would people write if there was no one around to read their words?
would there be a history?
This is exactly how I feel, like words that cannot be heard or seen. I want to be read and seen. I'm tired of dwelling in this cave.
History is an antidote to death, at least we believe so even though is rather futile. We need to record signs of our existence as if we needed to prove others, in some remote future, that we once were here. So even in death we would like to be acknowledged by humanity. This need, I think, proves to me that we only come into existence when we are seen and heard by others. In this sense, I believe that solitude is a form of death. Death is to be absent, so it is solitude.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Autumn
Another semester, the same inhibitions, the same frustrations. It has become a very difficult task to change anything, I've become too accustomed to this cell. I've never been out of the cave, how am I supposed to know what's outside? How do I seek the unknown?
It's becoming something unbearable. I'm acting like a delusional young man. I'm selling myself the idea that I could be loved by woman who's much older and married with children. That could never happen, but I want someone to care for me and protect me, because I feel weak and hollow. I'm becoming like an uncontrollable rebellion. Today I wanted to talk to her, but I felt it was pointless and gave up.
Meanwhile, I need to return to reality...
It's becoming something unbearable. I'm acting like a delusional young man. I'm selling myself the idea that I could be loved by woman who's much older and married with children. That could never happen, but I want someone to care for me and protect me, because I feel weak and hollow. I'm becoming like an uncontrollable rebellion. Today I wanted to talk to her, but I felt it was pointless and gave up.
Meanwhile, I need to return to reality...
Thursday, May 15, 2008
The Other
The Western Civilization where we live today--through which our history has been written, and our understanding of who we are--possesses a paradoxical definition of what is to be human. This definition involves a very ambivalent and visceral relation to time. This conflicting relation to time often times praises the present as modern and innovative, whereas the past is defined as backwards; a place to never return; a time before history, that is, before written language; a place that belongs to the Other, the uncivilized, whose condition places him closer to the natural world, where he is ruled by his irrational emotions and instincts. The other source of anxiety, to which we project our definition of human, is the future. For us the future creates a lot of anxiety; we fear that our actions and inventions might lead to catastrophes, to the destruction of the species and the natural world. Under this fear, we have constructed narratives about dystopian futures in which our own knowledge and technology have turned evil and oppress us. Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelly and the film The Matrix (1999) by the Wachowski brothers, are two great examples that expose the contradiction surrounding the definition of what is human.
The historical context of Frankenstein is a world of Imperialism within and outside of Europe. When read as a reaction to the Enlightenment’s cult of reason and rationality, Frankenstein’s main character Victor Frankenstein is meant to symbolize the educated gentlemen of the Enlightenment, whose scientific ambitions lead him to his own destruction. The monster created by Dr. Frankenstein relates to the Matrix as both are stories in which human inventions turn against us. But who chose to antagonize who?
The ambition for the power that “absolute” knowledge can provide, obsessed Victor Frankenstein, who, as he studies the natural decay and decomposition of the human body, feels the irresistible urge to discover the means to reverse the corruption of death, and bring life back to a dead body. Dr. Frankenstein believed himself to have achieved what others had tried to do but failed; having power over mortality—the ultimate Other. This ambition, later he acknowledges, was very dangerous and self-destructive. As he states:
If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affection, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind.
And then he acknowledges how this ambition and obsession for power had created some of the worse injustices and oppression in history.
If no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquility of his domestic affection, Greece had not been enslaved; Caesar would have spared his country: America would have been discovered more gradually; and the empire of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.
Thus, we could argue that the creator is as bad as his creation, or even worse. His ambition led to the murder of his family and loved ones. The monster in revenge for his miserable existence kills Victor’s family, lover Elizabeth, and best friend Clerval. The monster asked his creator for a companion with whom he could cure his wretchedness and alienation, but Victor refuses his plead, fearing that they could reproduce and populate the earth with hideous and appalling creatures. But besides his hideous and disproportionate physical appearance, what made the monster nonhuman or inhuman? As we can learn, it was not his aggression and violent acts, because as he confesses, evil was not innately in him.
