The Monkey's Fist

11/23/2010

Re emerging from the ashes

Writing isn't that hard when you get down to it. It's a matter of scribbling. Sometimes I find it impossible to scribble about what I want to, and granted that is frustrating, but writing in general is easy.

I have many friends that want to be writers. Or maybe they are writers. But they are so dissatisfied by what they write, or about their idea about how they write, that they never write at all. Or if they do, nothing is ever finished.

Having perceived this in others, I violently reject the Writing Monster's bojanglin' jaws. I won't be eaten by the criticism beast. Writing is just a verb, not a noun. Scribbling is easy. A baby can do it. If we're smart, we'll scribble as much as we can and bring back the critic to pick up the puzzle pieces and put a work together. What's the use of crying over 'writer's block'. It's not so much writer's block as it is a matter of 'you haven't written anything yet boi!' .

So if you're a writer or student or someone in general who has to write a paper, poem, or story, why don't you just sit down and do it! And later you can complain about how what you wrote was crap and you can change it. It's better to complain about ten crap works you wrote last week, but you have two good ones every week–– than it is to complain about how you can't reproduce that good thing you wrote last year. It's like writing, coasting on your laurels.

I haven't posted in a year. I'm back. I don't really have followers so I'm just writing for me. I'll post poems, stories, and philosophical thoughts whenever I feel like it, I suppose. And one day I'll be a paid author!!!

Posted by R.A. Vicens at 8:01 AM 0 comments

Labels: life, writer's block, writing

6/03/2009

A tribute to feeling

I wish I could've kept this blog exclusively about philosophical things. Or rather... maybe I don't really wish that at all especially since with this post I go against being 'about philosophical things'. And if I DO what I want and wish, then what've I to complain about?

It doesn't even matter. Philosophy is life and the other way around.

"Feeling..."

My tendency is to put feeling low on the totem pole of importance. Pushing that bubbling chemical-spiritual sensation (which likes to tingle somewhere but nowhere identifiable within the body) deep into the recesses of my subconcious, where my dragonslayer shaves a few hairs off the beast before its prickly maw beckons to eat me. Sometimes I have to deal with my emotions. I feel like a woman when I do. I know that people ought to have emotions. It's as natural as rationale. Sincerely, I'd rather be a rock. Or maybe I don't and that's my macho-wannabe ancestry pricking my neck from beyond the grave, begging me to uphold that standard of manliness that was deemed standard by whowhatwherewhen a hundred years ago.

Is there a proper way to give a tribute to feeling? I am trying to make peace with the monster but I don't know how. I think I feel like I am supposed to feel something about the abstract concept feeling. Like LOVE, "Feeling" doesn't pass the bottleable test; so they're both metaphysical ideas. Except I know that I do feel something sometimes... about "feeling."

Although... usually, I get away with not feeling anything. I'm used to putting aside what I'm supposed to feel. I read somewhere that when we're babies, we learn how we're supposed to feel by learning the reactions of others. So what happens if I was raised by sociopaths or by emotionally neurotically dispondent parents? Am not saying that I was or anything... but how would I know in the first place?

My dog died. The cutest puppy in the world is gone. Her name was Nabi. Forget how she died. Why do people care about that sort of thing? Here's a thing about feeling that I'm more interested that if I catch myself asking that question sometime, I'll remember to remind myself that I'm doing it out of a rehearsed response. I should realize that when I get the answer to that sort of thing, I'll be none the better than I was before... neither will the person that told me. The curiosity of the the thing might incline a person to ask "how did she die?"

But I wonder that maybe we're curious just because we're supposed to be or because we hear the questions asked all the time when we're growing up. Another question I hear a lot that I don't understand comes up when people meet a new dog for the first time. Even children that have no idea what it means to ask... "what breed is it?" I must have heard that question a million times while parading Nabi around the FIU campus. The puppy couldn't go anywhere without a chorus of "awwww" and a horde of petters stomping over to touch Nabi's fur. Then they'd ask, "what breed is she?" I wonder if people keep track of that sort of thing for future reference. Next time I meet a girl with slanted eyes I'll ask her "what breed are you?" instead of "where are you from?" which I understand only just a little better than the breed question.

Breed is a funny thing... a dog ain't a breed unless it has pure-blooded parents. So the breed question can't be compared to "where are you from?" I'm tired of talking about breed and the damn question. I can't imagine a world without breeds of pets to compare... if all dogs were mutts then where would we be? How would we conduct dog shows?

