Fexmouth

/ˈfɛksməθ/

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  • The Phenomenology of Spirit on My Birthday

    Bildnis des Philosophen Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Berlin 1831 by Jakob Schlesinger (1792-1855)

    I’m 34 now.

    My family asked me: What do you want for your birthday?

    I don’t know what I want.

    In the Other Place I sat with Hegel in his house, watching him scramble for wine and food as Napoleon’s soldiers ravaged Jena. It was cold, and though I was already wearing my Muji jacket I got from Japan in 2019, I was still shivering and had to keep my hands under my arms.

    “So terribly sorry to be rude,” he said, casting a tired glance at me as he walked from one end of the room to the other. “You caught me during a most dreadful time. The most dreadful time…”

    “Don’t worry about me, Dr. Hegel,” I said. “I just needed to clear my head.”

    “And you wanted to do that here?” He laughed and poured wine into glasses on the table, all pooled together. “Perhaps you should get out of the city, Herr Tabernak. Times are… fragile and close to falling apart.”

    We heard an explosion in the distance, and then a cacophony of screams and running.

    “If it hasn’t already,” Hegel said.

    I saw the lines on his face, the bags underneath his eyes. He looked quite gaunt, especially in his thick, flowing ermine robes.

    “Are you sure you don’t want to escape?” I said. “Don’t you have a manuscript to submit, professor?”

    “Yes. I do. It doesn’t matter. It’s almost done… I can’t leave my home. I only need to survive, and soon enough it will all be over.” He briefly glanced at me and gave his best impression of a smile. “One thing you can count on is that things end. All things end. Eventually. If only we’re patient.”

    He went into the kitchen. He was gone for a long while. Outside the window, there was smoke in the horizon, but I couldn’t see where it was coming from. Once in a while, soldiers passed by the window, but it seemed the majority of the army had not arrived yet. But carriages and groups of people were shuffling in all directions, doing their best to leave, or find somebody, or feel as if they were doing something. Anything.

    Hegel came out with several servants carrying trays of freshly cooked food. He directed them to place it on the table, so that it appeared as though he were having a feast. The servants did not look at all worried. They were busy; they could put worrying aside.

    Hegel tried one of the soups. Although his face barely moved, it moved enough to show contempt. He beckoned one of the servants and in swift, colloquial German he berated them for how it tasted off. The servant bowed his hand, muttering, “Ja, Mein Herr… Ja Mein Herr…”

    When he was finished, he shooed him off and shook his head.

    “I’m sorry,” Hegel told me. “You know how the French can be with their food. I’m not taking any chances. Especially while they’re holding guns.”

    I didn’t say anything, but I smiled.

    “Hungry?”

    “No, no. Save these for the soldiers.”

    “Bitte… I insist.” Hegel stopped a servant that was passing behind him and told him to serve me a plate. I tried to meet the servant’s eye to thank him, but he looked away. They weren’t supposed to make eye contact.

    He sat down and had a plate set for him as well.

    “So,” he said, slicing into a shank. “To what do I owe this visit, my friend?”

    I started with the soup. It was bland. I supposed during this time salt was too expensive to use.

    “It was my birthday,” I said.

    “Oh? Happy Birthday. When was this?”

    “A few days ago…”

    “I hope you had a lovely birthday. I hope you celebrated it far away from this.”

    “It was peaceful. Very peaceful. Some might even say too peaceful.”

    “Too peaceful? Maybe you can give me some.”

    We chuckled politely at each other. “I know you’re worried. But don’t be too worried. You’ll survive. I know that for a fact.”

    “You know this because you’re from somewhere else, and this grants you mystical powers?”

    “I just know.”

    He smiled at me the way a grandfather does to a grandson. “If you say so.”

    At some point, we were eating in silence. Despite the background noise, the house seemed empty and still and undisturbed. I thought about how, where I came from, something was always happening somewhere. A television, a computer, an iPad…

    Here, the stillness wasn’t only eerie but alien.

    Then, we were jolted from our stupor by a loud thud on the door. When they realized that the door was locked from the inside, they began to know.

    “Open the door!” a man said. “Grande Armée!”

    Servants peeked out from the doorway to the kitchen. I looked at Hegel. His fork was held aloft, and it was shaking.

    He put the fork down and stood up. He ran a hand through his long, greasy, brown hair. He walked in long, measured strides towards the double doors and opened it.

    There, a handful of soldiers were standing carrying their rifles. The one nearest the door had a bushy mustache and a bulbous, pocked nose.

    “We commandeer this house in the name of the Grande Armée,” he said. “You may take all the provisions you can carry and leave.”

    “But monsieur…” Hegel said. “This is my house.”

    “We need it to station our troops. You may return when the war has abated, but for now you must vacate.”

    “Shall we talk about this? I’ve prepared a little feast for us.” Hegel stepped back and motioned for them to come in. “How about we discuss this over some wine and food? I’m sure you’re all famished.”

    The soldier stood there, seemingly taken aback by the brazenness of this old man. Still, from the paleness of his face, it was apparent that they were indeed hungry. And more importantly, in no mood to use more force than necessary. So, he turned to the soldiers behind him and told them to come.

    Eight soldiers entered. They sat around the table, with their leader sitting at the head of the table. Hegel sat at the other end. The others noticed me and eventually they were all looking at me and whispering. They didn’t recognize my clothes. And with my face I looked strange to them.

    “This is my friend,” Hegel said. “Augustus.”

    I bowed my head, while still sitting on my chair. “Gentlemen…”

    They bowed and muttered their greetings in return.

    “It is his birthday.”

    “Joyeux anniversaire…” they muttered.

    “Quite the time and place to celebrate it,” the leader of the soldiers said. “You should be glad, monsieur. History is being made here.”

    “I didn’t catch your name, monsieur,” Hegel said. “My name is Georg Hegel. You?”

    “Pierre L’Comte, caporal-fourrier of the Grand Armée,” he said. “We were sent here on a mission to see what we can scour from this town. The Emperor wants to make sure that we have more than enough provisions for our campaign. As you know, he is in a most grand mission for the Empire…”

    “I saw him.” Hegel looked around the tables, his expression pure awe. “The Emperor Napoleon, riding on horseback, as if History itself were amongst us.”

