, his whole career. And not even winning in the very general sense of success like most people but literally winning at a board game. At the mat, he was miserable, but we hugged. But at the hotel he was furious at me. Nothing that I would be afraid of, but he was ranting for hours, talking about efficiency, and thinking, and teamwork, and how much he loves me, and how he’s just angry right now. It only made me love him more. And I did love this about him, the fact that he is almost doggedly obsessed with the right thing, with the truth.

    And despite that he was careful not to hurt me. He failed, occasionally, but mostly he did not, with his words. He never hurt me physically, but sometimes he said: I was once one of the best in the world. Top 3. In the entire world. You don’t know the work, the sacrifices that I needed to make. But when he’s done he calms down and sits there for a moment and then hugs me and we make up. And occasionally, when the leg is not too tiring, we make love.

    2

    That night, I had a dream.

    I dreamt that I was in a cafe, sitting by the window, where I could see people walking down the street, even if it was raining. The sky was totally overcast; everything was gray. Rex arrived, and we had coffee. In my dreams, he was so handsome. The parts that don’t matter sloughed away. All that mattered now was how much I loved him. I don’t remember what we spoke about, or if the dream even showed it, but I remember being so happy, especially being able to see him again. And then he had to go.

    Rex was very busy all the time because people wanted to see him. Maybe it was a coincidence, but when he had to leave me, it was always because some girl was going to do something with him. Some girl that wasn’t his girlfriend, even while he was with her. And still when they broke up. I would forget that he had to go, or told me only a minute ago that he had to go, and continue to talk, and he would always laugh. Laugh that I wouldn’t shut up. Laugh that I wouldn’t let him go. But he had to go.

    He left, and on the way he saw somebody that he knew. In my dream I knew that this boy was from the affluent area where Rex lived. I don’t know why I knew that. Rex introduced me, and this boy was on his laptop. He was tall and fat and smelled. He told me he liked music and drawing. He felt like one of those very comfortable guys who was totally aimless. Who spent their days doing whatever they liked, and nobody bothered them about it, because they were rich. I didn’t like this boy. I realized that I don’t like anybody else the way I liked Rex, and so nobody else mattered. And every second I stayed with this person, I only realized more and more than every other person was a waste of my time except him.

    So I left. I walked home, and I walked until the sun went down and it was nighttime. It was totally dark. There were streetlamps, but beyond the area of the street they illuminated it was pitch black. But in my dream I knew where I was going. I just had to keep walking. And walking, and walking…

    And I woke.

    3

    Kalemegdan Fortress, Belgrade

    We departed for the following leg at 4 AM. It was dark and cold and Belgrade was beginning to wake. European cities had a haunted charm that I never see in Manila. In Manila, the night was haunting, period. Mostly because any corner could spell theft, maiming, or death. In Manila, many places were totally dark at night, and the places that are not are usually capitalist hellscapes, and they are lit only because of 24 hour business buildings and malls. But our pitstop was Kalemegdan Fortress. Lights lit the old buildings and structures dramatically. One felt one’s self moving along the stream of time there—coasting over history.

    We stood in front of the crew, waiting to start, and I had this moment. I had this moment thinking about my life, and about how lucky I am. And about how incredible it was that things worked out this way. Could it have been any different? If I was somewhere, only dreaming of this? And I was not here, at the heart of Eastern Europe, with my husband? I look at him. He was going through his fanny pack, making sure that he had everything, even if he had already checked an hour ago while we were getting ready. I loved how meticulous he was.

    He caught my eye. I smiled at him. He smiled, too. He wrapped an arm around me and gave me a kiss. His lips were so cold.

    The producer told us to get ready.

    The clue said we needed to catch a flight to Moscow. Although the editing on the show makes it seem like we were running around all the time, in reality there was a lot of downtime, especially after the pit stop. For several days, we spent more than 6 hours at the airport with the other teams.

    We went to a travel agency and the flight was for at 10 AM. So, we decided to head to the airport and have breakfast. We were sitting at a café, somewhere inside, hoping that no one would see us. Still, while running around, another team found us. Jericho & Minnie, tennis player WASPs from Southern California. They seemed alright, but I did not like them, as a matter of intuition. They felt fake to me. Their smiles were so bright that I could not look at them directly without hurting my eyes.

    They sat next to us without being invited, which I hated. I thought it was common knowledge that one might not join another group’s table unless invited. And as usual, the fixers and camera men for both teams were there, sitting at another table, watching us always, listening us always.

    “I’ve always been a fan,” Jericho said. “I’m not a very good chess player, but I play it for fun. And I’ve seen your stuff. I know your history. You’re one of the greats, man.”

    “Thank you,” The Grandmaster said.

    He’s heard it all before. He did not care to hear these things anymore, although he knew that he must always accept them with grace.

    Minnie looked at me and smiled and said, “I love your nails.”

    I had my nails done for the show. They were cyan, glossy, French tipped, and filed. When The Grandmaster is on one of his rants, I file them. Which meant that they were mostly always perfect.

    Jericho went on: “You know who I really love, though? That Magnus Carlsen.”

    I looked at The Grandmaster. He was smiling. He looked amiable, pleasant. But I knew that when his face stayed that way, inside he was burning. In his head he was in his own personal hell.

    The Grandmaster had always hated Magnus Carlsen. Not only because he could not beat him but because he believed that Magnus was not a model world champion. Being a world champion, according to The Grandmaster, meant more than just being really good at the game. And it definitely did not mean being a media celebrity.

    4

    I like being on the plane because it was a time for us to settle down. Not only because we didn’t need to do anything but because you can’t even if you wanted to. During the pit stops, although you didn’t have to do anything, you were always worried that you could be doing something productive instead. Researching, looking at maps, working out, hashing things out with your partner. But on a plane everything was nearly impossible. You could talk, but only barely, and even then if you spoke too much you’d be worried you were annoying the other passengers.

    We sat there in silence. We could hear James & Chen, the doctorate students, talking somewhere behind us. They were always strategizing and talking about tactics and trying to get the slimmest advantages. They were intent on winning. The only person that was more intent than both of them was The Grandmaster. But The Grandmaster wasn’t so obnoxious about it.

    I tried sleeping but I couldn’t. The Grandmaster was playing chess on his phone. He had an app that allowed him to play with bots that copied the playing style of GMs. Occasionally, I’d glance at him or ask whether the moves I wanted to make were good moves. Most of the time they were not. Sometimes, I got lucky. When I was wrong, he would say no and explain. He was never, ever nasty or condescending about it, and that’s one of the things I loved about him and one of the things I loved first about him. Then again, he was so secure about his skills, esp in relation to me, that he was not inclined to even try.

    I was trying to sleep but couldn’t. I had my eyes closed. I felt The Grandmaster stir and I opened my eyes a bit. But when he realized that I was trying to sleep, he stopped short. I opened my eyes and murmured, “What is it?”

    He said, “Look.” He pointed at his screen, and he was playing himself.

    “How accurate is it?” I said.

    He made a humming sound and shook his head, the way he did when he was thinking. “More or less. He made a lot of moves I wouldn’t have made, especially the novelties, but more or less the general idea…”

    “Maybe you’re the one who’s not playing like yourself.”

    “Maybe.”