Anyway, we got another puppy. And she's dying ... maybe. Tippi is sick and in the vets office right now with an IV drip in her veins because she throws up everything she drinks or eats. It's not even a month since Nabi's death. So how do I feel? I don't even know.

Frankly, if I keep up this conversation about feelings, I'll start to worry about how I'm supposed to feel and that'll pressure me into feeling guilty about not having the right feelings. ugh. feelings are exhausting.

I wish I could have made this post seem about something other than about my dogs. But in the end, I can't. It's funny writing down my feelings because I don't feel them anyway. When I say funny in that context, I mean it's ironic. I know I feel something but I can't say what or where. I feel nothing but I feel something. My face doesn't even care that there's something going on inside me. So maybe I'll end the post by asking whether or not this sounds normal to whoever is reading this?

Ha. If I get a response, then I'll know how I'm supposed to feel? Damn that supposed to. It's a load of crap. Maybe I even want to turn to it just because it's already there? That makes me lazy, I guess. I'm dissapointed this is such an informal posting... an adequate tribute to feeling, I guess...

Posted by R.A. Vicens at 9:06 PM 0 comments

Labels: emotions, feelings, philosophy, puppies, puppy, writing

4/10/2009

The Importance of Brevity

A brave professor once told me, "our neuroticisim makes our genius." The constant defense-system that develops by over analyzing makes the genius quicker or cleverer... maybe. But maybe it stresses out too.

Sometimes I think I am crazy. I overthink a thought and it's implications and then the implications that follow that one, but not without attacking the foundations of this and that --whichthenimplies yadayadayaday ... ad infinitum.

I like to think the obsessive analysis (through the constant exercise) tore a space for my conceptual capacity, endowing my philosophical limits. If so, isn't neuroticism a good thing? Should I want it upon others?

Language is complicated insofar as one sentence means much more than just "what I mean it to say". But in my personal life, it occasionally becomes exhausting to cover all my bases and study my expression from every angle so as to always be right and never questioned about any thing that I say. Apparently it can tire my friends or loved ones.

This is just a personal blurb today... My uncle says that there is value in directness. It's what he learned living in New York. There is a certain appeal to the brevity of a no-nonsense New Yorker. But can a philosopher experiment with being blunt...?

Posted by R.A. Vicens at 9:00 PM 0 comments

Labels: blurb, brevity, personal, philosophy

4/04/2009

Respecting Respect: Part II

(From now on I use a feminine gender for "child" and masculine for "parent". This I do for clarity's sake and in mock participation of a traditional power scheme.)

There is also "respect" that regards wellbeing. This kind of respect, if it considers desire, at least does not necessarily align with it. An adequate example of respect for wellbeing pictures in the relationship between parent (or "caretaker", but for clarity's sake I will use "parent") and child. A parent does not respect a child's desires, rather behaves in the way that (at least the parent perceives) perpetuates her wellbeing -- out of love for her. But when child kicks and screams because she was not bought candy, in effect is it because her desires have been disrespected, or were they considered and regarded but merely discarded?

It is obviously irresponsible to claim that a parent ought to uniformly respect a child's desires even where her wellbeing is challenged. There are clear situations where parental intervention is expected, i.e. Keep your hand away from the oven, you’ll get yourself burned! It follows that there are respects of more importance than others. A parent has power over a child to make decisions which affect her and does so according to ideas which presume to have more experience, knowledge, and wisdom.

If the prioritization of the parent’s considerations and sensitivities for wellbeing of the child is rooted in his age and experience, I propose that “age and experience” are an illusion. Certainly a parent is physically older. The assumption that he has more knowledge of wellbeing, however, is a curiosity. Intuitively, while an older person has literally lived longer and been present for more experiences, what knowledge and wisdom gained from those experiences is relative... But relative to what, intelligence? Take Michael Kearny, age 10, the youngest college graduate. I cannot guess how much wisdom Kearny has acquired at 10 years old, but his intelligence is unquestionable -- do I say he is wise and trust his judgment?

If I say there is no distinction between wisdom and intelligence, I challenge myself to believe that at 10 year old is capable of knowing how to cope with the pangs of love and loss, aging, and the fear of death. He may be able to regurgitate clever information on how to handle financial matters he learned in college, but can he deal with the whippings of worldly deception –can he know how to manage a cutthroat business and handle employees?