    “Yes, well…” Pierre had sipped his soup. Some of it was caught in his mustache, and he wiped it with his napkin. “History has given us a quota, and we have been going up and down this street for the better part of the morning. We’re hoping that this house will be the last.”

    “Take whatever you want,” Hegel said. “It would be my honor to help The Emperor.”

    “Then you must leave immediately,” Pierre said, straightforwardly. “We will commandeer this house.”

    Hegel searched for the words, but he couldn’t speak. He looked around, as if having lost something, and then took his wine glass and raised it.

    “A toast,” he said. “To Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, by the Grace of God, Emperor of France—and to my friend, Augustus, born on this day.”

    The soldiers and the quartermaster raised their glasses, and so did I.

    “Prost!” Hegel said.

    “Prost…” echoed everyone else, except me.

    Hegel took a sip of his wine. Then, he said, “And how was your year?”

    I shrugged. “Nothing happened.”

    “An entire year?”

    “Yes. An entire year.” I took a sip of my wine. Wine here, at this time, was much sweeter. Tasted less of alcohol. And Hegel put out the expensive kind. “My life has been dragging on towards nothing for a long, long time now. And many times I’ve told myself that I was going to change, that I would try to achieve something, anything. But I never could. I don’t know why.”

    Hegel was going to say something, but Pierre spoke before he could get it out. “We have all been in such situations,” the soldier said. “That is why I joined the army. Well… Why my father forced me to join.”

    I said, “And how did that work out for you, Quartermaster?”

    “I am on a campaign to change the world with The Emperor of France…” he said. His eyes were sunken, with dark rings around them, but his blue eyes might as well have been glowing, despite his sallow complexion. “There is a measure of pride in that for me. In any case, not much time to worry about stuff like that when you’re hungry and cold. Which we usually are.”

     “So that’s it then,” I said. “Time to join the Grand Armée.”

    Pierre looked at Hegel. “And what do you do, Monsieur?”

    Hegel thought for a moment. Perhaps he wondered if he should lie. “I am a professor.”

    “And what do you teach?”

    “Philosophy.”

    “When I was a child, that is what I so wanted to be. Philosophy and mathematics. Do you know any mathematics, Professor Hegel?”

    “One does dabble, doesn’t one?”

    “Any system of philosophy must surely incorporate mathematics? Given that mathematics is the purest expression of the world?”

    “Yes, yes, of course…”

    “Although,” I said. “Professor Hegel does have some misgivings regarding the applicability of mathematics to philosophy.”

    Hegel’s expression hardened upon hearing this, and he stared at me as if to say: Shut up.

    “Do you, Professor?” Pierre said.

    Hegel smiled at the Frenchman. “How about some champagne?”

    On the streets of Jena I walked alongside Hegel. It was cold and foggy. Now, outside, the sounds of gunshots and screams and hooves clattering against the cobblestones were much louder.

    I turned towards the old man. He was sweating, and his long hair had clumped together and was stuck against his face. Occasionally, he swatted against it, but it seemed as though he was too exhausted to even do that.

    “You’ll survive,” I said. “You know that, right?”

    “Thank you,” he said, perfunctorily.

    “And your work will be considered one of the greatest works of philosophy of all time.” We walked so quickly that I was beginning to lose my breath. But I wasn’t afraid. There was nothing to be afraid of. “You are one of my heroes.”

    “Thank you.” But he kept moving and barely looked at me.

    “Okay.”

    We walked in silence for a what must have been half an hour. We passed soldiers and dead bodies and mothers crying over their dead husbands and children. An old woman tripped in front of us, and Hegel rushed to help her up. He spoke in quick, colloquial German that I wasn’t able to understand. While trying to help her up, his manuscript fell on the ground. I was standing behind him and quickly tried to grab it, while he was still trying to help her up.

    When the old woman was standing, she held onto Hegel with both hands, crying and wailing at him. He did his best to console her. She was alone. Hegel was still, nodding, and eventually the woman simply walked away, still crying, still murmuring to herself. The papers had scattered, and was now soiled. I tried to get all of them, but some pages were carried away by the wind.

    “Professor…” I said, handing him the papers back.

    He had been following the woman with his gaze. He noticed me and he snapped back into reality and took the manuscript from me. “Yes. Thank you. I didn’t even…”

    “Some of them were blown away.”

    “That’s fine…” He placed it back in the pocket of his ermine coat. “That’s alright.”

    I turned to continue walking, but he said, “Listen. I know you’re worried. I know that you have been thinking about your birthday, and that’s why you’re here.”

    I stopped.

    “But I have nothing to tell you, my friend. I must go on with my life. So must you. And I appreciate you coming to tell me about my life’s work. I wish… I wish I had more for you. I wish I could grant you the assurance that you have given me.”

    I nodded. “I understand. But thank you.”

    “Of course.” He did his best impression of a smile. His eyes were so weary that they were bloodshot and glassy. “Now, I must continue with my journey. You must, too. I will see you again?”

    “Yes, Professor.”

    “Good. Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag.”

    He patted me on the shoulder, and he went on his way.

  • Dreams

    The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife, 1814 woodcut design by Japanese artist Hokusai

    1

    I had the school dream again. I have the school dream very frequently. I don’t know if I get it more than the average person, but I think so. Because I tell my friends, and they say, “Again?”
    I think it is because the human mind is geared and prepped for work. For very hard work that is always life or death. It is the animals who have that that survive, and so we have all evolved to be like that. But now all I do is sit around and try to amuse myself.

    Freud spoke about this type of dream in The Interpretation of Dreams. He says that people mostly think this type of dream is to remind us that we are past the drudgery of school life. In reality, however, it reminds us that there is work to be done; that we should be working at least as hard as when we were in school.

