thus spake sam(antha). three unrelated thoughts all in the same entry because that’s how i think—unrelatedly… and i know that’s not a word.

1. i almost choked on my chelo when i was asked who my favorite philosopher was. small talk, in my world, consists of questions like “what is your favorite color?” or “who is your favorite Care Bear?”

but asking about philosophers? the question is loaded because, inevitably, your answer reveals much about your character and the principles by which you live your life. a philosopher becomes a “favorite” because his ideas resonate with your own, or verbalize truths that you’ve always held on to without categorically stating them. i mean, saying “Nietzsche, ‘cause i really dig facial hair” just doesn’t cut it. i’m sure that if that question came up when i was in college, i’d have an answer. but now? the best i could do was mumble something like “that dude, the one who wrote something with a guy named Zagreus in it. and um, i also like Sartre.”

i can’t say i know chapter and verse about these guys. i like them for sentences, fragments of thoughts that are taken out of context. i found a doodle notebook i had in college, and i know exactly why i like Camus (the dude who wrote A Happy Death – the story with a guy named Zagreus in it) and Sartre. turns out, they’re both existentialists. anyway, in the said notebook this sentence was boxed: “man is a useless passion.” and below it was the explanation: life is a bitch and then you die.
the boxed sentence is from Sartre, of course, he of “man is doomed to be free” fame. the whole life is absurd thing appeals to me. if man is the butt of a cosmic joke, i’m dying to know what the punchline is (great play on words, yes?).

but what i really liked about Sartre was this passage from The Look (again from my doodle notebook, everything i’ll be quoting here was scrawled in it by me, circa 2003-04):

“The total enslavement of the beloved kills the love of the lover. The end is surpassed; if the beloved is transformed into an automaton, the lover finds himself alone. Thus, the lover does not desire to possess the beloved as one possesses a thing. He demands a special type of appropriation. He wants to possess freedom as freedom.”

pretty good. Ayn Rand and Helene Cixous have similar takes, i think. but we’re talking about philosophers, not people who have really nice thoughts that appeal to me.

anyway, on to Camus and his character Zagreus who said:

“You know, a man always judges himself by the balance he can strike between the needs of his body and the demands of his mind.”

“I believe in so much… I’d accept even worse – blind, dumb, anything, as long as I feel in my belly that dark fire that is me, me alive. The only thing that would occur to me would be to thank life for letting me burn on.”

“A body always has the ideal it deserves. That ideal of a stone – if I may say so, you’d have to have a demigod’s body to sustain it.”

“Happiness, too, is a long patience.”

all from A Happy Death.

who else? Thoreau and Emerson are mainstays on my night table, both from the transcendentalist school. what that is, i have no clue. all i know is, they had noble thoughts that pandered to my egoism. take whatever floats your boat.

2. moe, my younger brother, bought a second-hand car (honda civic, hatchback) this week. i, on the other hand, recently got the truck a set of side mirrors because one of them fell off like a loose tooth. the marcelo siblings are moving up in the world, folks.

few days later, pa gave the truck a bath and all the dirt that was holding it together disappeared. sue may be clean, but he’s falling apart. he’s going to retire soon.

3. i write in english. i think i also think in english. but once, pa caught me saying “bone of the mango.” a mango doesn’t have bones, it has seeds. but “buto” translates to both bone and seed in english. i guess that time, i was thinking in tagalog, filipino? i was also thinking in that tongue on aug. 15, 2004, i was in church when this came to me… buti na lang may papel at lapis ako.

Tagalog ang Salita ng Halimaw.

sa bawat isa sa 'tin, may halimaw na pilit nating nilalabanan.
isang nakasisikdong berdugo na may umuusok na ilong-
senyales ng mga uling ng mapusok na damdamin na kanyang taglay.

harapin mo siya sa dilim, sa kasukdulan ng kanyang kalakasan,
ito ang sasabihin niya:

tangina, ang simple ng buhay.
pinapakomplikado mo pa!
gusto mo siya, gusto ka ba niya?
paano niya malalaman kung hindi mo ipapalabas sa hawla ang iyong nadarama?
palagablabin mo ang mga baga nang makita mo kung hanggang saan mo
makakaya at kung tatanggapin niya ang init ng iyong pagnanasa.

mahirap ang ginagawa mo ngayon.
unti-unti kang nagpapasunog,
unti-unting kinakain ng mga maliliit na apoy ang iyong kaluluwa nang
hindi sumisiklab ang katawan mo.

sabay magiging lulanan ka ng lamig na iniiwan ng kanilang saglit na buhay.

kung mamamatay ka rin lang, tangina, sulitin mo na!
pasabugin mo sarili mo sa isang makulay na kamatayan
na yayanig sa buong pagkatao mo!

ito ang hatol ng halimaw.

i probably misused a bunch of words, mangled some sentences… but hey, the halimaw spoke to me in tagalog, so there.