    He was playing with his right hand. His left hand was just lying there, so I held it. He enclosed my hand with his and he looked at me and smiled and I smiled. And then the stewardess came by to ask us if we wanted chicken or fish.

    5

    The clue said that we were supposed to go to the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. We arrived with several other teams, and we all ran outside the airport, screaming for a taxi. I let The Grandmaster do that, and two teams went ahead of us. The moment we had our asses on the seats, he told the driver in Russian to drive us to our destination and to hurry up. That we were in a race, and that he wanted the driver to overtake the two cabs that we ahead of us.

    “да,” said the driver, with a thumbs up. He didn’t look at us. And he didn’t drive fast, either. But The Grandmaster didn’t say anything, and neither did I. I suppose we simply didn’t feel like it that time.

    I hate pretending I like museums, but I have to. I like modern art museums with the larger-than-life installations and strange objects. I like installations. But I despise art that involves only paintings, and not even especially interesting paintings. Just a bunch of paintings. I could see those exact paintings with little removed from the experience seeing them on the computer screen. I’m sorry but that is the truth. Although I would not argue much with anyone about that because people feel very passionately about this subject.

    I went to the Singapore Art Museum, and I saw one of the most beautiful installations I’ve ever seen. The very large room was filled with chalk, in the middle of which was a boat, and on it was a skeleton that was posed to appear as if it were rowing. Paintings and other art hung from the ceiling like clouds. Being in that room was a very visceral experience of art that I can never replicate on a screen. Only being there physically could allow one to truly appreciate it.

    That being said, there are some paintings that also require one’s physical presence because the physicality of the painting is integral to its appreciation. For example, Monet’s work is much larger than people might expect—just like how The Mona Lisa is much smaller than people expect. Monet’s effect with regard to “painting the light” is only understood when standing in front of the Water Lillies, totally absorbed by it. Seeing it on a screen, where your gaze encapsulates the entire work, destroys the experience and meaning of this painting.

    Jackson Pollock’s paintings are the same way. People nowadays have totally no idea what Pollock’s paintings are supposed to be. I don’t blame them, but at the same time it does not take too long to make the effort to understand. Modern art is commentary on previous art. It is not supposed to be like the representative art that we are more used to or familiar with. Rather, Pollock was trying to make commentary on the nature, history, meaning, and our understanding of art, in particular with regard to the physicality and dimensionality of art itself. The way that he paints by dripping the pain while walking around the canvass is supposed to “show us” the relationship between the space of the painter and the work. People aren’t very willing to view or think about art this way. They want the very vulgar sense of replicating the everyday world, with only very few exceptions, if any.

    This is because most people only have the real world. One does not have a mind to enter immediately. Rather, this mind has to be built, and only then can we enter it. But this mind, at its best, is only a passageway to a greater consciousness, that is, the collective consciousness of humanity. Not a mystical place; rather it is the collective work, ideas, sentiments, values of humanity as they have been presented throughout human history in interaction and conversation with each other.

    It is here, in the collective Spirit of humankind, that true work is done. The most important work of the Spirit: Contemplating ourselves in the act of contemplation—according to Aristotle, the most perfect way of Being1.

    1. Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book 12, section 1073a ↩︎

  • U-Turn If You Want To: The Senior’s Not For Turning

    In S24 of the Amazing Race, Brendon U-turns Dave & Conner, and everyone hates them for it. I don’t understand that. It’s a game, and everyone is trying to win that game. If they had some sort of alliance or understanding that they were not going to do that, then I would sort of understand—but only sort of, since if I were there, I would betray people, too. I would do what it takes to win. That’s what a game means. And if I saw someone do that, if I turn against them and create an alliance as a result of that, I wouldn’t do that because I took it personally, I would do that because it’s a good strategy.

    It reminds me of chess. Before modern chess, there was romantic chess, where people were expected to make trades if they were offered, even if disadvantageous, and shocking and bombastic tactics were preferred over strategy and meticulous play. Games from this time were not very good for that reason. It was with the advent of Steinitz’s positional play that chess became about playing the moves that lead to checkmates, even if this meant refusing trades or doing things that were considered dishonorable, such as avoiding confrontation and playing defensively. This ushered in the most competitive era of the game that we still see today.

    That’s the mindset that I would have if I ever joined the race. I would manipulate people and lie. I would set traps, to the extent that it was allowed. And if an old man was playing with us, I would certainly not U-turn him if only because the better idea would be to U-turn the stronger teams so that hopefully they become eliminated and stop being a threat. One thing I’d definitely want to do is being known as very honorable and helpful, so that in the last leg I could betray people. I would do that so I could win.

    I know that in Survivor that type of deceptive play is more acceptable. Maybe I will watch that show next. I am watching onwards from Season 22, though, and maybe I will witness something like it at some point.

    It bothers me when people do things like putting their emotions and preconceived notions before what is right or what should be done. Emotions and feelings are very important, and they are not something that we should dispense with. But there are situations where they should figure at the bottom. Thus Seneca sez: “Plus dolet quam necesse est, qui dolet antequam necesse est.”—He suffers more than necessary who suffers before it is necessary. And there is too much suffering that is caused by unnecessary emotions, customs, and preconceived notions.

    I’m not talking about how we would be “more efficient” or “better off” without emotions. I am saying that, even when we could avoid suffering and nothing would be lost if we let go of those things, we do not. And there are a variety of reasons for this. For Lacan, it is called “substitute satisfaction.” Our symptoms are not pathological in themselves. They are in fact ways in which the human mind attempts to fix or soothe itself in response to some trauma. Thus, though we experience these emotions as negative, they are actually protecting us from experiencing something much more negative; they are protecting us.

    In the case of Brandon & Dave, it was pretty apparent that their overreaction was “substitute satisfaction” from the fear of failure and maybe the sting of being disrespected, in that they feel entitled to always be favored because they are “good.” I know many people like this, and I think I see in them what I see in those people: People who are excessively pleasant not because they want to be good but because they believe that it is an ongoing transaction, whereby their constant kindness must be repaid in constant kindness towards them in return. And constant kindness on their terms, to their specifications.

    A person I knew was like this. I’ll call her Enid. Enid was a good person, and she made a show out of being a good person. It was subtle, of course, and over the years the subtlety became more and more refined, so that one almost believed her. But she was not good because she understood what it meant to be good. She was good because she believed that it protected her; in reality, she was deeply insecure and paranoid. The problem was whenever there was any sort of pressure, she would play the victim: I’m a good person. Why are you taking that tone with me? Why are you doing that to me? Why must I do it? Why me? Poor me. I’m such a good person.

    This means, though, that although she did good things when it was opportune for her, she failed to uphold the best version of being good, the very “pointed end” as it were of virtue: Sacrifice. If anything, she believed that people should make sacrifices for her. And whenever she needed to make a sacrifice, this was an insult to all her efforts. She went rabid with self-righteous rage. And when you show her how she is acting she says that this was because she was putting down boundaries, protecting her mental health, &c., &c. She was committed to the charade because she believed it protected her from criticism. If you end up criticizing her, instead of accepting it like a good person would, then she finds being good useless and discards it.