    In my dream this time I was about to graduate. I needed to work on something in school using books. In the dream I had to carry a few books, around four, five, or six, and they were split between two plastic envelopes. I tried to put them all in one, but they wouldn’t fit. So, I had to put them back. I remember I was reading in my room—in my old room, the room that I had as a kid. The room that’s seen the most trouble. The room where I was many, many times when I was up to no good.

    And then I read for so long that I missed school. And I decided to go anyway, even if I was very, very late, but when I got there, everyone was in the gym, practicing for graduation, and doing choreographed steps at the outside basketball court, moving forwards and sideways to turn around, probably to give everyone a view of their diploma?

    Later, they put up banners against the walls and the fences, showing people who did not pass, not to shame them but as a simple matter of course, and it turned out that I did pass after all. Even if I seemed to think that I would fail chemistry, especially because I did not pass my final assignment. I was so happy that I thought about texting my parents, but I decided to tell them when I got home.

    In those dreams, I always feel strange. And not bad, either. I do not feel dread or malaise or fear. I feel content. I feel very content and happy, but not in an excited way. Even if I am failing an exam or having to do another year, and I am nervous about that in my dream, still, I feel alright in a way that I am not in my waking life. Days seem to be brighter and more meaningful there, despite the troubles of my ongoing academics. I think it is because there, I have a purpose. Freud said that a dream is a fulfillment of a wish, and sometimes these wishes are repressed wishes that we do not wish to recognize. In my case, I think the wish is to have a sense of purpose. Though it will be troublesome, and I will have responsibilities, and I may fail, at least I am doing something.

    Anything…

    2

    I was told that he is a bank president now.

    I was surprised. He used to be a poet. In college, he used to be popular. People and professors admired him for his writing. He had an intimate knowledge of himself, his feelings. His verse had a kind of innocence and yearning and discontent; he reminded me of Kerouac. And he had a kind of boyish charm with his easygoing, breezy attitude. I liked him the moment I saw him. And later I loved him.

    But things went awry the way these things go. He stopped talking to me. And now he was a bank president. I remember his mother was a bank president. Maybe he got the first job that he was offered. I also know that they were very wealthy, and now that he was a bank president then he would continue to be wealthy.

    However, during our younger years, he gave me the impression of being someone who would sacrifice everything for his poetry. Including his wealth. In any case, his parents were so wealthy that he could have lived off of their money while working on his verse. Then again maybe he is like Kafka or TS Eliot, who would work on his writing while having a dayjob. But how much time does a bank president really have?

    He and I used to have a business together. I couldn’t have him as a romantic partner, so I had him as a business partner. That was comparable, in a sense. Deeper responsibilities than being merely friends. Although he seemed to like me a lot before we became business partners. We would meet every Thursday by the bay, across from the cultural center, and speak until past midnight.

    But when we got the business, I realized that this would never do. He would never give me what I truly wanted from him, and being in that state only made me want him more and more. So, one day, after we hadn’t seen each other for a month because it was the holidays, I said we should call it off. And I remember seeing him so shattered and confused. I didn’t expect him to act that way. It made me feel like he didn’t want to lose connection with me. And I remember crying later when I got home. We met again to sell our remaining stock for a few more months, until we fought one day at a cafe because I was complaining that people like him who avoided social media were selfish (I don’t know how we ended up talking about that), and he left and he blocked me and he never spoke to me again.

    I was an ass. I look back now and recognize that for much of my youth I was an ass. Until today, because of that experience, I boldly tell anyone who I like that I like them. Because I don’t want to go through that entire thing again. And if that causes someone to leave me, then that’s better than me trying to chase after them, getting my hopes up, being nervous all the time, wondering if they like me, and then eventually being told that they’re not interested or having things go wrong and missing my opportunity.

    In any case, occasionally, I see him in my dreams. Only a few weeks ago, I saw him there, playing the piano, hanging out with me in a dormitory with two beds. I recongized the room as the one I stayed at during a school retreat. I shared it with five people, but in my dream, it was my and his room we shared in college. In there, he was playing the piano with his long, slender fingers. In reality he played the guitar. I suppose he played a bit of piano, too.

    I’ve never spoken to him ever since that time at the cafe. That was more than 10 years ago now. So, I don’t know why he still appears in my dreams. Although they say that the first person you love becomes the one by which all other loves are measured.

    3

    And ever since then obviously my lovelife has been an unmitigated disaster. The people I had been in real life have always been immature. I don’t know why that always turned out that way. My long distance relationships have always been more interested and varied, but always doomed. Always invariably doomed.

    I like long distance relationships. I like them because they are meaningless, mostly, for us. But we can pretend it matters. I like to pretend. One of the reasons I like to write. Once, the man was very close to coming here. And I was so afraid. I remember being so afraid. Not of him, or of violence, but just the fact that everything was going to change. That a relationship in person would require so much of me.

    I have dreams about boys I like occasionally. I’m surprised it is not more often. Do I secretly not even care about whether anyone loves me? Of those occasional times I’ve never had a sex dream since I was like in puberty.

    Given how much I wish I had somebody who loved me, this seems to be strong evidence against the Freudian commonplace that dreams contain a wish. Although maybe I am not looking hard enough. Maybe there is a reason I want to be loved, and it is that reason that is appearing in my dreams. Lacan had a name for this: objet petit a—the thing that people have, “it,” “the x factor,” “je ne sais qua” that makes us want them.

    I can only guess what that might be for me. Although the objet petit a is not so transparent as to be any one thing; in the unconscious things are not as they are in the ordinary world. Objects, feelings, ideas, concepts, &c., are not demarcated the way ordinary things are.

    But if I had to guess, it would be someone who could give me a purpose.