If I say wisdom and intelligence are separate capacities of a person, I must remember that a measure of wisdom cannot be age. Take a 30 year-old adult with Down’s syndrome. I am unknowledgeable about the capacities of a patient of Down’s, but I should not be contested that there are certain incapacities which hinder such an individual from living an ordinary life… from learning certain wisdoms. Even if I am mistaken with the capacities of extraordinary Down’s patients, perhaps there are more palpable prospects in middle aged men and women that for whatever reasons have grown up poor fools that nobody would call wise.

Intelligence and wisdom are certainly tied, though the strength of the binding is difficult to foresee, predict, and even acknowledge.

I might define wisdom as the capacity and skill of “stepping out to see the big picture”, “evaluating several facets of things”, “knowing multiple consequences of an action”, in order to make competent decisions. But even in the same situation, two persons may have different wisdom about the same thing. Take driving a car or handling an Alzheimer’s patient , for example. I may feel confident moving a car, but how much can I compared to a racecar driver or law enforcement officer with special training! As a product of my experiences with a senile grandmother, I have learned to deal or cope with her literal irrationality. My experience with her may have leaked experiences which allow me patience when dealing with misunderstandings. The point is that while I can claim certain wisdoms that give me patience, other persons are incapable of gauging me correctly (insofar as another person cannot replace or know my consciousness). Herein lies the trouble.

I am operating under the assumption that wisdom has a relationship with the understanding of wellbeing. If wisdom means what I propose, it becomes imperative to be wise in order to make competent decisions. It follows that the struggle between the child vying for her wisdom to be acknowledged and the parent's authority to be maintained is a prevalent struggle in the parent/child relationship. The complication of wisdom and the difficulty of gauging it complicates respecting wellbeing.

Within the relationship of parent and child, the decision that is prioritized is that of the parent. In the traditional household, a child has little power and must be subject to whatever wisdom of her master. But when ought her desires and considerations be respected and sincerely taken into account --especially when there is no measure for wisdom or competence? My personal experience offers me an opinion: the child during the baby stage is wholly dependent -- such that the parent potentially mistakes this for the child's permanent position. If this is the case, potentially the parent lives in constant disrespect of his child's desire, dictating decisions from a position of power regarding an illusory wellbeing.

Not until the parent acknowledges the child's capacity for wisdom (the making of competent decisions) does the parent respect the child for her person. Parent gloms onto his position of power until a jarring, breaking-of-routine power struggle carves for the child her own space of identity and regard. A this moment she chooses to respect herself regardless whether her decisions align with her parent's will and respect. The nature of the actions she takes in order of respecting her own regard, and the consequences of her actions, help determine whether she is acknowledged as capable of autonomy. I said "the nature of her actions". There is no intrinsic "nature" to any action. However to a parent, actions either align according to his sensibilities or they do not. If they align with the parent, her actions will go unperceived. When the sensibilities contradict, the will of the child becomes magnified and so the parent must make decisions in respect to her.

The potential exists for parents to make a seamless transition between disrepect to candid regard of a child's considerations. But so does the potential exist for parent and child to live in an unhealthy mutual disrespect.

It is worth mentioning that there are parts of my argument that do not satisfy. My guesswork about the child/parent relashionship cannot be called universal. Power dynamics in relationships vary depending on individual circumstances such that a normative generalization constitutes a ridiculous endeavor. However, is it an interesting hypothesis? For a child to develop an identity outside from under the subjected rule of a parent, she must challenge her parent's authority and respect in order to gain it.

What do you think?

Posted by R.A. Vicens at 8:07 PM 0 comments

Labels: advice, language, parents, philosophy, respect, self help

4/02/2009

Respecting Respect: Part I

"Respect" has become imbued with metaphysical essence which gives the word more power than appropriate or healthy. I propose this from the experience that no two people I have spoken with have an equal idea of what it means to respect. But somehow, the word holds power within dynamics such as parent & child, friend & stranger, brother & sibling.

The word affects interpersonal behavior in ways that I do not understand and so in my definition of respect and analysis of it, I wish to bring the word down from its shiny pedestal and steal some of its ominous glow.