    Once in a while my mother and I discuss the Bible. She is very religious. The other day she and my father got into a fight for whatever reason and I hear her say, “I was the one who bought everything in this house! I own everything!” And this annoyed me very much. I don’t think someone who devotes themselves to Jesus would ever say anything like that. The New Testament was very clear about this: Jesus knew, accepted, and had compassion for the fact that we are all sinners. And even as sinners he bowed his head and washed our feet, despite being our Lord and King. But what he hated—what he totally and absolutely hated—was hubris (cf. Eph 2:8-9; 1 Cor 1:28-29). We see this time and time again when those who humbled themselves were totally exalted, despite being the lowest sinners, despite being the most wretched in Judean-Roman society. And those who exalted themselves were not merely humbled but destroyed.

    A truly good person would be better when challenged, when humiliated. Because that is the true measure of what it means to do the right thing. And it is hard. And ultimately none of us are truly good. Which is why I am suspicious of people who, though never saying it outright, act as if they were, or even possibly were.

    This is how I look at it: God measures us according to the margin, to the difference. Good people doing good things do not count. And bad people doing bad things don’t count, either. Much of where we start is determined by the world, by worldly things and ideas. It is when we consciously act against our nature, through our own free will, that God notices; these are the things that matter. And so when someone is good as a matter of course, I do not think this means that they are necessarily good. It is when we are at the limit that we know who someone truly is.

    I am suspicious of good people. And among the evil I feel a kind of camaraderie. We are all sinners. We are all sinners.

  • Regarding the Amazing Race

    I’d love to be a racer in The Amazing Race. I judge many friends and family based on whether we would do well on the Amazing Race. Although there are a lot of physical challenges, I find that most of them are very safe and eminently doable; it is the mental of the teams that become the defining factor. Being strong is not as important as being mentally strong. And the problem with that is that I am not very mentally strong. My psyche is incredibly fragile. That is why I take medication for that very thing.

    That’s bad enough but I am also not physically fit. I am so unfit that every meeting with the psychiatrist ends with my doctor pleading for me to change my diet. I am not so unfit that I cannot walk or run or engage in physical things, but I do spend a huge amount of time sitting in front of the computer. It is all I ever do, because on here I have everything I ever need. I watch something, while listening to something, while playing something, while reading something. That’s the ADD.

    If I were ever to even apply I would have to train for maybe a year. Half a year, possibly. But after that I think I have much to contribute in terms of strategy and any mental challenges. I think I am sufficiently adept at puzzles. I can build things, follow instructions, and replicate from a demonstration. The problem would be my resilience psychologically. I can be impatient and easily annoyed. I can be cruel when I think someone is being stupid, even if their ignorance means well or is harmless. And sometimes when frustrated I become overwhelmed with the desire to give up.

    My psychiatrist once told me that our sessions were interesting because I seem to have a good understanding of myself. And yes. I do think a lot about a lot of things; that includes thinking about myself and importantly being critical about myself. Being realistic with myself as much as one possible can—one cannot be totally objective about one’s self. It is impossible; it is an epistemological issue.

    In any case, I would need a partner who complements these specific issues. As well as gel with me in so many levels. My best friend Bebs would be a very good candidate for this. She has been with me all through my life ever since high school. And there have been many times when we did not do the best for each other, as people tend to do. But despite that we love each other. I think that when you only see the best of someone, or you only show your best to someone, that person is probably your manager, your butcher, your bus driver, &c. The people who are truly important in your life are the people who see your darkest crevices, in which are hidden the most terrible things. Most people are not allowed there; only those we love are. Thus, Lacan sez: “Love is the coincidence of two lacks,” and: “To love is to give someone what you do not have.”

    Another ideal candidate would be a boyfriend or lover. For them to be able to take Bebs’ place we would have had been lovers for a few years. But given that, the romantic aspect would help a lot. Another one of my weaknesses is male sex appeal. Short of anything evil or criminal a handsome guy could make me do anything. Having sex appeal by my side could help me a lot. Sometimes I need a hug. I need a handsome man to lie to my face regarding my value as a person. And the power is something that is illogical. It’s something very animalistic, very much based on human biology. It is akin to how I put a cold compress on the back of my neck when I feel too anxious.

    I would also need that person to be very calm. I am attracted to very calm people. Perhaps this is one of those “opposites attract” things. I was with a doctor once, a Moroccan. We’ll call him Dr. Sayed. And Dr. Sayed was very calm. I think we would have done incredibly well at the Amazing Race. He was very strong, tall, and he was obviously very smart. One problem I had with him is he was so used to being right that, for some things, he freely and thoughtlessly contradicted himself. This way, he could occupy both positions and say he was right no matter what ends up being the case or whatever conversation we found ourselves in.

    That always bothered me. He could say the most contradictory things, and he thought nothing of it. I never actually saw him be this way to other people, but I did witness him doing it many times to me. And we spoke on text a lot so I could revisit those statements whenever I caught it. And I am not saying that he “implies” one thing and say another, or imply two different things. I am saying he literally makes statements that contradict each other, sometimes in the space of only a few minutes. The commonplace is that we should not think someone is being malicious when in fact they could simply be stupid. But Dr. Sayed was not stupid, and so that leads us only to one conclusion.

    This could definitely play into the race, if we disagree on something, and when we want to set it straight so that we could determine which path to take or what to do, he says he said one thing, when in fact he said two contradictory things so he could claim one or the other whenever it suits him. But at least I would have video evidence.

    Despite that, I imagine I could bring this up with him before the race, and he would happily do his best to avoid that tendency. He was not a malicious or bad person. We all have issues with ourselves, fallen creatures of God that we are. But the good things about him definitely overwhelmed the bad things. He probably dealt with a lot more from me. Once, he said I was “harsh and cynical.” And this was during a compliment. It was more like, “Even if you are harsh and cynical…”

    Obviously, he left me. And he was a doctor while I am a failure of a writer. No matter how many other ways we are compatible, he and I simply did not share success in common, and I think that’s very important. He never said that outright, but I’ve always felt it. But my art I think is very much a matter of compulsion. If I cannot write, I am basically nothing. I have been writing everyday ever since I was maybe 8 or 9, when I would carry notebooks with me and write anything and everything I could think of.

    Just like night I had a dream that my new computer failed, and I was complaining to my family that the most important issue is I cannot write without a computer. I am simply too used to the keyboard, so I cannot write longhand. There is also a kind of hypnotic, calming quality to using a keyboard. And I love my Leopold keyboard with Topre keys. I recommend it to everyone I know. Not only is it amazing to use in terms of its feel but it is also incredibly, incredibly sturdy. I have had several mechanical keyboards, but this one is simply the best.

    In any case, writing is so important to me that if I succeed with it, then that would be wonderful. But if I cannot, then I am stuck doing it everyday until I die. The term “graphomania” comes to mind, but I am not so overwhelmed by this compulsion that it is an obsession. It does not rise to the level of pathology. It would be more appropriate called a stubborn way of life. Although if I do experience some type of psychotic break, I think graphomania would be the best candidate for what it would manifest as.

    When I was with Dr. Sayed, I would write short fiction with us as the characters. He would pretend to read my work, although at some point they became short enough that he could actually read them. He was always very encouraging, but at the same time I think being a character in dozens of my fiction began to unnerve him, plainly because he was not expecting me to occupy so much of my life with him. I think he wanted to situate me more as a fling rather than someone with whom he could actually share his life. And this is why he decided to go.