    4

    The text around the Hokusai woodcut:

    “LARGE OCTOPUS: My wish comes true at last, this day of days; finally I have you in my grasp! Your “bobo” is ripe and full, how wonderful! Superior to all others! To suck and suck and suck some more. After we do it masterfully, I’ll guide you to the Dragon Palace of the Sea God and envelop you. “Zuu sufu sufu chyu chyu chyu tsu zuu fufufuuu…”

    MAIDEN: You hateful octopus! Your sucking at the mouth of my womb makes me gasp for breath! Aah! Yes… it’s… there!!! With the sucker, the sucker!! Inside, squiggle, squiggle, oooh! Oooh, good, oooh good! There, there! Theeeeere! Goood! Whew! Aah! Good, good, aaaaaaaaaah! Not yet! Until now it was I that men called an octopus! An octopus! Ooh! Whew! How are you able…!? Ooh! “Yoyoyooh, saa… hicha hicha gucha gucha, yuchyuu chyu guzu guzu suu suuu…”

    LARGE OCTOPUS: All eight limbs to interwine with!! How do you like it this way? Ah, look! The inside has swollen, moistened by the warm waters of lust. “Nura nura doku doku doku…”

    MAIDEN: Yes, it tingles now; soon there will be no sensation at all left in my hips. Ooooooh! Boundaries and borders gone! I’ve vanished…!!!!!!

    SMALL OCTOPUS: After daddy finishes, I too want to rub and rub my suckers at the ridge of your furry place until you disappear and then I’ll suck some more. “Chyu chyu…””

  • The Walking Dead, S5 E15: “Try”

    The Walking Dead – Season 5, Episode 15: “Try” – Father Son Holy Gore

    Many of the problems in Alexandria are simple. There is no system, and there is no force that guarantees the power of the leader. Thus, Deanne’s power is fragile and via the free consensus of the majority. At any time, the majority could withdraw this consensus, and the society would immediately devolve into anarchy. The force that she does integrate as the executive is Rick and Michionne—the problem is they are not loyal to her. So, essentially, she brought in an armed force that had every incentive to take them over, especially since Alexandria is inhabited by people who do not know how to fight and are not hardened by suffering the way Rick and the others were.

    The situation here evokes the concept of the monopoly of violence and civilian control of the military. The military is a kind of “shadow society,” with its own professionals, tradesmen, service people, &c., as well as its multitude of soldiers. Compared with the rest of the population, they are stronger in all possible ways. They are supposed to be. The problem is, if they are not under the complete control of the civilian population, then they could and many times do take over. Many parts of the world are under military control, juntas, usually as a result of a breakdown of civilian society but sometimes also as a result of coups or forced takeovers.

    In a post-apocalyptic scenario, I imagine (as I’ve mentioned before) that the warrior class would take precedence over every other class, and the most successful societies would have a primarily militarized culture. The brutal realities of scarcity and the lack of widespread institutions upon which people can depend make that a necessity. As such, Rick was right to feel that Alexandria was primed for collapse. It had no way with which it could defend itself during a full-scale attack, which was likely given their prosperity. They would also at some point require more and more people to help with their increasing needs, which increases needs further necessitating more people still, and in such cases an internal security force would be needed to supplant the external force that protects from threats outside.

    As a member of the police force before the apocalypse, Rick was very much aware of this. However, being the idiot that he is, he does not articulate it in any way that makes sense. Rather, he has a vague feeling that something is not right. Moreover, his attraction to a married woman was the ultimate cause of his outburst. The justifications regarding security were secondary.  

    At this point, these people were dramatically, irrevocably traumatized. They could not and never be expected to function in the heightened capacity that they had to in their given roles. And Rick and the others were showing signs of the disordered thought associated with PTSD, with Rick especially given his aggression. A person like Deanne should have been able to know this. Alexandria was therefore doomed to fail.

    Carol in particular was very deeply traumatized. She has been so traumatized by so many different kinds of tragedies in her life that she has integrated her response to this trauma into her very ethos. She has purged herself of every caring instinct, and though in the beginning it seemed as though she was ready to return to a kind of suburban housewife mindset, we see later that actually it was a ruse that was part of her ruthless machinations.

    Rick is a total loss. It strains belief to think that the people still consider him their leader, even after he makes such terrible calls, although we do see them beginning to realize that he may not be fit for the job. And as always it is Michonne who ends up knocking some sense into him—which in the case of Rick is knocking him completely out, since there was no sense left. I still don’t understand why she is not their leader.

    The very apparent problems of societies like Alexandria I think are what rob these later seasons of drama, including the pacing of the stories that are simply too fast. We are not given enough time to care about these people. And with such a simple scenario without people that we can truly, deeply care about and understand the series becomes a series of events that, while titillating, and somewhat interesting, are still not to the level of storytelling that can be considered great.

  • The Walking Dead S5, E1: “No Sanctuary”

    Cannibalism is a particular type of turning from civilized society. It requires all the technological and logistic advancements we have today: Organized supply chain, hygienic practices, and so on, but featuring the ghastliest taboo that few is considered one of the greatest abominations.

    Historically, civilized people have had to resort to cannibalism under the most dire circumstances. Shipwrecked people during the 1800s have practiced cannibalism through a ritual called the “delicate question.” All willing drew straws, and the person who drew the short straw was eaten, the idea being that in participating in the vote, they also participate in the risk. This ritual was very important. Anyone who partook in this type of cannibalism by necessity was considered innocent under the law, and was not shunned by society, because it was done under the guise of civilization: that of democracy. However, people who have been found to not have undergone this ritual, and instead ate the weakest among them, were found guilty of murder.

    This would only change later, when British Law found that under even deathly and desperate circumstances, the right course of action would be to accept death. That is, under the law, there are no circumstances in which another person should be seen as merely an object to satiate one’s hunger like animal. A prohibition higher than even killing, as self-defense has always been considered legal and moral grounds for killing.

    In the Ancient World, the Romans (who have become a model for what we considered civilized) despised human sacrifice and by extension cannibalism. When they wanted to justify their expensive and existential war against the Punics (over whom they eventually prevailed, at great cost) they pointed towards the Punic religious practice of sacrificing children to their god Moloch. With the spread of Roman culture, and its basis for much of the Western world, we hold the same sentiment towards human sacrifice and cannibalism: unadulterated disgust.

    Yet a post-apocalyptic world might push many to cannibalism, the same way that starvation through war or famine has throughout human history. In this episode, the cannibalism is very sophisticated, and so Terminus is a kind of meeting point between civilization and barbarity. People are not merely shot in the head and then barbequed. Instead, they are slaughtered as a cow might be slaughtered in a meat processing plant.

