Is this the real life.. Is this just fantasy?

     Haruki Murakami, I think, is a brilliant writer. His works were introduced to me by my Philosophy master only recently, and just a week or two ago, I finished reading one of his firsts and my first HM work, Norwegian Wood. Now, I am halfway finished in reading 1Q84. That is why, I was delighted when I found out that one of his short stories is going to be tackled in our HUMALIT class – and that is, Super-frog Saves Tokyo.

     First, I would say that this short story, just like Norwegian Wood, really affected me and made me feel sad after reading. (Although, I must say that Norwegian Wood is way more depressing. I spaced out for a day after reading the book.) However, in the case of Super-frog, I was able to look at the situation in a positive way as well. More to that later in the blog.

     I must say that I really appreciate Sir's explanation of the story. I would like to share in this paper, however, the impression that the story has left me. The most important question that I find myself asking after reading the story is, “WHAT IS REALITY?”. I think that it is a question that almost everyone takes for granted. People are so consumed by this material, physical world that we do not stop to think, is this life real? People have been so accustomed to what their routines that they simply accept that this really is life. However, I find myself doubting this reality sometimes, and just like in the story, this is because of DREAMS. When we dream, we do not actually know that we are dreaming. We see all the weirdness and what we would normally call 'unreal' when we are awake as totally NORMAL while we are dreaming. We only recognize their weirdness when we are finally awake. It leads me to the questions: What if this life I am dreaming right now is not actually real? What if every one I encountering and every thing I am experiencing right now are just figments of my mind?

     In reading Katagiri's story, the question is rephrased, but the sense is quite similar. What if I am actually a crazy person, and this life I consider right now is only made up by my mind, when in fact, I am only lying down a bed in a mental hospital somewhere? The vagueness and fluidity of 'reality' is so great that I cannot really think of a way to be very sure and to have concrete answers to my questions. Even the answers of the philosophers that I constantly read and study and all the efforts and hardwork of my rationality are not enough for me to answer this simple answer that many people do not even bother asking.

     What I can only do, just like Katagiri, is focus on making the most of whatever there is now. Since I cannot really be sure whether this life is actually reality or not, I would just do what I can to make a sense of it. This may not be the same for others, but I think that the way I, personally, can do this is to shape this 'reality' as my own. It brings to a mind a story told in Paulo Coehlo's Veronika Decides to Die. In the story, there was a peaceful kingdom ruled by great King and Queen until a traveler poisons the well of the common people. This particular poison affects the minds of its victims and drives them crazy. The King and Queen, drinking from their private well, were the only ones who remained sane, while the whole kingdom went crazy. Since the King and Queen wanted to rule still the Kingdom they love, they decided to drink from the public well. Of course, they go insane as well like the common people, but then, they went on ruling the kingdom for many more years. The same kingdom was very odd and different in the eyes of the other kingdoms surrounding them, but the kingdom was able to live in peace , anyways. What this tells me is that sanity, which can signify reality, is not based on perception. It bases on what works. And for Katagiri, his happy dreams were what worked, not this everyday 'reality' that drove him crazy in the first place. And to be honest, I guess that's not too bad.

Lastly, I would like to quote Dumbledore from JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. This is one of the most impressive things that the wise old man said in the totality of the series: 

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

Is there really Evil in the first place.

My first interpretation of Estrella Alfon's Magnificence, I must say, is far from what we have discussed in class. The first time I read it, the theme and idea I thought it revolved around is the special relationship and bond between a mother and a daughter. The last thing I would have thought is that it is actually an allusion, a response to the Genesis' story of the Fall of Adam and Eve, which it really is.

This is actually hard for me to say. Even if I am a Catholic, I must admit that I myself do not truly understand all the teachings of the religion I belong to. There are still many questions that I found no answer for. I cannot even be biased about this since I am truly passionate about knowing many things and knowledge itself, just like the many philosophers I read about and admire.

However, I have always liked challenging myself. I also tried to come up with my own answers to the questions that Alfon has raised through her response to the Genesis story. The two stories, Magnificenc and the Fall of Adam and Eve, were very similar in many ways but Alfon missed many important aspects of the characters and events in the Genesis story that kind of misleads the readers:

1. First, the Mother flawed but she was not aware of what the kind of person Vicente really was, for she really is a person, still. God, however, is a perfect Being, omnipotent, omniscient. He would not be perfect if He did not really know everything. So He does. He put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil because He loves Adam and Eve, and He wants to give them choice to follow and love him back and not make them His mere puppets. The mother, on the other hand, did not have the same awareness as God.
2. The little boy and little girl did not really have the choice that Adam and Eve had.
3. We cannot really say that there really is evil in the first place. I would say that it is only a term to describe absence of goodness. And we can't really say that Adam and Eve eating the fruit does not really give an account to say that there was ignorance and knowledge then, which is presupposed by Alfon. Knowing evil is not a knowledge because it's just a consequence of something that is in the absence of good.