As yet I looked upon crime as a distant evil; benevolence and generosity were ever present before me, inciting within me a desire to become an actor in the busy scene where so many admirable qualities were called forth and displayed.
The monster’s only ambition was to join humanity, and share the happiness and love displayed by the cottage dwellers he had been observing.
The more I saw of them, the greater became my desire to claim their protection and kindness; my heart yearned to be known and loved by these amiable creatures to see their sweet looks turned towards me with affection, was the utmost limit of my ambition.
What made the monster inhuman was not his hideous appearance, it was the absolute alienation and extreme disgust people displayed towards him; he felt unable to relate to others even though he could reason like humans and learn to speak their language faster than any human can learn, but more importantly he was able to feel human emotions such as anguish, loneliness, and love. He was perhaps more human than the civilized men of the Enlightenment and their merciless imperialism and exploitation of those labeled as the Other.
In the Matrix, machines have become self-conscious and independent of humans and have replaced us. Humans have been transformed into living batteries plugged into a massive computer. They are bred and raised like farm animals. The machines have been able to replicate our world and provide humans with a virtual reality, like a mental playground, in which humans can exercise their psychic energy and imagination. Thus, the machines have the power to look like humans within the virtual reality, and guarantee the functionality of their system against the free humans who hack into the system.
Even though we as a civilization take huge pride in our technological advancement and might, yet we cannot avoid having nightmares about a distant future in which humans are under the power of automated machines. Similar to Frankenstein’s monster, machines and computers are the creation of human scientific knowledge, which we fear, not because they are not like us, but because they seem to have better physical strength and higher mental capabilities that threatens our superiority in the natural order. The film never makes clear what sparked the epic conflict between machines and humankind, it merely states through the character of Morpheus that machines never felt satisfied with the equality and the rights given to them by humans. Very much in tune with our Western Civilization, the humans fighting the Matrix are looking for a messiah who can liberate them. This savior is awakened from the virtual reality, in which he works as a software engineer, known as Thomas Anderson.
In the scene when Morpheus, the leader of the humans, is trapped by the Matrix security agents, the main agent, Smith, explains the rational behind the destruction of the human civilization. In a room overlooking the city below, agent Smith exposes his arguments to Morpheus:
AGENT SMITH
Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural
equilibrium with the surrounding environment. But you humans do
not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every
natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to
spread to another area.
There is another organism on this planet that follows the same
pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus.
Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a
plague. And we are... the cure.
Agent Smith is pointing out our biggest fear; the fact that the West has created a civilization, that unlike the others that have been labeled as primitive, lacks equilibrium with nature; it has been exploiting the planet in a systematic way without pursuing self-sustainability. In that sense we are the true monsters, we have divorced ourselves from the natural environment, and failed with all our human qualities to create a more reasonable civilization. We assume the machines are evil because they are incapable of feeling and expressing emotion as seen with the agents whose expressions and speech are quite regulated, with very little variations. Even in the fighting scenes, they agents look almost intact.
In this battle against machines humans ironically come to rely in faith as the ultimate source of power. Neo, the real life version of Mr. Anderson, finds faith in himself as the savior of mankind and is able to overcome the powerful machines, defeating the agents, including agent Smith. It is ironic that faith becomes the key to defeat the machines, after all we live in a society in which despite the assumed infallibility of scientific reasoning, faith continues to be a resilience force that many seek as the only solution when everything else fails. In the last fight, which starts in the subway EL Station and later continues in a nearby building, Neo, motivated by the love that develops between him and Trinity, is able to reach that faith needed to defeat the machines.