    The idea that industrial society and cannibalism may be intertwined, seemingly without contradiction of principles, has existed in the human imagination ever since the dawn of mechanization and ultimately the industrial revolution. An example that stands out is Soylent Green. In the movie, we realize that absolute depravity has become the foundation of civilized society. It had become a necessity, and one cannot exist without the other. Without Soylent Green, people would starve. Without civilization, Soylent Green could not be so efficiently produced and its true ingredients concealed from the public.

    To survive during the apocalypse, we will need to make all sorts of sacrifices. That includes moral sacrifices, as I’ve mentioned before, but there is a point where the moral sacrifice is not a sacrifice; rather it is an abandonment. A sacrifice is something that we “set apart” (cf. “sacred,” “secret,” from “sacer” (holy) + “facere” (to make) – “holy” meaning “to set apart” or “not ordinary/vulgar but divine”). A sacrifice is something that is done for a higher purpose, ideally a divine purpose. Whenever it is done to satiate our baser instincts, our plain biological drives, then it ceases to become a sacrifice.

    The most crucial part of this episode is when Carol speaks to the lady from Terminus, the same lady who welcomed the first group and offered them food that was most likely human flesh. She says that, to survive, they had to become cannibals. In the beginning, they truly were the Terminus that they made themselves out to be with the signs along the tracks. But they were savaged, and they did what they had to do to survive. An old Hollywood saying comes to mind: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”

    At some point, however, for many people, surviving would not be worth it, if it means abandoning one’s humanity in this way. For to do so would already mean a kind of death. This is what Carol means by, “I’m not here, and neither are you.” Carol, in killing the child Lizzie in the classic episode “The Grove,” feels as though she has moved past sacrifice and abandoned her human nature. Tyrese is keenly aware of this; this is why he avoids killing the man from Terminus when it seemed as though he should have. He screams: “I won’t!” Yet later we find out that he did kill him, in that he realized some sacrifices are worth making, have to be made, especially in the case of an innocent life like Judith.

    The wager of the people from Terminus is that to survive, we have to be able to sacrifice everything, including our humanity. Rick is so disgusted by this very idea that, even when Terminus is overrun by zombies and on fire, he wants to return so that he may kill whoever remains. Rick is a champion of civilized human values, and one of his main weaknesses is he is many times unwilling to make the appropriate moral sacrifices for the sake of survival. I suppose we will see how these tensions play out for the rest of the season.

  • Tsukomogami

    While writing a paper on the types of societies that might exist in a zombie society, my gaming laptop crashed, and nothing we did could fix it. My trusted tech said that it was probably the chipset or the motherboard. Whatever it was, it was going to be expensive to fix and probably temporary. That’s the way gaming laptops go, he said. They are expensive, run hot, and live short lives. This was goodbye, he said. And though many people would take a lot more time trying to find solutions, especially given that this laptop was right around 2,000 USD when I purchased it only 3 years ago in 2022, I felt that it was time to let go. In any case, a gaming laptop is such a delicate thing, with all its guts compressed into a single mass. And they are made to be used in the most absurd and abusive ways. I certainly remember gaming and feeling like the thing was about to die, and die painfully, but it kept going, and going, and going…

    This was especially true when I played Total War: Warhammer II. It chugged, even if I turned down the settings. I had to play at a lower resolution. But even when I played other games, if they were AAA, it would heat up considerably, even going above 100 sometimes. I know I shouldn’t have continued when it did that, but I did. It also sat idle on 60 degrees, even after it had been thoroughly cleaned and when I used a cooling pad. Those things are simply meant to be used in ways that are not healthy for electronics. They are made so small and delicate and slender, and then they tell us to use them in ways that would inevitably destroy them. That is beautiful, in a way, if they weren’t so expensive.

    In any case, I bought a new PC. There is always a dopamine rush when we receive new things, especially expensive things. This PC cost a lot. It cost a bit more than even that laptop, but I expect that this will last me at least a decade, and even then the parts could be switched around, upgraded, and if something goes wrong then only the faulty part needs to be replaced.

    A Lenovo Legion 5 – the model of my laptop

    What I didn’t expect is how I felt about my laptop. I felt like we had more time. It had become a part of my day, and being with it made me feel almost as though I was with a friend. I had grown attached to it. The Japanese believe that, after 100 years, a thing develops a spirit: tsukomogami. In Western philosophy, we have something similar in panpsychism or vitalism. Philosophers of object-oriented ontology also believe that objects have a kind of “life” (although their terms and concepts are so obtuse that I am not convinced of their methods…). I have written before elsewhere that I find such ideas puerile and simplistic, but in an affective sense I do understand the impulse to bestow objects a kind of independent life or mind.

    Like people, they begin to have their preferences. They do not say it, but these preferences are the things that, if done to them, would damage or destroy them. For example, my laptop did not being wet or being handled roughly. It did not like heat, although it produced a lot of heat, especially when it was doing what it was supposed to especially – in this way, it also had contradictory desires and drives the way a person or human subject would.

    a person holding a laptop with a broken screen
    Photo by Beyzanur K. on Pexels.com

    In this way, my laptop came alive to me. I supported it, and it did its job. And we have done many things together. He allowed me to enjoy many things. And he did all he could, before he could not do it anymore. I wish he had given me more signs of his failing health. It was all so sudden. The only signs I got was a single blue screen (which I thought was typical of any windows system, given that it was very, very rare) and my time & date being set incorrectly no matter how many times I synced it. This led me to believe for a bit that it was the cmos, but that did not turn out to be the case, as when we replaced the cmos battery, it did not come back to life.

    I will miss that laptop fondly, even if I am now using a PC that has updated components. It is strange that way, but also I think something we all can relate to, regarding many different things. Especially things that we use often, and so serve us well.

    I like to think that this PC is its reincarnation.

    Hello, old friend. You look different. Stronger.

    Let’s pick up where we left off.