There were many more missing points, but it would be too long to pin point each. However, I would like to conclude by saying that we cannot question that story in such a way that we are using only our limited knowledge. Being a believer of a notion of God, I believe there are things that we cannot fully fathom or comprehend. We now live in a world wherein we know what is good and evil, and this is what we are used to. Knowing this has become a part of our routine and habit in this world. Therefore, we cannot really judge what life would have been if we did not have this knowledge. Let's not look at the Biblical story only in the context of our time and situation. We would say that life would have sucked if we did not know what was good and evil, and it would have exposed us to even more evil. But what if the act of choosing to know what is good and evil is actually choosing to renounce goodness, thus making us see its absence, that which is evil?

The Potential to be Unselfish

This week in HUMALIT, we played a group game. We were divided into 5 groups, then we were assigned to 5 other boats. The groups would then vote for which group will get to the shore and which group will eliminate one of the people aboard their ship.

Basically, this game symbolizes the story of The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas in many aspects. First, the goal of the game was something positive - to survive shipwreck. It is just like the situation in Omelas; the goal of the people of the city is to gain prosperity, wealth, and peace for the city. However, the other aspect of the game which is sacrificing some individuals who had to jump out the boat to save the other people, is also visible in Omelas. For the sake of the majority of the people in Omelas, an innocent life of a child must be sacrificed. This single child must be deprived of the prosperity and wealth that the majority of the citizens of Omelas experience.

I answered in our paper that it is not worth it at all, to sacrifice an innocent child for the many, that it cannot be for the "greater good" if there is one, even just one, who is hurt and done evil to. However, through this game, i have realized that that point of view has become an ideal, an impossibility. It seems that humans are all willing to sacrifice other people just to give themselves what they want and need, that humans are selfish in nature. Everyone else in the class was willing to compete not only to get to the other side and survive, but also to beat each other for the sake of the plus points. Truly, we live in a world that lives by the saying "dog eat dog".  

No matter how great my ideals are, I am continuously being beaten by the innate instinct of selfishness in me... And it makes me sad. That is why, I am posing a challenge to myself and to my other fellow human beings: if selfishness truly is our nature, then let us defy nature. It might seem impossible, but then again, it seemed impossible for everyone to step on the moon and Neil Armstrong defied that common belief. An impossibility remains an impossibility, a potentiality remains a potentiality, an ideal remains an ideal, if we do not try and act to reach it. I think that in the end, we form our nature and reality. So why not try to start now and defy our nature of selfishness?

The Leap of Faith - Take it.

       Although I do not fully agree with some of the messages that James Joyce's Araby conveys, I would admit that it is crafted very well, for unlike many stories today, “there is more to it than meets the eye”. I always found allegories quite spectacular, for it transcends these mere words into an idea that is indirectly, creatively, imaginatively, and entertainingly told.

       Araby uses a coming-of-age short story to express his views on religion, particularly the Roman Catholicism. He uses Mangan's sister to show that the Church is manipulating and taking advantage of the people only for its own benefit, when in the end, they will experience what the narrator had – the 'epiphany' or the feeling of disappointment and anguish after realizing that they were founding themselves on false hopes.

       I will repeat that Araby is very well-crafted and creative, and it truly deserves a title of being good literature. However, I would not agree with the opinions of the author. He expressed that this idea of religion or 'faith' is there only to put you up high then let you go to fall hard on the floor. Based on my personal experience and what close friends tell me, yes, 'faith' does bring you down sometimes. Yet, unlike the perspective of Joyce, things do not end there, unless you give up easily. I think that's what faith really is about. The idea of faith would become silly and pointless if it always assures happiness and positive things. In terms of faith, there will be challenges, downs, and even doubts, but that's part of the whole idea itself. Actually, if you do not easily give up on 'faith', you can even experience yet again another 'epiphany', but this time, instead of a negative one, it is the one that will bring you back up from your first fall. And that faith is what keeps me living because in this life, we will always fall, we will always trip... But I always try to keep the faith that I will somehow stand back up again. And that is what religion is for me.

       Yes, I know and admit that my explanation's clarity and creativity is nowhere near to the art of Araby, but I think I have made my point. I disagree but appreciate the story and the message of the story. Yet, I would say that in faith and religion, it will always be a matter of perspective. It will always be up to us to see them in a negative fashion, just like Joyce, or in a more optimistic way the way that I do. And what's wrong in trying to be more positive even if it's not sure, right? Saying 'no' does not make things unreal... So I would say, let's take the leap of faith. 

      Let me end this short reflection with what this cute little puppy has to say:

Absurdity.

ABSURDITY

It is a

Round, loud

Wheel of steel

On and on it goes

Wheel of steel

Round, loud

This it is

Run, Lola, Run: Analysis based on Aristotle's Poetics

Run, Lola, Run (1998) presents three different outcomes of one story with the same people and same situations; the differences were a matter of timing. On this paper, the three different runs will be analyzed in accordance to Aristotle's standards of elements that compose a good Tragedy in his book Poetics.