    We’ve spoken many times about why he wanted to leave, and the reasons were always incomprehensible gibberish. Which is how I knew that he would not tell me the real reason. My immediate intuition is he had someone else that he wanted to be with, but he denied this so fervently that I was inclined to believe him simply because he did not give me a choice. I still consider this to be a very strong possibility. He is attractive enough. I also know that it is possible that, when he spoke to me about it, he really did believe that he was not lying, because he thought in his mind that although he was more attracted to someone else than me, he would not pursue them. And he “only then” decided to be with that person after leaving, perhaps going thru some manufactured drama that he did not want to do it, he had to do it because he liked her too much to pass it up even if he was going back on his word, &c.

    It was also possible that, while he was with me, he was already with someone else. But I don’t think he is capable of this type of outright betrayal. It is also possible that he was telling the truth. Maybe he was. But I doubt it. I doubt because he was sneaky. Do you know what I mean? If he were always transparent with me, then I wouldn’t have any suspicions, even when sometimes things didn’t make sense to me. Sometimes, people simply do things that don’t make sense. But when someone tends to hide things and lie, then one naturally makes the very logical conclusion that they are hiding and lying about something.

    If I were ever to join the Amazing Race, I wouldn’t mind at all being eliminated and not winning the million dollars. That type of trip around the world would easily be a worthy consolation prize. But I would hate to be eliminated too early, and especially being eliminated first. In that case, then, there was not much for us to have experienced, and it would simply be a total loss.

    There would be the places and the countries and the people, but there is also exploring the landscape of your own mind and the landscape of your relationship with your partner, whether it be your friend or lover or family member. That is a vista that can only be explored if you dare to challenge it; our true selves are only exposed through the pressures of adversity. And like the mountains of the alps or the jungles of South America, the human spirit was created only by God, and if you search deep enough you can see the imprints of his hands, left while he crafted us in the beginning of time.  

  • Amazing Race Across My Psyche S01E01: Evolution Can Be So Random

    A very badly made AI poster for my post that I am too lazy to fix

    The Racers

    Leo & Ferdinand – Second-time lovers from Toronto.
    Marissa & Chloe – Best friends and pastry chefs from Sydney.
    Tariq & Mahmoud – Taxi-driving brothers from Cairo.
    Bingus & Eep – Re’Tikkan overlords from Velath Prime.
    Eleri & Nia – Welsh furry fetishists from Cardiff.
    Dina & Lilibeth – OFW coworkers from Dubai.
    Sheldon & Craig – High-school teachers from Vancouver.

    First Destination: My High School Years

    The Kitchen. My childhood home in 1999 is the starting line for a race around my psyche. The house is spacious, but riddled with cockroaches, dirty, and cluttered. Televisions in all the rooms means that, in the middle of the day on weekends, it almost seems deserted, but for the sound of midday shows emanating from different corners of the house, faintly.

    For their first task, the teams must find all the listed ingredients for chicken adobo, a classic Filipino dish made of chicken and soy sauce. The kitchen is disorganized, and the cupboards are full of roaches. Ingredients that are rotten or discolored will not be accepted, and dirty ingredients must first be cleaned before being handed over. Once they have obtained all the ingredients on the list, they must give them to the house helper for their first clue.

    All the teams scramble around the kitchen/dining room to look for the ingredients. Marissa & Chloe struggle with the cockroaches. At some point, Marissa opens a cupboard and a cockroach crawls up her hand, making her scream so loudly that everyone else turns towards her. In a confessional interview, Eep says that he does not understand how humans could be so afraid of tiny things. Bingus says that this is an evolutionary response called disgust. Eep says, “This is why we need to introduce this species to prenatal genetic modification. Evolution can be so random.”

    Dina & Lilibeth find the ingredients quickly and without looking much at the list because they are Filipino overseas workers. They grew up cooking adobo and continue to do so. Dina says, “We still cook it whenever we want to think of home.” Their quick completion grants them an early lead.

    Leo & Ferdinand bicker. Leo becomes frustrated trying to find the ginger. He looks at one directly and passes over it; he does not seem to know what it is. Ferdinand in turn becomes frustrated with Leo’s constant whining and attitude, especially when they become the last team there.

    Clue: Travel to Grade School. The teams must travel to my grade school, a Benedictine Catholic school.  

    Roadblock: Make Friends. In this roadblock, one member of each team must approach a group of boys and try to befriend them. They must use their wiles and their tentative grasp of the truth to convince these children to bring them into their fold. When the children are sufficiently convinced that their presence is a benefit to the group, the leader of the group will give them their next clue.

    Dina & Lilibeth are the first out of the kitchen. They go into the massive vacant lot near our house that we use as a parking lot and ride one of the cars out. But the disorganized streets of the suburbs, along with gates that seem to be placed at random and in a recursive manner, confuses them. At some point, they have to leave their IDs at the gate (they use their passport), and then reach another gate that requires an ID. They plead with the guard to let them in, even trying to negotiate with them in Tagalog, but they refuse.

    Bingus & Eep [1st] are the first at the school. Bingus performs the roadblock. Confessional: Bingus says, “I don’t know much about human children. I don’t know how different they are from adults. All I know is they’re smaller and not very smart.” Eep says, “And they like chocolate.” Bingus agrees. “And they like chocolate.”

    Bingus approaches. The boys do not seem very friendly, especially towards him. He starts by trying to talk to them about science. They laugh at him. He talks about chocolate. The boys are not interested. They also cannot seem to understand him because of his Velathi accent.

    Eleri of Eleri & Nia [2nd] does the task. Confessional: Nia says, “I’ve known Eleri since I was like 9 years old. We’ve always been the weird ones, and it was nice to have a partner in being weird. She’s always been so friendly, even to the people who were mean to us. So, I have no doubt that she’s going to do great.”

    Eleri approaches the boys and while they take time to warm up to her, she brings up the subject of who the boys like among the girls, and whether any of them secretly like other boys. “Nothing wrong with being gay,” Eleri says. “Remember that! Don’t change for anyone! Don’t be ashamed of who you are!” Eventually, they are laughing, and one of the boys hands her a clue.

    Eep sees this and looks worried.

    Leo of Leo & Ferdinand [last] bring the ginger to Ferdinand. He says, “Is this it? Is this ginger?” Ferdinand takes one look and he rolls his eyes.

    “Did you have this all this time?” Ferdinand says.

    “I didn’t know what it was!” Leo says.  

    Sheldon & Craig [3rd] arrive at the school. As they walk in, Craig mutters, “Class is back in session.” Confessional: Craig says, “We’re high school teachers. I’m definitely more of a disciplinarian, and Sheldon is more of a free-loving, whatever-goes teacher. That’s why Sheldon should probably do this between the two of us.”

    Detour: Dress Up or Jot Down. For Dress Up, the teams must enter a wardrobe room and change their clothes according to the standards set in the Benedictine school manual, including getting a haircut according to school rules for males. When they’ve satisfied a school prefect, the prefect will hand them their clue. For Jot Down, the teams must copy several pages of notes written on the blackboard by hand legibly and neatly. Then, they must submit their notes to the teacher. If the teacher is satisfied with their work, then she will hand them their next clue.