  • Zoology

    person sitting on an aquarium window
    Photo by Ivy Son on Pexels.com

    Youssef liked animals. And he was a gentle person, although he could be domineering and condescending, in the breezy way that people who were convinced of their superiority was. He was quick to apologize whenever I pointed it out to him. He really didn’t mean to. But as a doctor he thought that he had the right, and in some ways he did, and that was one of the things that I loved about him the most.

    We loved to go to the aquarium. We would go inside and look at the fish. One of the larger tuna fish in the big aquarium we called Boris, and we treated him like he was our friend, and we checked up on him often. After that, we ate at one of the many restaurants that lined the bay. I loved walking among the people. I loved the night illuminated via streetlamp. He hated it and thought that the Manila streets smelled worse than death. And he’s smelled death many, many times; he was a doctor. Still, those were when he had the time to be with me. Most of the other times, he was at the emergency room at St. Luke’s.

    One night, while eating at a kbbq place, he was quiet. That wasn’t very unusual but I felt something. I felt like he wanted to tell me something. His parents were from the Middle East. Youssef had a big nose and large, doe eyes. I loved those eyes. It made it so that whatever he looked at, it seemed as if he was experiencing the most intense wonder. Like he was amazed always by the world. Which wasn’t true. He wasn’t so naïve. Although he loved animals. He adored animals.

    “Anything wrong?” I said.

    “I’ve been thinking,” he said. He was holding his chopsticks awkwardly. He had not used chopsticks much because his family did not like eating Korean or Chinese or Japanese food. He learned later in life, and he learned wrong. “I think we need to part ways.”

    “I don’t understand. Why?”

    He placed the chopsticks down. He took a sip of water. “I’ve just been so busy recently. And having to juggle my work with being in a relationship… It’s not working. I need to focus. And I barely have time to rest.”

    “Okay, so we don’t meet as often,” I said. “That’s alright. We don’t need to break up.”

    “No, I think this is for the best. I’m sorry.”

    He was looking at me. And those eyes were so big and clear that I could almost feel the guilt and shame and anxiety and fear that was emanating from within, like a ray of light, beaming directly from the deepest parts of him. From that light that only God could make and has Himself given, personally.

    I said okay. And then we finished our meal while talking about the reasons why. He was willing to explain it all. He said that he was better off alone. That he spent much time thinking about me, and whether he was good to me, and he didn’t like that, because he preferred to think about his work, and how he could make better use of his time as a doctor, and what he should specialize in.

    As a matter of fact I always knew that he was too good for me. He was so handsome and accomplished. I saw how women looked at him. One of my friends could not stop talking about him when she first met him. And I was sure of his loyalty, and so actually I enjoyed it, how she went on and on about him, clearly infatuated. She saw what I saw in him. It wasn’t hard to see.

    When we went out of the restaurant, I still held his hand. And he held mine. And we took a walk like we usually did. I heard the sea. Waves crashing against the concrete. Clipped and unintelligible conversation of people passing by. Music from karaoke bars and stalls and jeepneys with their radios too loud.

    At around midnight, we went in his car, and he drove me home. And I wept. And he said, “I’m sorry,” and I said, “If you’re sorry, then why are you leaving me?” And he didn’t know what to say. But of course you can’t make someone stay. They have to want to stay. Otherwise, that meant nothing. Otherwise, you were treating them like a pet. I didn’t only want him to stay. I wanted him to want to stay, and see in me what I saw in him. But he didn’t.

    When we got to my apartment I said he should come up so that he could pick up his things. The clothes he left there. His toothbrush. His game controller. His mug. His shoes. He came up with me, and I sat on the bed while he got his things, which he put in a Muji paper shopping bag from when we went there and shopped together and I got us matching slippers that I never got to see him wear. His blue plaid slippers were still beside my pink ones by my bedroom door.

    I told him to bring them. He asked me if I was sure. And I said: “Do you want me to keep remembering you whenever I look at those things?” And he muttered fair enough and took them.

    When he was done, he stood there for a second.

    He wanted to say goodbye but he didn’t know how or what to say. So, I stood up and wrapped my arms around him and kissed him. He was taller than me, and I had to look up at him.

    He kissed me, too, and I lifted his shirt and removed it. And he let me. We made love, just like before, as if nothing happened. When we were done, we were lying side by side, and fell asleep. I turned to my side, and I saw the shopping bag, still against the door.

    When I woke up, he was already awake, lying beside me still without his clothes, watching videos on his phone at very low volume. The blanket snug against his midsection, below his hairy chest. It was like any other time that we had woken up after having sex.

    I said, “So, you’re going now?”

    “Yeah,” he said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

    “It’s okay.”

    “I wish you the best. I only want the best for you.”

    “Then why are you leaving me?”

    He didn’t say anything. We sat there, dumbfounded, like idiots, for a while. Until he said, “Well, I have to go.” And he kissed me on the cheek and he stood up and he put his briefs on again and his pants and his belt and his shirt. He sat on the bed again to put on his socks and his shoes. And I was just there, naked, watching him preparing to walk out of my life. To walk his own way, which was a different way from mine.

    He took out his car keys and removed from the hoop the key to my apartment. He gave it to me. And then he kissed me on the cheek again and said, “Goodbye, Arya.”

    “Can I text you?”

    “No,” he said. “No. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

    “Okay.”

    “I’ll show myself out.”

    “Lock the door.”

    “Yeah. I will,” he said. And he took the paper bag and he left.

  • The Walking Dead S4, E8: “Too Far Gone”

    I’m glad to see that the governor was given two episodes to flesh out his character. Now, I think his is an interesting character, although I am still very much bothered with his portrayal. His Elvis Presley accent in particular is bothersome and at times unintentionally humorous. Moreover, despite him having a family, I do not feel any sympathy for him. If anything, the fact that he could still be a cold-blooded and selfish murderer despite having found a new family, or the beginnings of one, makes me dislike him even more. And not in the way that one might dislike villains because of their cruelty. He seems only like the worst of human trash: Opportunistic without lofty aim. Lacking principles.