These two fictional narratives allow us to see our construction of the Other, who cannot be equal to us, he must be different, therefore, deserves of exclusion and antagonism. The definition given by the West of what is human is a very conflicting one. Frankenstein’s monster is not considered human, even though he has been created with human parts, because he looks frightening and threatening, or simply because he just looks bizarre, but despite that he can feel and reason like a human. Through Frankenstein we can learn that what makes us human is our ability to coexist with one another, be part of each other’s existence and the environment. It is the alienation and utter loneliness that transforms Frankenstein’s creation into an abominable monster and murderer. The Matrix is not clear as to the reasons machines rise against humans and enslave them. Perhaps stories of this sort are projections of our fear of being the victims of what we have done to each other such as racial exclusion, apartheid, conquest, exploitation and extermination, all justified on superficial and imaginary fixed categories. As a way to legitimize our present civilization, the past is despised, and the future, as the result of a guilty conscience, is a place of uncertainty and dread.
The historical context of Frankenstein is a world of Imperialism within and outside of Europe. When read as a reaction to the Enlightenment’s cult of reason and rationality, Frankenstein’s main character Victor Frankenstein is meant to symbolize the educated gentlemen of the Enlightenment, whose scientific ambitions lead him to his own destruction. The monster created by Dr. Frankenstein relates to the Matrix as both are stories in which human inventions turn against us. But who chose to antagonize who?
The ambition for the power that “absolute” knowledge can provide, obsessed Victor Frankenstein, who, as he studies the natural decay and decomposition of the human body, feels the irresistible urge to discover the means to reverse the corruption of death, and bring life back to a dead body. Dr. Frankenstein believed himself to have achieved what others had tried to do but failed; having power over mortality—the ultimate Other. This ambition, later he acknowledges, was very dangerous and self-destructive. As he states:
If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affection, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind.
And then he acknowledges how this ambition and obsession for power had created some of the worse injustices and oppression in history.
If no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquility of his domestic affection, Greece had not been enslaved; Caesar would have spared his country: America would have been discovered more gradually; and the empire of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.
Thus, we could argue that the creator is as bad as his creation, or even worse. His ambition led to the murder of his family and loved ones. The monster in revenge for his miserable existence kills Victor’s family, lover Elizabeth, and best friend Clerval. The monster asked his creator for a companion with whom he could cure his wretchedness and alienation, but Victor refuses his plead, fearing that they could reproduce and populate the earth with hideous and appalling creatures. But besides his hideous and disproportionate physical appearance, what made the monster nonhuman or inhuman? As we can learn, it was not his aggression and violent acts, because as he confesses, evil was not innately in him.
As yet I looked upon crime as a distant evil; benevolence and generosity were ever present before me, inciting within me a desire to become an actor in the busy scene where so many admirable qualities were called forth and displayed.
The monster’s only ambition was to join humanity, and share the happiness and love displayed by the cottage dwellers he had been observing.
The more I saw of them, the greater became my desire to claim their protection and kindness; my heart yearned to be known and loved by these amiable creatures to see their sweet looks turned towards me with affection, was the utmost limit of my ambition.
What made the monster inhuman was not his hideous appearance, it was the absolute alienation and extreme disgust people displayed towards him; he felt unable to relate to others even though he could reason like humans and learn to speak their language faster than any human can learn, but more importantly he was able to feel human emotions such as anguish, loneliness, and love. He was perhaps more human than the civilized men of the Enlightenment and their merciless imperialism and exploitation of those labeled as the Other.
In the Matrix, machines have become self-conscious and independent of humans and have replaced us. Humans have been transformed into living batteries plugged into a massive computer. They are bred and raised like farm animals. The machines have been able to replicate our world and provide humans with a virtual reality, like a mental playground, in which humans can exercise their psychic energy and imagination. Thus, the machines have the power to look like humans within the virtual reality, and guarantee the functionality of their system against the free humans who hack into the system.