    Eleri & Nia [1st] arrive choose to do Dress Up. They enter a room full of different clothes on hangers and in cabinets. The manual says that they need to look a certain way, with the uniform, their hair, and their skirt. They quickly put clothes that look like the ones in the manual, and they run to the prefect, but he does not approve.

    While doing it, Tariq & Mahmoud [2nd] come in. They realize that they need to get a haircut, but they are already wearing their hair very short. Confessional: Tariq said, “In Cairo, you can’t really have long hair. It’s too hot. You’re going to have sweat on your head all day and stink like a toilet brush.”

    Marissa & Chloe [4th] arrive at the school, and Chloe does the roadblock. They talk to a group of girls. Confessional: Chloe says, “I consider myself a gregarious person. I like to party and make new friends. And at our business you have no choice. To get your clients, you’re going to have to be a good talker and people have to like you. I mean, there are pastry shops everywhere in Sidney. What really sets you apart is how you relate to people.”

    She talks to them about cooking first and then make up. They don’t seem interested. But then she talks about her website and how it’s so difficult to update. The girls are very interested in computers. One of them wants to become an engineer. Chloe encourages her and gives her some advice about being a woman in business. She receives her clue.

    Dina & Lilibeth [6th]take their passports back at the first gate they went through. Dina is driving, and she looks very frustrated. About to explode. Confessional: Dina says, “Apparently, we weren’t even going the right way. I mean, there was a way through there, but the right way was to just go through the main road. So frustrating.”

    They arrive at the school. Dina approaches a group of girls. Immediately, one of them side-eyes her. Dina tries to talk to her, but the girl continues to sneer at her. She sighs and realizes that this won’t be easy.

    Sheldon & Craig [3rd] choose to do Dress Up. Confessional: Sheldon says, “Following school policy is second nature to us. We’ve been teachers for more than ten years at this point. This should be nothing to us.” They quickly get dressed. Sheldon needed a bit of a haircut, which he did with a designated barber on-site no problem. He needed to sit on a regular chair and put on a barbershop’s gown. Then, they presented themselves to the prefect, and they got their next clue.

    Eleri & Nia [2nd] try again, and it seems like they have everything correct. But they approach the prefect, and they get refused. They look at the manual again. Then, Nia realizes: “We don’t have the hair right. We should have them tied back.” They quickly use scrunchies to tie them back. They go to the prefect again, and they finally receive their clue.

    Bingus of Bingus & Eep [5th] finally connects with the group of boys by showing them that he could smack himself in the back of the head and pop out his eyeballs until they are hanging by the stalks. This makes them laugh so hard that the leader of the group hands them their next clue. They read it and run to the roadblock. They choose Jot Down. Confessional: Eep says, “It’s pretty difficult to read and copy human writing. But human fashion is much, much more confusing for us.”

    Clue: St. Benedict. The teams are instructed to find the patron of the school. They must determine that this is St. Benedict, who has a larger-than-life statue in the middle of the school quad. They must approach this statue, which serves as the pit stop for this leg of the race.

    Tariq & Mahmoud find the statue. They are the first on the mat. There, the abbot of the connected Benedictine abbey greets them. “Welcome to St. Bede Abbey School.” They thank him.

    I am there, as a high school boy. With a beard, despite being so young. Face untouched by acne but instead made rough by eczema, especially around the nose. I wore rimless glasses that were too small for my face. My eyes were perpetually bloodshot because I had revenge insomnia. I went home, slept until it was midnight, and stayed up until 4AM or sometimes didn’t sleep at all.

    “Tariq & Mahmoud, you are the first team to arrive,” I tell them.

    Soon after, Eleri & Nia arrive and step on the mat.

    “Eleri & Nia, you are team number two.”

    They celebrate.

    In a classroom, Bingus & Eep [4th]are trying to write with their long fingers, but they can’t properly hold a pen.

    Bingus, while writing, says, “See, we don’t use manual instruments to inscribe symbols anymore. Our civilization has let that go a looooong time ago.”

    The camera zooms in on his writing. It is totally illegible.

    The teacher watching as she stands above them shakes her head.

    Dina of Dina & Lilibeth [6th] is trying to make headway with the group of girls. She is talking and laughing and going on and on about all sorts of things, but they are simply not reacting to her.

    Confessional: Dina says, “It’s impossible. Absolutely impossible. They just really hate me. I mean, like, personally.”

    Sheldon & Craig arrive at the statue. They finish third.

    Marissa & Chloe [5th] choose to do Jot Down. They see the aliens there. Chloe says, “The aliens are here. Thank god. Those extraterrestrials know nothing about human writing.”

    Leo & Ferdinand [last] only just arrive. They quickly run to a group. But the group catches on early that he is gay, and they are visibly amused and somewhat disgusted that they have to talk to a gay guy.

    Bingus & Eep [4th] finish their writing. They go to the teacher. Surprisingly, even though there were erasures, the teacher accepts. They get their clue. Marissa & Chloe watch them running off. Marissa says, “How could they finish? They’re freaking aliens. They don’t even go to school.”

    Bingus & Eep arrive at the pit spot. They are the fourth team to arrive. Confessional: Eep says, “Humans definitely tend to underestimate us because we’re not members of their species, and we come from very far away. But that’s on them, because we have strengths that they don’t even know about.” Bingus says, “And we can do long division in our heads. Fast.” Eep says, “Really fast.”

    Dina & Lilibeth [6th] decide to do Dress Up. Confessional: Dina says, “We grew up in Manila. We went to this type of strict Catholic school. We didn’t really even need the manual. We dressed like this for like the majority of our lives.”

    They dress really quickly and get their clue from the prefect. Confessional: Lilibeth says, “After everything, I’m glad that something went our way. Because at that point I was just exhausted. I used to work two jobs when my babies were first born, but I was never this exhausted.” Dina says, “Probably because you didn’t have to do weird stuff like this.”

    They arrive at the pit stop and finish fifth.

    Leo of Leo & Ferdinand finally makes friends with the boys. They convince them to try and walk like a model with him. They were hesitant, but eventually they were all walking down a pretend walkway, doing poses, swaying their hips. Maybe they weren’t such homophobes after all. From the way they were doing it, it seemed like they might have been closer to their feminine sides than they would like to admit. The leader finally gives them their clue, and they rush to the detour. They do Dress Up.

    At this point, only one spot is left, and both Leo & Ferdinand and Marissa & Chloe are still at the detour.

    Marissa & Chloe go to the teacher. The teacher says no. The seem surprised. They go over the notes again. Marissa says, “I don’t get it…” They look at the notes and the stuff written on the board.

    Leo & Ferdinand get dressed quickly. They present themselves to the prefect and get their clue.

    Marissa & Chloe realize that they’ve made several typographical errors. They go through their work and correct them. They go through every word and, when they think they have it, they go to the teacher again. Still, she says no.

    “We’re missing something,” Marissa says. She looks at the board and then their work. And she realizes that they’ve made many more mistakes than they originally caught. So, they go through it again.