    Rick shows great leadership here in that he makes a speech about hope. And he was about to succeed. We will never know what would have happened Rick did not become enraged when the Governor killed Herschel (who was my favorite character). Perhaps his thugs would have realized that he is a plain, selfish murderer, especially after he killed a defenseless old man. But Rick’s weakness once again makes an appearance when he loses his cool and starts the gunfight.

    Also, we see how much of a badass Michonne is when she dodges all those bullets simply by rolling like a log.

    I knew that Herschel was going to die at some point. I’m just sad that he had to die in the manner that he did. I believed that he was destined for greater things and a spectacular death. Instead, he died a captive. He was an extraordinarily brave and caring man. He risked getting infected with whatever disease was going around the prison because he wanted to help the sick even if it killed him. The end times will be propped up by people like Herschel, much more than people like Rick: Brave men who do what must be done with compassion and equanimity and determination from their deeply held principles.

    I was very surprised, too, when Zombie Apocalypse Elvis Presley’s newly adopted daughter was killed. I think it was handled deftly, in terms of how it was portrayed, although one cannot escape once again feeling that the story beat was rushed as well as too convenient. But ZAEP’s lack of hesitation when doing away with her so that she did not turn shows that Rick besting him as a leader finally and truly broke him. When Michonne killed his zombie daughter in Dewbury, he still had something despite that enormous loss. He knew that he was still capable of becoming a leader, of making great sacrifices to bring people together and allow them to survive and thrive. But seeing Rick almost win the battle before it even began with his charisma (speaking within universe; I do not think he is charismatic) showed him that, finally, he had nothing left. And seeing that her newly adopted daughter was now also dead reinforced that.

    I am not sure why the people went through with storming the prison. There was nothing to gain from doing that. The walkers would have been attracted to the place due to the noise, as they mentioned. The prison was ruined. The people who were already living there (Rick’s group) would have been needed to maintain the farms that they have already set up. And there was no reason to take the inevitable losses. Rick fired shots, and he should have been dealt with because of the danger he posed, but coming in with the tank was not a very good decision. That is what the Governor wanted, and perhaps they could have been swayed by the force of his personality—but why would they be? He was not especially compelling, and he had not been able to do much for the camp since he came into power. So, why were they so loyal to him as to risk their lives?

    It doesn’t make sense to me. And when things are presented arbitrarily like this, it weakens the story. It becomes a series of events that, although exciting, do not present insight into the human condition or what it is like to live in such times. I just want the Governor to go away and for a more compelling villain to take the stage. I miss Merle.

    The Governor’s death also left me wanting more. I’m a big believer in speeches during death scenes. As a convention, it is dramatic and an opportunity to “sum up” that character’s purpose. There is a right way and wrong way to do it, of course. Still, it would have been better than simply seeing him writhe there on the grass. And of course Michonne should have sliced off his head. Big mistake. We are shown that he might have been shot in the head and killed. But we don’t know that for sure.  

    Finally, we see that Judith is probably dead. The death of a child, especially a baby, is always the darkest an event could possibly be. And there is not much to be said here. I suppose what matters now is what the characters will make of it. After having lost so much, and already being riddled with grief, I do not know how Rick can go on.

  • Zombie Apocalypse: Leadership

    The intersecting web of institutions in our modern life takes care of much of the ambiguity that is present in everyday reality. We do not notice it anymore, except during extreme moments of strife. For example, we have laws, which inscribe in concrete terms what we can and cannot do. But there are also moral conventions, traditions, religion, culture, &c., that we can rely on to dispel with ambiguity, whether personal, familial, societal, political, or to some degree even global.

    In the event of an apocalyptic scenario, these institutions will crumble. Many things will become ambiguous again. One of the main driving forces of this ambiguity is the ensuing scarcity that not only incentivizes brutal competition but also makes it impossible to maintain such institutions.

    Now, although it is possible to think through every ambiguity, so that we arrive at a suitable solution or compromise (although not necessarily the correct one), the state of things during an apocalypse also means that many times there will be no time to think. Thus, decision-making for the most pressing matters needs to be delegated to a knowledgeable few, or even a single leader. There will be many cases wherein an imperfect swift decision is better than the perfect solution that never comes.

    Time and urgency are the most crucial factors that necessitate the presence of a strong, decisive, knowledgeable leader. And the decisions of this leader need to be protected, at least to a degree. Although this leader must be accountable, they cannot be accountable in the way that leaders today are. The circumstances are simply too different; they will have to make decisions that they themselves are ashamed of. But this is the moral cost of survival. In the apocalypse, all kinds of sacrifices must be made—physical, mental, emotional, and moral. The leader must bear the brunt of that.

    There will have to be a balance between the beastly and the angelic natures embodied in the human person. A purely angelic person will be defeated by the beast; the beast will be torn asunder by other beasts or themselves.

    At the plainest, more basic level, however, the leader must be competent. They must be able to obtain resources, handle disputes, and deal with enemies within and without. But they will have the help of their group. Even with regard decisions, the leader will ideally have advisors. But the ultimate privilege of the leader is the ability to make decisions with reference to nothing: They make distinct what is arbitrary. They make definite what is vague. They say what is and what is not, in a time when certitude is as scarce as anything else.

  • Zombie Apocalypse: Discipline

    The military will be a crucial actor during a zombie apocalypse. The military is a kind of society within a society, not only composed of soldiers but doctors, engineers, mechanics, &c., all highly trained for combat situations. This is why it is crucial that they remain under civilian control: They are essentially a mirror of ordinary society but composed of stronger individuals. Without that guarantee of civilian control, they take it over through their superior prowess and discipline, as has been the case throughout human history, as we see in cases ranging from martial law to full-on juntas.

    As we saw in the Season 3 finale of The Walking Dead, the difference between armed individuals and soldiers is discipline. Although the Governor had many more people than Rick, it did not take much for them to flee. When complaining to the Governor of what they had to go through, a woman exclaims: “We’re not soldiers!”