My preoccupation is born where respect is violated. The statement, "you disrespected me," purports something, but what exactly does it mean? To have violated a law of respect implies there exists a standard or law by which respect operates -- but what is it?

Respect comes from the Latin respectus, "regard". Literally an "act of looking back at one,". Respicere: "look back at, regard, consider," from re- "back" +specere "look at".

Then perhaps respect means literally to "regard" another. Not in the sense as in seeing, but to consider, think about and be aware -- the way that we are when we consider in terms of making a decision.

I propose that respect is a matter of decisions and action (including intentional or unintentional inactivity -- after all, my doing nothing is an action in and of itself). These actions and decisions only matter with ''respect'' in terms of how the actions affect persons (even in the case of "respecting oneself", it has to do with actions that affect oneself). If respect has to do with regard and consderation, it follows that what I do according to my regard is what either fulfills respect or violates it.

Still, it is unclear what exactly I am regarding when I consider the other. Is it the other person's desire, wellbeing, authority? My mother always said "respect your lover's father" such that I associate respect to mean that under fear of a father's wrath, it is right to behave in whatever way pleases him. So respecting him means to be conscious of his desires and whims so that my actions align with them.

To define respect as a matter of regarding another's desires and aligning one's actions accordingly presents a problem. Remember that I am looking for a standard or essential quality of respect. If I disrespect a person by behaving contrary to his/her desires, what about when a person's desires violate my own -- am I not being disrespected if I respect the other? To avoid ambiguity, I can pose that my respecting the other violates my moral principles. Should I respect the other or keep to my own?

Mr. Clots sees it as optimum disrespect that his guest, Domo Akira, removes his shoes before walking about the house. Also, he will not join the rest of the family in prayer before the meal. The last straw is when he refuses to eat any of the meats Mrs. Clots arduously slaved to cook for their esteemed foreign guest. What exactly does it mean to be a vegetarian? How absurd!

Clearly, Mr. Clots does not understand or consider/regard his guest's desires and customs. Ironically, he is not respecting his guest, at least in the way that I have defined it. Still, is he not right that his customs and ideas of how things "should be" are violated? Domo Akira perhaps does not understand his host's customs and desires enough to regard them either. He indeed is disrespecting Mr. Clots. Ultimately, I am lead to the conclusion that this situation is not an issue of respect, rather one of miscommunication. But the miscommunication goes unnoticed (at least by Mr. Clots).

If we posit for a moment that respect has no essence, as I do believe, but rather it has to do with an individual's ideas of what constitutes respect, then respect is a fluid conception which has the potential of discriminating and causing harm unconsciously. What will Mr. Clots' behavior look like to Domo Akira? If Clots behaves angrily or indignantly, perhaps his guest will perceive this to be unfriendliness and lack of respect toward a guest!

My suggestion when it comes to respect is to treat the word as just that; a word. If I give the word no transcendent meaning, then I can more easily evaluate some situations for what they are. That is not to say that we should fail to respect others. On the contrary, with the knowledge that respect has everything to do with sensitive consideration, choose what actions you participat in according to your own respect and what you consider to be appropriate/convenient/right in the face of another's respect.

Posted by R.A. Vicens at 9:27 PM 0 comments

Labels: language, philosophy, respect

3/28/2009

A New Crack on the Road: Deep Scratch

A few weeks ago I posted about certain words I thought were interesting for their variability and elusiveness. The words of my preoccupation were arbitrary and capriciously chosen.

The response was:

"Monsieur Robert, your list is very short and circumstantial; what about love, infinity, God, disease or cat?. On the other hand, if we try neologisms every day, we will get back to our own solitary and individual self and will not be able to communicate.... Communicating is really so important? Who knows"

Posted by: Lucho

Flattered to be called a Monsieur, I am compelled to post a not-so-shallow reply to my faithful viewer and newest follower.

Technically, the words that appear in Crack on the Road cannot be called neologisms. Certainly at some point or other these were "slang", although admittedly they do not contribute to the library of of whatever it means to be traditional or formal language. However, these words have a sound place to sleep midst the pages of our dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Sir Lucho is all over the place with several questions simultaneously raised. What about Love, Infinity, Disease, or Cat? Interestingly, the order of the list moves categorically from greatest abstraction of indefinable texture to what is presumably concrete. Defining Love cannot be as easy as explaining "cat", for example. At any rate, according to certain thinkers in the structuralist universe of philosophy (namely Saussure), words mean according to that which they are not in an endless strung web of signifying symbols and signified concepts. No word has essential meaning -- complicating what the word "cat" means/signifies.

