I can't understand the people who assail the RH bill with red herrings and straw men. Who say that the bill is a scheme by the state to acquire more foreign aid. Who say that it is yet another misguided attempt to divorce morality from rational state policy. Who say that the bill is inherently flawed because the problem lies not in the availability of contraception, but in the people having sex when they shouldn't be. Who say that the bill will promote promiscuity. Who say that the bill is based on a wrong economic premise. Who say that the bill isn't a solution for poverty per se.

I can't understand them because they sound like smart people and yet they seem to conveniently ignore the fact that the problems that the bill seeks to address are real. That millions of poor people have little clue how getting children works aside from the vague notion that it's unmistakably tied to sex. That doing nothing far outweighs, in units of evil, doing something that might be flawed, but still holds the potential to be a watershed for rights. It is the ages-old insistence on a perfect system too late when you can have a flawed system right now. I call it the political science major syndrome: the belief that one can change society by wishing and lamenting hard enough. Although of course, I can't claim to be perfect. I suffer from the existential phenomenologist syndrome: the belief that one can change human nature by wishing and lamenting hard enough.

I forgot what my point was now, since I went and had lunch. Never mind.

Excerpts from futile Facebook railings against Dick "The Dick" Gordon's failings.

---

“If the people will think, I will win. If another candidate wins, they didn’t think." says Gordon. Again, eto yung pinakamagaling na presidente? Eh bagsak na nga sa logic bagsak pa sa humanity eh. Kaya pala lahat so far ng na-encounter kong Gordon supporter sobrang feeling bobong-bobo sa lahat ng hindi nag-aagree sa kanila. Kasi yung presidente nila mismo ganun. Tsk, what a pity. Dick is true to his name.

---

Nakakatawa yung "Gordon is arrogant and he is my president" campaign. Porke ba't "magaling" pwede na maging mayabang? Note the quotation marks. Hindi gentleman, walang common decency, out of touch sa karamihan ng social realities. Ano siya eh, results results results. He's going to try and remake the Philippines into his image of what a great nation should be. And he's going to fail because he's wrong (not to mention not going to win).

---

He doesn't deserve to be called a Machiavellian. Such an individual knows the best way to get into power, and once there, stay there. For that he has to be able to read people, political landscapes, and social realities, and THEN use them to his advantage. Gordon either literally can't be a Machiavellian (ineptitude or ignorance), or isn't one.

I'm not saying being Machiavellian is a good thing. I'm saying Gordon isn't.

Nagsalita si Gordon sa Ateneo. Paraphrased: "Cogito ergo sum is my philosophy. Because it means 'I think therefore I am'. For me the most important thing is that we should think." Philosophy fail, Dick Gordon.

---

Noynoy Aquino for president.

A bit of change is always forthcoming. Or okay, make that a lot of change. Long update later.

---

Streetlight people
Living just to find emotion

*

T: You know what sucks?
Realizing that everything you believe in is complete and utter bullshit. It sucks.
S: What do you mean?
T: Uh, you know, destiny, and soul mates, and true love, and all that childhood fairy tale nonsense. You were right. I- I should have listened to you.
S: No.
T: Yeah. What? What are you smiling at?
S: Tom.
T: What? What are you looking at me like that for?
S: Well, you know, I guess it's 'cause... I was sitting in a deli and reading Dorian Gray and... a guy comes up to me... and asked me about it, and... now he's my husband.
T: Yeah. And... so?
S: So, what if I'd gone to the movies? What if I had gone somewhere else for lunch? What if I'd gotten there 10 minutes later? It was- It was meant to be. And I just kept thinking, Tom was right.
T: No.
S: Yeah, I did. I did. It just wasn't me that you were right about.

You are the reason I'd much rather follow phenomenology than epistemology.

In a few hours, when I'm finally done, when my life stops being defined by something I told myself I could do and then promptly flipped me like a coin, I'm going to be free.

Maybe then I can get started thinking on anything and everything I've never been able to do without that special kick of guilt/shame that comes from the only certitude I've had the past few months: that I've been postponing the inevitable for far too long.

So this is what committing yourself to something that turns out horribly wrong feels like. After the initial heady rush of accomplishment, the self-satisfied hurrah of exercising the capacity for massive investment, you sober up and realize, fuck, this is not what I meant at all / this isn't it, at all.

But thank you, Kant. Thank you for telling me that staid as I may be, I am at least never going to be as staid as you. Maybe I'm too much of a postmodern; maybe I just have a coupla hundred years on you. Or maybe "all it was was that I was young. But now as I end this story, brothers, I am not young, not no longer, oh no."

My life, my life. I'll have it back. It may not be much but at least it's mine.

So Bro, bakit mo nga pala pinayagang mamatay si Mayor Enrique?

That suicides are damned for eternity is a good enough reason for me never to allow myself to believe in the benevolent God of Christianity. To be punished for the only ultimately authentic free act, the most tragically human act? Doesn't compute, God, unless you believe all of us are our own gods, in which case you should have been throwing those hailstones and thunderbolts since the Garden of Eden.

Odi et amo. Excrucio.

I should be writing my thesis but I'm not. I should be writing my synthesis but I'm not. The two are, at this point, mutually exclusive. Not because they take up my time simultaneously (there's that), but because the two are movements so radically opposed to each other it's hard to juggle them in my head at the same time. A synthesis paper is essentially a creative retelling of the whole of philosophy viewed generally; a thesis is a delving into the minutiae of a particular topic and an aiming, as if a gun, towards the bullseye one seeks to hit. It's like how I told a friend that it's like moving your left hand forward and backward and, at the same time, moving your right hand up and down. You'll always lose your sense of direction and often at the most inopportune of times.

In short, I don't wanna start this synthesis knowing it'll be shot down for being narrow and focused. But I have to get this over with. Today.

And this is just a draft. I have no more self-esteem where it counts.

Holy fucking shit this is long. /cuts

( Cut for those not interested in my thesis. Props and/or free shrink tickets for you, if you are. )

I'm pretty sure I missed a lot of stuff. But then again this is quite the detailed outline already.