    Worth noting here that when I say discipline, I am speaking more precisely about military discipline and not everyday, individual discipline. In military theory, discipline is just about as important as weaponry or training. Soldiers will not do what they need to do if they do not have discipline: “Discipline is behavior tempered by high moral standards. It is the willing adherence to the organizational values and to the shared expectations of the unit, even in the absence of supervision” (ADP 6-22).

    Carl von Clauswitz, who first saw war is a science, dedicated much thought on discipline. He realized that war is fundamentally danger; thus, orders can only be successfully carried out in the battlefield if the soldiers possess personal courage. That is to say, the first and primary quality of the soldier is courage—this, when embodied, is what we call discipline.

    It is not reasonable to expect that everyone in a settlement will have the discipline to become a soldier. At the soonest possible time (but no sooner), a settlement must create a professional class of order keepers. These people must have no duties, or barely any other duties, apart from maintaining the peace. Whatever time they have outside of doing their work must be spent training.

    Just as crucial as any work they do and every bit of knowledge they have regarding weapons, formations, tactics, strategy, &c., is discipline. They must follow orders, even in the face of extreme and deadly danger. Otherwise, they would not have the fortitude to enact that knowledge, and so it would be essentially useless.

    Discipline is particularly important when certain actions that need to be performed involve an emotional element. For example, there might be times when members of the group must be dealt with harshly. Sacrifices might need to be made that affects the weakest members. There might be extreme circumstances wherein innocent people may be hurt. In such cases, ordinary people might not be up for the task, and a highly disciplined class is needed to accomplish them.

    Once again, this is a material necessity that goes back to the dawn of human civilization. The warrior class was venerated for a reason, and until today the people we know as nobility are people descended from warriors (which is why many members of royal families around the world are given numerous military honors, even if they have never substantially served in the military). But although our material capabilities return to the ancients, our values do not, which makes handling an armed force more complicated. Which makes discipline much more important, not only in terms of spurring people to action but in curbing our baser impulses.

  • The Walking Dead S3, E16: “Welcome to the Tombs”

    The best parts of the previous episodes are seeing the Governor become increasingly evil. At least now I have someone to hate. The previous episodes felt very aimless character studies, and not very good ones. Still, the Governor makes me roll my eyes whenever he does something. His motivations are so muddled and his methods are so stupid. I suppose that some of them are made so that we can say the villain is devious and a liar, but it only makes him look like a buffoon, and we cannot really be afraid of buffoons.

    One might think that Merle is the real buffoon. He is the deadly jester. But not really. Again, I think Merle is the more compelling villain, and I hoped that his end would have more to it, although the heroic end he got wasn’t too bad. He got his redemption, which by the logic of such stories had to come at one point or another. Although I could not help but wish that his sacrifice was more impactful.

    I am also growing very weary of Rick. Although I know he is riddled with grief, he is also supposed to be the strongest of them. This is what it means to be a leader. There will be more sacrifices to come, and he will have to bear the brunt of that, if he is going to be the first and last among this group. But he simply could not contain himself. Every member of the group has experienced loss at some point or another. Herschel lost a child and carried on with his duties that very same night.

    In the end, when he chooses not to give up Michonne, I suppose we see that he has the nobility we expect from leaders. But the fact that he had to make his way to that conclusion bothers me. Why was he so conflicted? How could he, at all, think that this was even an option? To hand over a member of their group? That should not even have been a consideration. It would have been easy to simply slip out of the prison and find somewhere else to go. In any case, they were within the sights of a much more powerful foe. Who is to say that the Governor won’t demand something of them again? Extort them? Exterminate them for their resources later?

    The decision is baffling, even if consider that it was made for dramatic purposes. I do not consider Rick heroic or honorable; I consider him arbitrary and selfish. And most of all confused. He has no plan. He has no values. And the things that he considers important, he finds out slowly, as circumstances “reveal” it to them. This feels to me like someone who has not had much time for introspection in his life; who is basically unfamiliar with himself. Although there is nothing inherently wrong with this, as this is part of the journey of life, this certainly is a sign that he should not be the leader. He even looks the other way when his son commits murder. Even though he could not really be sure because he was not there, he does not even consider the situation grave enough that he must immediately discuss the situation with his son. I consider this a serious moral issue as a father.

    I am not sure why Michonne is not the leader. She is decisive. She is capable of handling her emotions. She is decisive. She is tough. And she has an ironclad moral compass that she is also capable of pursuing with a sense of humor (as when she insisted on accompanying Carl to obtain a family picture, taking a figurine cat with her as well). And she was even capable of shedding tears for Andrea, her friend—who I also never liked. Andrea means well, but once again she seemed the entire time to be clueless, confused, and unsure of what she wants. She also sleeps with the Governor despite never having any emotional connection with him apart from him revealing his real name.

    When Andrea and Rick have a moment as Andrea died, it was like watching two stupid people commemorate their stupidity that led them there. It was awkward, and Andrea mentioning the safety was lame—it was almost as if she had spent her time suffering there with a bite wound thinking about how she could make a witty remark when her friends show up for her. Even Rick looked like he wanted to say something about how ridiculous it was, but held himself back because she was about to die in a stunning show of tact.

    Andrea did not even thank Michonne for all she did for her. I suppose their bond means that those words did not need to be said, but a little thankfulness and contrition would have been good, since Michonne saved her, fed her, took care of her while she was sick, and stayed with her as she died.

    Overall, I do not find the characters, the world, or the storytelling in this series compelling. The stupid are given too much airtime; the compelling are ignored or killed. Seems to me we have enough of this in the real world. In a show like this, we could use some poetic justice. And because it only runs around 40 minutes, perhaps we could focus on the best aspects of this world and not whatever Rick and Andrea are supposed to be.

    This season is a series of disappointments and false starts. Apart from a few interesting moments, we barely if ever gain any insight into the most in captivating aspects of a world destroyed by a zombie apocalypse. We are expected to feel deeply all the while being given the most shallow of impressions. The pacing is too fast for the emotional payoff it is trying to achieve. As such, it never truly reached the dramatic potential of its premise. I am hoping the next seasons are much better. And that Rick dies.