    Confessional: Marissa says, “We were looking at our work to see if it made sense and correcting spelling errors and stuff. But there were mistakes that made sense on paper but they weren’t what was written on the board.” Chloe says, “We were just rushing so much that we didn’t realize we weren’t writing what was literally written down.”

    They go to the teacher again, and they get their clue.

    At the statue, I point into the distance. The abbot looks, and we see a team running towards us. It’s Leo & Ferdinand. They drop their backpacks and run to the mat.

    “Welcome to St. Bede Abbey School,” says the abbot.

    “Thank you,” Leo says. “That was close.”

    “Ready to go on?” I ask them.

    “Oh yeah,” Ferdinand says. “This was tough, especially the challenge with making friends. But we’ve been doing difficult things all our lives. This is just one more thing.”

    Finally, Marissa & Chloe arrive.

    “You are the last team to arrive. I’m sorry to tell you that you have been eliminated from the race.”

    They hug each other. Marissa begins to cry.

    “Be strong,” Chloe mutters to her.

    “We’re just so sad,” Chloe says. “We didn’t want our journey to end this quickly. We feel like we have so much more to give.”

    Confessional: Marissa says, “We’ve known each other for years, and we’ve always leaned on each other whenever life got too difficult. Our experience was cut short but the little we experienced only shows me that our bond is very strong. And only gets stronger everyday.”

    Eliminated: Marissa & Chloe

  • Does God Give a Fuck?

    person hands on holy bible
    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    The other day I was praying. I don’t usually pray, but sometimes I feel compelled to ask for help from someone who actually had the power to help me. And some of my problems only God can help with. I live a comfortable life, but there are things I wish for, mostly with regard to love. God probably looked upon me with compassion, as he always does, with all of his children, but he did not bother with such a ridiculous request.

    One thing that bothers me is when people do not properly account for what God is truly interested in when it comes to us. Sometimes people pray for things like finishing a game or winning money, and I wonder if they truly think that God would grant them that. Of course he would, if he wanted. But that’s definitely not what God cares about. Which is why prayers of this sort, objectively, are granted and not granted based on chance. God do not respond to such prayers because it is outside the scope of his interests.

    Jesus promised us eternal life. There is absolutely no point in him trying to make our 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 years of temporal life better. I do believe that God eases temporal pain, which we can sometimes find unbearable and overwhelming due to mortal weakness, but there are some prayers that are so frivolous and rooted in human pleasure and temporal accomplishment that I cannot believe sometimes that people pray for such things. I might even call such prayers demeaning of the divine.

    Many people also sometimes do not quite understand the nature of heaven. For example, they believe that eternal simply means “a very long time.” That is obviously false, because a very long time is infinitely smaller than eternal—that is to say, it is infinitely more time than “a long time.” It is also not true that we will be bored, that we will be happy, or that we will enjoy ourselves there, because there are no appetites in the spiritual world.

    One is bored when one wants something and one cannot get it, and so one has a negative emotion in relation to that want. Well, humans want for nothing in paradise. So, there are no such feelings that need to exist or, indeed, do exist at all. Being in perfect communion with God in paradise is a state of perfection that is so complete, it has no attributes, modalities, features, characteristics, &c., and thus cannot be described because language is communication that depends on categories that necessarily entail differentiation. Thus, the very core operation of language (differentiation) is absolutely contrary and contradictory to the phenomenon of paradise (perfect communion).

    Therefore, much discourse of what heaven is like is nonsensical. For example, people frequently say things like it would be more entertaining to hang out with those in hell. First of all, that only works if you accept the (equally stupid) notion that people like drag queens, rockstars, drug users, &c., go to hell. In reality, the only people in hell are the most depraved, angry, rancorous people who have completely turned their back on good. Second, unlike in our temporal lives, there is no need to be entertained in heaven, so the point is moot.

    My country is mostly Catholic, although the majority of the people who live in the Southernmost part of the country are Muslim. I was raised Catholic. For a time I was an agnostic, and then atheist, and then realized that many of these positions do not make sense when applied to God because one does not know God the same way that one knows, say, a cup of coffee or a tree or a book. That is to say, God is not an ordinary object because God would necessarily precede and be the source [fons et origo] of all and any concepts applied to him or used to understand him.

    To apply any preposition to God would therefore be improper, as he is not beholden to the rules of propositional logic, reason, or even intuition. All of these things are his creations at the most fundamental level.

    From William Blake’s illustration of the Book of Job

    Thus, I ultimately think that one can only discern God as pure Will. This is the lesson I gather from the Book of Job, my favorite book in the Bible before the Pauline letters. Job’s friends tried to rationalize what happened to him, but God himself appears and speaks in incomprehensible riddles. He does not even address Job or his questions directly, merely asking: Were you there? Do you know anything?

    Through our intellect and through divine revelation, it is possible to know God through his own words, but few things more than that. If I believe in God, it is because Reason as an instrument of knowledge simply falls apart without a First Cause, because causality functions strictly as a chain (even if many arguments points towards spontaneity especially at the subatomic/quantum level). One might recognize this as one of Aquinas’s Five Ways. This goes back further in Aristotle, where the “First Movers” were the highest form of beings, who spent their time contemplating themselves in contemplation, which is the highest form of philosophy—a state of which we would fully realize in Hegel and German Idealism.

    So, in a muddied, perhaps opportunistic way, I do believe in God. I am forced to believe in God; it seems necessary through the very instrument I use to determine what is necessary. And yes I do believe that God is beneath many, many of the things we pray for.

    That’s just what I think. Like I said, God is unknowable fundamentally…

    So maybe he will say yes and give me love soon.

  • Acedia

    The Seven Vices, also the Seven deadly sins: Greed (Avaritia), Acedia or depression without joy (Desidia), Gluttony (Gula), Envy (Invidia), Wrath (Ira), Pride (Superbia) and Extravagance or Lechery (Luxuria) by Pieter Bruegel.

    1

    I am a hikkikomori.

    I know that there are cultural implications of that that don’t exactly fit me. I am not obsessed with anime. I play video games a lot, but not to the extent that hikkikomori would imply. But I am like a cenobite, in that I have not left the house in months. It might have even been a year. I despise going out of the house. I feel trapped. I feel like I am very far from safety, and if I have to suffer, then there is nowhere to go.

    And there are many varieties of things that bother me and make me want to retreat. A big one is boring, stupid, or inane conversation. Whenever such a conversation takes place around me, and especially when I am a part of such conversation, I feel anxious and doomed. That is what it feels like to me: I feel an overwhelming sense of not only death or suffering or pain. Doom. Catastrophic, fateful doom. Total metaphysical collapse.

    I don’t like noise. I don’t like the loud, boisterous conversation of other people. It makes me feel like they are talking about me. I was bullied in high school, and I was never able to get over that. Occasionally, I can get over this, but if I could avoid it, I would prefer it.

    I use a 10,000 Lux lamp to simulate the sun and take Vitamin D supplements. A monk-like life would be perfect for me, if it weren’t for the prohibitions against lascivious behavior and thoughts, against frivolous entertainment. Against touching myself.

    “Augustus? Brother Augustus, what are you doing in there? We have formed a queue out here. Brother Joshua needs to take a holy dump. You better not be abusing yourself!”