First, it can be established that all three runs have what Aristotle called Mimesis which is the imitation of an 'action'. All three runs imitate human actions such as running which Lola did most of the time, and even emotions such as anxiety which was most obvious in Manni as he waited for Lola. Death was also experienced by the characters except in the third run, by Lola in the first and by Manni in the second. The element Catharsis was also present in all three runs, although it was weaker in the last run caused by its being a bit ideal or unrealistic. However, all three purify the emotions of pity and fear for Lola and especially Manni, who is facing a life-and-death situation. The other elements, on the other hand, differ in every run. Those differences will be made much clearer in the next paragraphs.

Run 1

The Hamartia or the inherent flaw of the protagonist, Lola, in the first run is her uncontrollable anger and also, the fact that she was not a real daughter of whom she knew as her father, or in her father's words, a 'cuckoo's son'. Those were the flaws that caused her not to achieve her goal of borrowing the money from her father. Next comes the Peripeteia or the 'reversal of fortune'. The situation of the first run, in the beginning was not very good already. Lola was not helped by her father, and she was even upset as she finds out that she is not his real daughter. However, they were able to get the money as they robbed the market. Yet, the peripetia comes as they were surrounded by the police, and a nervous police officer accidentally shoots Lola in the chest.

(Lola, after she was shot in the first run)

Run 2

Hamartia is present in the second run because of Lola's violent tendencies, although that enabled her to rob the money from the Deutsche Bank. The Peripetia present in this run which comes after Lola being able to rob the money from the bank where her father worked, when she calls her lover, Manni, is ran over to death by an ambulance as he runs to Lola.

Run 3

The problem with the 3^rd run as to why it will not be considered a good Tragedy is, firstly, it is not a Tragedy at all. All the odds are in the favor of Lola and Manni. There is no Hamartia, because as it can be seen, Lola is actually a very nice and thoughtful person, especially when she stays with the bank security guard in the ambulance car as he struggles from heart attack. Her means of getting the money was not something totally bad; she harmed nobody in the process, since she earned it rightfully in the Casino. Peripeteia is also not present. There was no reversal from good to bad, for it had a good ending. In fact, it was better than resolution to the presented problem, since they got to keep 123,000 marks that Lola got from the Casino, as Manni was able to get the money from the homeless man who was able to get the money from the train in the beginning of the movie.

(The third run ends smoothly, with Manni getting the money from the homeless man and back to the crime boss, and both of them getting to keep the 123,000 marks Lola won from the Casino)

I on Drama, Plato on Drama, and Arisotle on Drama

I must say… It’s quite a relief to finally finish Poetry. I admit that Poetry is actually my weakness in the world of Literature despite my being a bookworm and a lover of wisdom (or Philosophy, which is quite ironic since many well-known philosophers are poets).

It would be quite pointless for me to repeat the things we tackled so I should just get this over with and tell my comments on Plato and Aristotle on Drama. Basically, Plato is against drama which the avenging Aristotle (the ‘avenging’ part is another weird but cute story but it’s out of the context) contradicts…

Hmm.. This is actually quite hard for me to comment on. Firstly, I am more convinced with Plato’s World of Ideas and I find his philosophy quite more sensible than Aristotle’s. In fact, one might even consider me a Platonist. And yes, he did make a quite great argument as to why dramatists should be banished from the ideal society or what he calls “The Republic”. However, I must also not disregard the sensible reasons that Aristotle pointed out because that would be quite biased! So if you’ll ask me, who is right?

Of course, not that my opinion really matters or that my opinion is what’s really right.. But for the sake of writing something and for the sake of an answer to a quite philosophical question, here it is: They are both right in a way, but I reckon Plato is still more right. Yes, there “might” be a need to prepare for the ‘actual’ pity and fear situations as Aristotle clarifies through the “Catharsis” thing…But then again, Aristotle is quite limited to physicality.  Being a believer of the “world of ideas”, of course I would think this is stupid. We need to look beyond the physical, and being preoccupied with the copies of the ideas will leave us no time to pursue the world of ideas. Also, I think that’s quite lame and boring. Exposure to drama does make life quite predictable at times, or we might reckon it’s too predictable that we expect an outcome that would not really happen, based on what we see on Dramas.

However, it’s not that I am saying that drama is stupid and we really don’t need it! Even Plato does not banish poetry and myths totally, since he himself uses it (e.g. Allegory of the cave). It is the same for Drama. I think we do not need to totally disregard it, but we must not use Drama for the sake of Drama, but for the sake of pursuing the Truth (of the world of Ideas) just as Plato used the Allegory of the Cave to express his special points and to reveal easier his Philosophy. We must not let Drama hinder us from the reality… or to make us be contented with this Physical world. It’s okay to go and entertain Drama, but remember that there is always something beyond..