Achieving Happiness

Last night was the Philippine Association in Hong Kong (PAHK) charity ball, and it was held in the posh Four Seasons Hotel. I went with the rest of the staff of the paper and our publisher and his wife, and despite my initial extreme discomfort at the idea of going, I had a good time.

No, I didn’t wear a gown. I wore a $20 barong I bought last Friday at World Wide, $50 shoes and black slacks I brought with me from the Philippines. No make-up, no hair ornaments, no jewelry. All this made me feel at ease and like myself, so I felt free to just be me and oggle everyone else and their dazzling clothes.

I am a socially awkward being, and there is nothing I can do about it. It takes too much effort to pretend to be graceful. My parents (if I were to search for anyone to blame) didn’t teach us about social graces (okay, so maybe my mom tried, but my dad said ‘who cares if they don’t know which fork to use? A fork’s a fork.’) My publisher cornered me and told me I should know how to ‘present myself.’

‘But I’m only a writer. I write, and what’s on the page is what’s importarnt," I protested.

He retorted, "But you’re not in a writing situation right now."

I wanted to answer back, "Writers are always in a writing situation. Everything around us is material. There is nothing and no one we can’t write about when we choose to."

Proof positive, here I am, writing down what took place last night. I suppose David wanted me to ‘present myself’ better because I’m representing his newspaper, and I can understand that. Maybe next time there’s a function, I can be less…myself and be more of a…girl.

I am pleased with myself that I am learning to be more lighthearted and less angry and frustrated withthe middle-class. It doesn’t do me any good to feel upset over what I, perhaps too self-righteously- believe to be their heartless indifference to what’s happening to OFWs here in Hong Kong, or more importantly, to the worsening political and economic situation back home.

It’s most unfortunate, but I suppose I should begin to accept that IT IS NOT EVERYONE WHO CAN CARE about other people, and consider the welfare of others as something they should be concerned about.

Right now I’m taking a crash course on the philosophy of Michel de Montaigne, a French Renaissance philosopher who believed that wisdom did not automatically came with learning; and that the body, the physical self is often superior to reason although most people (especially those who view themselves as intellectuals and philosophers) won’t admit it.

It’s like this: a man is writing down his thesis on, say, how Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy on the uselessness of existence. He (the thesis guy) is all agitated and fired  up because he believes he has found new insight on Schonpenhauer and all these words are bubbling inside his head and he wants to write them down as fast as he can.

Most unfortunately though, his stomach is also bubbling. A wretched inferno of badly-digested food and he has to stop writing and closet himself in the toilet for an hour. He reasons that if he stops writing, the ideas will leave him, or the mood will fade; but his body is insisting that he immediately vacate his bowels or else. He cannot reason with his body: it will do as it will, thus he abandons his work and heads off to the john.

Montaigne says it would be foolish to ignore our physicality, our physiognomy and biology even as we study philosophy and aspire towards higher learning and achievement.

Exactly. This is also something the German philosopher Karl Marx understood deeply, and acted upon when he made his  body of work. It is not enought that we understand what happens to the stars and the planets, or how clouds form, we should pay attention to our bodies and how they are affected by the environment, o society and history.

He took it higher: philosophy, or reasoning, must serve the greater interest of the greatest number of people. In newly-industrializing Germany and Europe at the time of his writing, it was the workers, their bodies and their welfare he focused on. How workers were affected by the changes around them, whether they were being left behind, ignored or was the impact of these changes around them destructive. Marx’s philosophy was laid down on solid ground, and they did not aim for the stars.

"A virtuous, ordinary life, striving for wisdom but never far from folly, is achievement enough," Montaigne counsels.

Marx set his standard for virtue higher:  to unearth the roots of exploitation and to amend the damage done by the alienation of workers from the means by which they can create better, more productive lives for themselves and their families. 

—-

Macapagal-Arroyo declares war against the NPA and alleges that the AFP will succeed in crushing the insurgency in 10 years.
How many people - civilians, progressives, mass activists, sympatizers — does she intend to kill to achieve this? They will never be able to defeat the NPA unless they kill their hundreds of thousands of supporters who give the NPA food, shelter, clothing, information and everything else they need to survive.

The NPA is a source of hope for many in the countryside who have suffered the cruelty and exploitation of landowners, their hired men, and the AFP all their lives. This is why the NPA continues to exist and to flourish. Because the NPA and the CPP-NDF give alternatives to the current set-up of inhumanity and injustice in the Philippines.

Those who think that an eye-for-eye philosophy when it comes to resolving social conflict is too harsh, or immoral or against the will of God should think: is what’s happening to the poor now, under the ruling elite and their armed forces not harsh, immoral or against eveything that stands for good?

A gun is a gun. It becomes a weapon of killing or a weapon of justified self defense and liberation depending on who wields it. If my enemy came to me wielding a gun and threatened my family and everything I have worked hard for, I will not be able to hold him back with words and intellectual or moral arguments. I would use a gun myself.

How did I come to such realizations? By studying philosophy, world history, my country’s own history, and using common sense. It is so painful that Filipinos have to kill each other, but who started the war and gave cause to the poor to fight back with arms and in self-defense? 

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