But I am admittedly bored of conversing about what things are not, deconstructing meaning so that the only meaning left is that which makes available less meaning. Why not redeem some meaning and ruminate Love?

Below this one are a couple of posts related to love. Let these two philosophers do some talking for me. C.S. Lewis and Jacques Derrida.

“... we must be careful never to adopt prematurely a moral or evaluating attitude [about pleasures]. The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of value; hence those fatal critics who can never point out the differing quality of two poets without putting them in an order of preference as if they were candidates for a prize. We must do nothing of the sort about the pleasures. The reality is too complicated.” -C.S. Lewis

Posted by R.A. Vicens at 12:47 AM 0 comments

Derrida: rumination on love

Over the abstract concept of love, Derrida meditates whether love is a matter of loving someone, or loving something in someone.

"Do I love someone for the absolute singularity of who they are? -- I love you because you are you... or do I love your qualities, your beauty, your intelligence? -- The difference between the who and the what, at the heart of love, separates the heart. It is often said that love is the movement of the heart. Does my heart move because I love someone who is an absolute singularity, or because I love the way that someone is? Often love starts with some type of seduction. One is attracted because the other is like this or that. Inversely, love is disapointed and dies when one comes to realize the other person doesn't merit our love. The other person isn't like this or like that. So at the teath of love, it appears that one stops loving another not because of who they are, but because they are such and such. That is to say, at the history of love, the heart of love is divided between the who and the what."

In other words, when love begins and ends, it is an issue of things that make someone up which birth or murder it. But when in the middle of being in love, how often don't we hear that love is a matter of loving "who you are." These two seem to work against each other -- or at least undo something about the way we think of love. If I love someone for "who they are", how do I know what that is? Can you serve me a bottle of "who you are", please? I'd like to take a whiff and measure whether I like it or not...

Posted by R.A. Vicens at 12:25 AM 0 comments

Labels: language, love, philosophy

C.S. Lewis on love and "like": from Four Loves

C.S. Lewis

Lewis fractures what we call love into four different kinds. Affection, Friendship, Sexual, and Christian/selfless love (Storge, Philia, Eros, Agape). Four Loves is worth reading but is too long to quote in what I have wanted to be a non-heavy & not-(too)long blog.
Each love, as Lewis defines them, has characteristics he describes through referring to his own life and well of experiences. Storge is like the feeling one gets when looking at puppies. Friendship comes not in having acquaintence with people and socializing with them, rather through commitment more like that of lovers only without physical intimacy. Eros integrates storge and philia along with physical intimacy. Only, eros is corrupted when it lacks a degree of selfless regard, agape.

This excerpt from Lewis' Four Loves actually has more to do with what we sometimes call love but is really more similar to "like".

"Most of my generation were reproved as children for saying that we “loved” strawberries, and some people take a pride in the fact that English has the two verbs love and like while French has to get on with aimer for both. But French has a good many other languages on its side. Indeed it very often has actual English usage on its side too. Nearly all speakers, however pedantic or however pious, talk every day about “loving” a food, a game, or a pursuit. And in fact there is a continuity between our elementary likings for things and our loves for people. Since “the highest does not stand without the lowest” we had better begin at the bottom, with mere likings; and since to “like” anything means to take some sort of pleasure in it, we must begin with pleasure.”

Notice where Lewis implies that for humans to love, there must begin with "like". Admittedly he is currently referring to inanimate objects, but this norm of liking something before loving it transcends into like/love relations between persons (and he elaborates later in his book). Does this claim agree or rub against Derrida's?

Posted by R.A. Vicens at 12:04 AM 0 comments

3/27/2009

Humpty Dumpty

I changed the "about me" on my profile to this quote from C.S. Lewis' Four Loves. And it has a lot to do with my next post which I am currently hastily composing. After all, I have lazed about the disservice of not posting for over a week and a half!

"Of course language is not an infallible guide, but it contains, with all its defects, a good deal of stored insight and experience. If you begin by flouting it, it has a way of avenging itself later on. We had better not follow Humpty Dumpty in making words mean whatever we please."

Posted by R.A. Vicens at 12:16 PM 0 comments

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