Even though we as a civilization take huge pride in our technological advancement and might, yet we cannot avoid having nightmares about a distant future in which humans are under the power of automated machines. Similar to Frankenstein’s monster, machines and computers are the creation of human scientific knowledge, which we fear, not because they are not like us, but because they seem to have better physical strength and higher mental capabilities that threatens our superiority in the natural order. The film never makes clear what sparked the epic conflict between machines and humankind, it merely states through the character of Morpheus that machines never felt satisfied with the equality and the rights given to them by humans. Very much in tune with our Western Civilization, the humans fighting the Matrix are looking for a messiah who can liberate them. This savior is awakened from the virtual reality, in which he works as a software engineer, known as Thomas Anderson.
In the scene when Morpheus, the leader of the humans, is trapped by the Matrix security agents, the main agent, Smith, explains the rational behind the destruction of the human civilization. In a room overlooking the city below, agent Smith exposes his arguments to Morpheus:
AGENT SMITH
Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural
equilibrium with the surrounding environment. But you humans do
not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every
natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to
spread to another area.
There is another organism on this planet that follows the same
pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus.
Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a
plague. And we are... the cure.
Agent Smith is pointing out our biggest fear; the fact that the West has created a civilization, that unlike the others that have been labeled as primitive, lacks equilibrium with nature; it has been exploiting the planet in a systematic way without pursuing self-sustainability. In that sense we are the true monsters, we have divorced ourselves from the natural environment, and failed with all our human qualities to create a more reasonable civilization. We assume the machines are evil because they are incapable of feeling and expressing emotion as seen with the agents whose expressions and speech are quite regulated, with very little variations. Even in the fighting scenes, they agents look almost intact.
In this battle against machines humans ironically come to rely in faith as the ultimate source of power. Neo, the real life version of Mr. Anderson, finds faith in himself as the savior of mankind and is able to overcome the powerful machines, defeating the agents, including agent Smith. It is ironic that faith becomes the key to defeat the machines, after all we live in a society in which despite the assumed infallibility of scientific reasoning, faith continues to be a resilience force that many seek as the only solution when everything else fails. In the last fight, which starts in the subway EL Station and later continues in a nearby building, Neo, motivated by the love that develops between him and Trinity, is able to reach that faith needed to defeat the machines.
These two fictional narratives allow us to see our construction of the Other, who cannot be equal to us, he must be different, therefore, deserves of exclusion and antagonism. The definition given by the West of what is human is a very conflicting one. Frankenstein’s monster is not considered human, even though he has been created with human parts, because he looks frightening and threatening, or simply because he just looks bizarre, but despite that he can feel and reason like a human. Through Frankenstein we can learn that what makes us human is our ability to coexist with one another, be part of each other’s existence and the environment. It is the alienation and utter loneliness that transforms Frankenstein’s creation into an abominable monster and murderer. The Matrix is not clear as to the reasons machines rise against humans and enslave them. Perhaps stories of this sort are projections of our fear of being the victims of what we have done to each other such as racial exclusion, apartheid, conquest, exploitation and extermination, all justified on superficial and imaginary fixed categories. As a way to legitimize our present civilization, the past is despised, and the future, as the result of a guilty conscience, is a place of uncertainty and dread.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
A World Apart
Those who are different, non-mainstream that is, are expelled, either physically or socially...
Recently, I have realized how disillusioned I've become. The other day, I did absolutely nothing, I spent several hours outside under the sun without accomplishing anything, besides reading about South Africa, which for me, as someone who loves history, is a country that epitomizes that entire history of modern times. No other history can open your eyes in such a way as South Africa. Anyway, the point is, that I feel so apathetic to the world and my own life, or maybe I should be more accurate, and say, that I feel a great deception. I no longer derive any satisfaction or can't find the motivation to move forward. But who said that life is a straight line in which you must move forward. I no longer know if I have the energy and desire to go to graduate school. I don't want my life to be like the past three years. I don't want to learn more facts and ideas that others don't consider important. I don't want to further alienate myself by acquiring new and more complex ideas about our little lives on these societies. All I want is to belong, to be embraced by not just one person, but a whole group of people. I want to care and know that someone cares for me too, instead of just giving and caring and not receiving anything.