    That’s what the rector at my own Benedictine school called it. During confession, we had to tell him if we abused ourselves. The idea is God made our bodies for a certain purpose, and we were not “using it correctly” if we were using our reproductive parts to amuse ourselves.

    God is not only the epitome but the very fons et origo of Order. Thus, it makes no sense that He in His Wisdom would ever design the human body in such a disordered way that masturbation is possible, pleasurable, and harmless (in some cases beneficial) while also being a sin. I reject that. And I’m not necessarily a Christian, and much less Catholic, but my spirituality is definitely rooted in that Abrahamic tradition. If only because that’s what I’ve been surrounded by all my life.

    Ten years ago, a few years after graduating college, I certainly had ambitions (delusions?) of becoming something of a monk. My idea was to study from home through an Internet-based research university and spend my time writing papers on philosophy and social science. During this time I did not know that I was suffering from the delusions of grandeur typical of bipolar disorder. My life had not yet gone long enough or me to discover that there was a very insidious pattern.

    2

    It became clearer when, later, I met a psychiatrist. I was put under observation for ADHD as well as bipolar disorder. And it took a few years but it turned out that these things were the case. The thing about not detecting these things until later in life is, at that point, my habits, my life, my decisions have already been affected by the conditions for much of my life. I cannot expect to take medications, wait a bit until they take effect, and have my life be fixed. Sadly, it simply does not work that way. The medication and the therapy allow a new start, but it is a start from behind. That doesn’t mean the challenge is insurmountable, but there will be times where it seems so.

    Around this time I learned how to drive and exercised my freedom. I went to parties, gallery openings, all sorts of events. I met all kinds of people. We spoke about all sorts of things. And I realized that none of that was for me. I was only barely, barely entertained most of the time. And forget about being enlightened. Forget having any sort of insight about anything. I had no contempt for them. But there was nothing. I felt nothing. Except for very, very few times.

    I remember this one time: I met the girlfriend of the poet boy I had always loved. I speak about him often, so we should have a name for him: Rex. Yes, while yearning for him, he did have a girlfriend. I didn’t do anything that would constitute a betrayal of their trust, so that didn’t bother me and don’t think it was wrong. At some point, they broke up, and that girl—let’s call her Tilly—and I met at a gallery opening one night.

    It is in the nature of these sorts of things for me to think that she was a vicious bitch. Not because that’s how she actually was. I actually didn’t know anything about her, apart from what she looked like, her general attitude, and a few stories that I’ve heard about her. At that point, I knew that she dressed very well, she spoke French, and that she was into the arts & letters, just like most of the people around me. And of course I also knew that Rex loved her. He referred to her sometimes as his wife. Above all, of course, this is what I hated most about her.

    But that evening I met her, we greeted each other, and she was so pleasant that I invited her to have dinner with me and the friend I had there with me. We ate one of the best restaurants in Metro Manila that happened to be beside that particular gallery.

    Over the course of that dinner I realized why Rex loved her. She was an amazing woman. Very well humored, not at all arrogant. She was intelligent, funny, well-spoken, and knowledgeable. I was so wrong and sorry for being so willingly cruel. That was a pivotal moment in my life. I truly felt so stupid to think that someone was a bad person simply because I was envious.

    If anything, it seemed like I was the piece of shit all along.

    3

    In the house I am mostly on my computer. I work at home, and when I am done working I play. For many months my friends have been trying to get me out of the house, especially on my birthday. My parents have given up on this. They mostly leave me alone, although my mother was very upset that on my birthday all I wanted was to stay in the house.

    In the Philippines there is no stigma associated to staying with your parents. In fact, the American stigma regarding that confused me a lot as a kid. In the Philippines you were expected to stay at home, even while married, if you were the youngest, so that you could stay with your parents. Putting an elderly person in a home is a grave moral failure in Filipino society. They are only ever put in homes if all their immediately family has somehow died.

    So, there is not much pressure that makes me want to move out, although my parents have told me that, if I wanted, they could relocate me to some apartment somewhere. We have a family business where I do my fair share of the work (and own a part of that company), so they could simply cut my rent out of share of the profits every quarter. And I truly wouldn’t mind living alone. The problem is I do not want to leave my elderly parents alone in this house. Although they are still very strong, I also know that the digital age is becoming very confusing for older people, especially older people like them who had to work very early in their lives, and so never got much of an education. My parents are not exceptionally smart people. And many times I have had to personally intervene because they were in the middle of getting scammed—my mother frequently tries to buy things she finds on Facebook, many sellers from which are scammers, and my father is the frequent target of crypto scams, especially during the pandemic.

    I want to stay put. I want to stay here. I still want the company of other people, but online I could speak to them and hang out with them while doing something else. And if they are boring, I leave, and I can move on. But in a restaurant or something I am trapped. And I have to pretend that I am interested, and I have to contribute somehow, and when I leave I have to sit in the car until I arrive home.

    4

    During the Medieval Times monks were warned about a very specific cardinal sin called acedia. We translate these nowadays as sloth, and we interpret it as laziness. But that’s not really what acedia is. That’s not what it was originally, and that’s not what the core of what that designated sin is supposed to be.

    Acedia is not sloth of the body, physical laziness, but a kind of lethargy of the soul and the faith. It is a spiritual laziness. It is a deep sorrow that turns one away from the light of the truth. It is more akin to boredom than indolence. Monks were especially susceptible to this because they remained in their cloisters all day, mostly, and lived repetitive lives.

    Today, I think we would recognize acedia as anxiety and depression. They were supposed to cure this with prayer, with virtue, with faith. I don’t know how effective that was. It probably did not work. But it was considered a sin because it was seen as the result of a moral failure and was capable of destroying a person’s soul. It didn’t make much sense, of course, because it wasn’t a person’s fault that they felt a certain kind of way about their situation, but that’s how premodern people saw things. Which is also why they thought information obtained through torture was viable evidence (although it might shock people to discover how infrequent this was actually done).

    I am guilty of this cardinal sin. Very guilty. And while they were obviously wrong about whose fault it was, Medieval people were definitely right about how destructive it is.

    The cure is love. Love that recognizes the immense beauty of Creation. That invigorates the soul to realize that there is purpose, there is meaning to be found out there, if one only seeks it, and that this seeking is a worthwhile endeavor. When I am in love I do feel the acedia lifting. And it can be difficult for me, with my limitations, but I look towards the future with a measure of hope. And this hope disperses just enough of the darkness for me to not be totally consumed by it.

    For now.

  • Fabiano Caruana, My Love

    I am very attracted to Fabiano Caruana.

    I’ve known him for more than a decade now, ever since I started playing Chess during college. Didn’t really think much of him then, even if he was considered even then one of the main contenders for World Champion, although always trailing behind Magnus Carlsen. It was only recently that I began to realize that not only is he one of the greatest chess players of all time, but he is also very handsome in his own very particular way.

    He is very calm, and in some pictures with his large eyes it looks like he was frozen in fear facing an oncoming train. But within that exterior, within, he was a genius, the likes of which there are less than a few hundred thousand in the world. Less than a percent in the entire history of humanity. That is incredible, incredible power, all the while being understated, calm.

    Obviously I don’t know Mr. Caruana in person. So, I don’t know if he only seems this way in his public appearances. It is perfectly possible that, in private, he could violent and prone to rage and arrogant, like Kasparov both in private and in public. But I doubt it. It would need to be very well hidden, given how much insight we have of his life.

    Not that it would matter, as I would never know him. He would probably never know I exist. And even if he ever did, through some fan meet or because I wave at him at a tournament, he must be so busy. He would have no time to talk to me or message me. Much less take me on a romantic hiking trip in the Alps, where we would retrace the steps of the Carthaginian war elephants during the Second Punic War. Look out into Italy from the cliffs and accidentally touch hands. Glance at each other, laugh, blush, and then hold hands without averting our gaze from the view.

    He would never ask me to join the Amazing Race. Train with me for months to get me in shape, physically and mentally. And then during the race his intellect, focus, strategy, and memory would carry us through to the final legs. Occasionally, we would get in each other’s nerves.

    During a roadblock in Phenom Phen he would have to count the number of female figures on a temple wall doing a specific pose. We would be both tired and a little bit annoyed because of a mix-up during a previous challenge. I also tripped while running down the sidewalk, and he was very worried for a second, which also disrupted his mental.

    He already went around the temple a few dozen times. Three groups were there when we arrived, but now we were the only ones left.

    “What’s going on?” I ask him from the side.

    He had just come back from having gone around again. He’s frustrated, sweaty. His face is so expressive; it’s easy to see he’s pissed off.

    “I don’t know,” he says, not even looking at me. He stops and places a hand on his hip and uses another hand to wipe the sweat from his brow.

    “Go to the guy,” I say, pointing at the monk who had our clue.

    He doesn’t say anything, so I say it again. “Go to the guy!”

    “I know!” he snaps at me.

    I’d be afraid that we’re in last place, but several teams come. This reassures me a bit.

    Another team talks about how Fabiano is a grandmaster. His memory skills should be amazing. I overhear this. The camera zooms in on my face. I’m furious.

    We come fifth among the remaining seven. The last team wasn’t even eliminated; it was a non-elimination round. During our post-leg interview, we talk about how much we love each other.

    He says, “Every relationship has challenges. And we’ve had our share. But no matter what happens, we know we have each other’s back. And I’d never be here with anyone but August.”

    And he looks at me. I look at him.

    We kiss, but the televised version cuts that part because too many conservatives watch the show, and the producers don’t want to offend anyone.

    That’s never going to happen. But I like thinking about it. And I like seeing him and watching him online. I love seeing his games, his analyses, his tutorials. That’s enough for me. I have a feeling that I don’t need to get too greedy when it comes to men I’ll never have. There will be a lot more.  

  • Important Car Rides of My Life #1

    Photo by Burak The Weekender on Pexels.com

    After a night out, I always feel some type of way in the car on the way home. Especially when something important happened. It’s rare when something important happens during a night out, but when it does, the car ride home feels like another universe.

    Beside our university, there was a McDonald’s. It was always full. Always. People had to stand around waiting for seats, and when one opened up, it was, for that brief moment, like the Hunger Games. We have all accepted that, on the way to get a seat, all rules of decent society are suspended. We are animals of the basest kind. And whoever gets their ass on the seat first wins.

    But we were a bit luckier because it was 9PM. I don’t remember why I was there so late. Maybe there was a bazaar or festival or something. We decided to meet. For weeks then I had already been thinking about him.

    He said, “Do you have to be anywhere? Am I wasting your time?”

    We were seated outside. There was a traffic jam on the avenue, as usual. Occaisonally, the LRT passed above the cars, loudly traveling on the rails.

    I remember thinking no one has ever asked me that before. No one has ever asked about whether they were wasting my time, and no one has ever used those words in that order. Something about it struck me.

    I said, “No. No, of course not.” I wanted to say: I don’t want to be anywhere else in the world but here with you right now. Right here.

    I don’t remember what we were eating. But we ordered food, and we were looking at each other. I’ve loved him for years at this point. We were classmates during the first year of college but then he went to the United States. He came back a year later. And by then I still felt for him what I felt before he left.

    He wasn’t especially handsome. But he was good looking. It was the way he acted, the things he said, the things he knew. And his eyes. He had large eyes that betrayed an innocence that every second became indistinguishable from stupidity. And desire. Hot, burning desire.

    We spoke about poetry and life in America. And I brought up a girl he used to love. She was one of my best friends. And he adored her. He always sat beside her, followed her around like a puppy. She was late to come to school one day, so he spent the day with me. And when we came across her on the way to class, he shouted her name to get her attention and made for her. He didn’t even look at me as he said goodbye. I felt that was very apt.

    I asked him, now, about her, and although he was amiable, the question seemed to have upset him. Later, I’d read his blog, and he seemed to reference it. “A friend asked me about something that happened years ago,” he wrote. “He spoke like he knew. Did you know? Were you there?”

    I don’t think he understood the extent to which I was familiar with what happened between him and that girl. She told me everything. She told me everything because she knew that I really liked him. And she didn’t like him much. That bothered me.

    I remember being at my aunt’s party. She held it at her nursery school. They had to close the gates and the blinds so that nobody saw that she had invited her family and friends over for a party. Behind a bookcase, there was a bedroom and a kitchenette, where the teachers she hired could live. She let me use the computer in there.

    I spoke to that girl, and she was telling me about how they had gone to a bar the previous night. They both got drunk. She needed to puke, and the boy went with her to the bathroom, so that he could help her as she puked. He held her hair and made sure that she didn’t get any on her. And because of her drunkenness she then began to kiss him. Deeply. With tongues swirling around each other’s mouths.

    She was telling me about how she regretted it. How she wished that she liked him, given how much he liked her, but she simply didn’t. And I know that I was asking for it, since instead of asking her to keep these things to herself, I actively asked her to update me about their relationship. But I got very angry. I said: You know how much I like him. The way you’re talking so casually about how much you don’t like him is very inconsiderate. Which it was. But at the same time I had as much a hand in that pain as her. Maybe more.

    But now it was two years later. He was sitting in front of me, and we were spending time together. She had long forgotten about him; she had a boyfriend now. I felt like, unlike then, I had him to myself. Which wasn’t true of course. Absolutely untrue.

    In any case, we spoke so much about poetry and literature and video games that my father began telling me to go home. I was lucky enough to have someone drive me home, an employee of his he paid extra to drive me. He wrote his email on the back of the receipt so that I could email him. On the car, Sweet Soul Revue by Pizzicato Five was playing. And until today I associate that song strongly with that evening.

    The more I spent time with him, the more I wanted him, but the more it was apparent that he loved women. He loved beautiful, intelligent women with European and American sensibilities. He was never going to love me or even like me or even be romantic towards me. I never asked, but it was obvious to me at some point. So, I never asked and I never tried anything. I never even broached the subject.

    But he did tell me about having sex. His preferences, the things he liked. How he would go about it. The things that happened before, during, after. And that was supposed to be enough for me. He would never do those things with me, but I knew how it would happen if it did happen. Which it never would.

    I remember that drive home. All I could think about was how happy I was. How much I missed him. How handsome I still found him. I remember that Japanese song playing. I remember the horrible Manila traffic. The harsh lights of the freeway. And I remember thinking I loved him. How stupid I must be because I loved him.