I have always envy those who know less but fit so well into this world. Knowledge is a curse, you became aware of every little detail, you read too much into things, you relate things that seem completely unrelated to others, you make connections, see beyond the surface, but all for WHAT? To feel alone like the actor without an audience. I don't believe in many things, I just know that the Collective is the overpowering force that defines reality and its boundaries, and those outside of them suffer; free but alone, which nullifies the freedom. That is the feeling a call the deserted Island.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Rolling a Boulder up the Hill
Why dream when the world, in act of absolute mercilessness, humiliates you as it tells you to wake up. So I ask every morning when I wake up, why dream? Today, or better said, everyday there are clouds in and outside my mind, I wish life could be so kind as to let me go. my life is a blank page, full of absences, fictionalized memories, where the only voice I hear is the echo of my words. I've met only ghosts, characters that rarely appear, who speak but aren't palpable. The soul dies before the body. Everyday seems to be the arrival of a train to an empty station, or the entrance to an empty house, where there are no witnesses to confirm my existence, with whom I might be able to create narratives of my living history. If I depart, I would leave with no record left behind, except for some shameful occurrences. I was a shadow on the walls, without a face or memory, which left no imprint in your life. but escaping from the deserted island is more difficult than staying...
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
We all think of what we have as great
The idea behind this blog was to force myself to write--a skill I haven't been able to acquire--in order to feel more productive, and get used to the tasks of an academic. Perhaps I should write in my native language, it's more natural. My main difficulty has been translating feelings into coherent language. Since most of the time I can only relate to things emotionally, even when it comes to things such as history, politics, and art; I can not understand them unless they evoke strong feelings within me. I'm afraid I'm someone who can only learn or experience reality through feelings, which explains why I've never felt interested in mathematics or technology.
This is what I wanted to record today.
I remember when the English Patient won 9 academy awards back in early 1997. This movie, which is probably one of my favorite movies of all times, if it had been released a year later it might have never won anything at all, it would have been dismissed as just another film. The point is that everything in life is ruled by chance, everything happens only if a number of things come together or happen at the same time, or everything could be totally transformed by minute details, which means that we can chance the entire course of our existence with one step to the right or left. I know, the example above is rather pathetic, but it explains how random life is. Sometimes I feel that I appeared at the wrong time, or that I wasn't meant to be here at all, maybe it is not my fault I never win the first prize, maybe I'm just in the wrong time and place. Those who are chosen, maybe are so because no one else was around to compete with them, and expose their lack of significance and their superficiality.
This is what I wanted to record today.
I remember when the English Patient won 9 academy awards back in early 1997. This movie, which is probably one of my favorite movies of all times, if it had been released a year later it might have never won anything at all, it would have been dismissed as just another film. The point is that everything in life is ruled by chance, everything happens only if a number of things come together or happen at the same time, or everything could be totally transformed by minute details, which means that we can chance the entire course of our existence with one step to the right or left. I know, the example above is rather pathetic, but it explains how random life is. Sometimes I feel that I appeared at the wrong time, or that I wasn't meant to be here at all, maybe it is not my fault I never win the first prize, maybe I'm just in the wrong time and place. Those who are chosen, maybe are so because no one else was around to compete with them, and expose their lack of significance and their superficiality.
Friday, March 14, 2008
No One's Dream
That's me.
C'est moi.
Right now, I only exist, neither for someone nor myself. I just exist.
I have no answers, I'm just inundated with reactions like those of someone banging against iron gates, trying to open them. The emotions inside crash against me like the ocean against the rocky shore. unfortunately, I'm not made of rock.
The fact that I don't do what most people do seems to imply that I'm not as human as the others are. I know, I'm completely outside the fringes of dominant culture. I haven't been socialized, normalized, and exposed to the conventions of this adorable civilization. I know that I don't watch the latest Hollywood films every weekend, or listen to the newest rap albums, or wear a particular style of clothing, travel, play video games, or drink every friday night.
I feel like an unfinished painting, waiting to be completed and then exhibited at some prestigious gallery near you.
C'est moi.
Right now, I only exist, neither for someone nor myself. I just exist.
I have no answers, I'm just inundated with reactions like those of someone banging against iron gates, trying to open them. The emotions inside crash against me like the ocean against the rocky shore. unfortunately, I'm not made of rock.
The fact that I don't do what most people do seems to imply that I'm not as human as the others are. I know, I'm completely outside the fringes of dominant culture. I haven't been socialized, normalized, and exposed to the conventions of this adorable civilization. I know that I don't watch the latest Hollywood films every weekend, or listen to the newest rap albums, or wear a particular style of clothing, travel, play video games, or drink every friday night.
I feel like an unfinished painting, waiting to be completed and then exhibited at some prestigious gallery near you.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Das Zeitalter der Entdeckugen
Once you understand that our existence is a continuous history of loss. Nothing lasts forever, everything is ephemeral. Life acts as a furious engine that never stops. We lose everything as we try to gain, as we try to live, and decipher its meaning. We lose our youth, innocence, vitality, idealism, material possessions, loves come and go, or never come at all, relatives leave us, culture changes, and the old planet keeps aging as we forget to love it.
This idea is very pragmatic, but it's a strong mechanism to cope with the innate cruelties of nature and life. Its pragmatism gives you some sort of immunity; you will suffer less, or at least cry less.
tragically, I'm such a idealist.
This idea is very pragmatic, but it's a strong mechanism to cope with the innate cruelties of nature and life. Its pragmatism gives you some sort of immunity; you will suffer less, or at least cry less.
tragically, I'm such a idealist.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
A new frame
One thing it is certainly true, the world is not completely deprived of excellent human beings, in fact I've met several of them, some I know rather well, others, not so well. The point is, that I find it hard, almost impossible, to believe that only one person deserves all our devotion and attention. I mean, with so many extraordinary people around with different talents and characteristics why limit ourselves to one person. Our conception of love is so contained; all we do is deny ourselves the possibility of discovering the very best of others. Everything is so limited, things can only exist within a frame.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
The many Frankensteins
I believe humans come into existence once we are able to share our time, being, and space with others. We become humans when we are incorporated into the life of others, experience their fears, joys and knowledge. It's hard to be human when the world builds walls or fences around you--sometimes there is even barbed-wire waiting for you. It turns out that the monster has a heart of flesh, not of stone, craving for love. He asks his creator for a companion, after experiencing the worst form alienation known to any being. He wanted to be as human as his creator, Dr. Frankestein, who in reality was the actual monster. In fact we are the actual monsters, who look normal and even beautiful in the outside, while we crave with ambition and search for power.
What is to be human?
Reading this novel almost brought me to tears. I could sense the level of torment, the frustration, created by a world so afraid and indifferent, where only the blind are free to look beyond the appearances and embrace the 'monster' wanting to be human, and experience the beauty of those fragile creatures.
Everyday I think about how much I want to give, but I can't even make the effort.
I Even thought of buying flowers and going to her office, and tell her that she's the greatest professor I've known and that her husband is the luckiest man alive; married to a woman who is so full energy, intelligence and excitement that you will never be bored. I can't even see the screen as my eyes are tearing...damn...so much love to give. ..
What is to be human?
Reading this novel almost brought me to tears. I could sense the level of torment, the frustration, created by a world so afraid and indifferent, where only the blind are free to look beyond the appearances and embrace the 'monster' wanting to be human, and experience the beauty of those fragile creatures.
Everyday I think about how much I want to give, but I can't even make the effort.
I Even thought of buying flowers and going to her office, and tell her that she's the greatest professor I've known and that her husband is the luckiest man alive; married to a woman who is so full energy, intelligence and excitement that you will never be bored. I can't even see the screen as my eyes are tearing...damn...so much love to give. ..
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