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Thursday, March 12, 2020 | March 12, 2020 |

A Dialogue With Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky is a Russian author and one of the world’s greatest novelists, whose works dramatize religious, moral, philosophical, political, and psychological issues.

*The setting of this one-act play is around the time when Dostoevsky became involved with a group of idealistic young men who met in secret to discuss social problems and social reform in Russia. The repressive Tsar Nicholas I, fearing the spread of revolutionary ideas, regarded the group as highly dangerous. In April 1849 Dostoyevsky and 23 others were arrested, tried, and condemned to death; however, the sentence was changed to imprisonment in Siberia. For the next four years Dostoyevsky lived in a prison in Omsk, sharing a barracks and doing hard labor with some of Russia’s most desperate criminals.*

Characters:

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Raskolnikov (from Crime And Punishment)

Underground Man (from Notes From Underground)

Ivan (from Brothers Karamazov)

Plot: Dostoevsky engages in an intimate conversation with select characters from some of his novels.

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*After a hard day’s labor, a very tired Dostoevsky enters his designated barracks with the intent of getting rest but was nonetheless beleaguered by his three other companions.*

Underground Man: “Hey Fyodor! How hard-working you are! If I hadn’t known better, I’d say you enjoy staying here.”

Fyodor: “There you are again with your sarcastic remarks. You do know our only option is to follow the orders.”

Raskolnikov: “You speak of option, but how can it be called ‘option’ when no freedom is present?”

Fyodor: “Ah, Raskolnikov! Ever the thinker! I think it is you who should rest and not me.”

Ivan: “Raskolnikov does have a point…why must you mock him so?”

Fyodor: “Bah! I give up. What is it then that you want? Speak up.”

Raskolnikov: “We wanted to have a discourse on the concept of freedom. Because that is exactly what we are deprived of, and man’s longing is obviously directed to that which he does not possess.”

Fyodor: “Freedom is the ability to act moral under the watchful eye of God.”

Ivan: “It is my turn to mock you now Fyodor, for such definition is anything but freedom. We must all realize that the concept of God is overrated and I for one propose a godless world where people would exchange their freedom for material security and comfort.”

Underground Man: “What is it with you Ivan? How could you think of sacrificing freedom? You do know that man is not truly human without freedom!”

Fyodor: “Let us all calm down before anything regretful happens. This is after all, a discourse. Now Raskolnikov, pray tell, what do you think?”

Raskolnikov: “I think that if man is truly free, then “everything is permitted” and he should be able to step beyond the accepted limits of right and wrong.”

Raskolnikov: “Meaning, if I wanted to kill that obnoxious soldier who supervises our daily labours then I am by no means wrong in doing so, for it is simply an act of doing the greatest good, that of ending the life of an oppressor; for the sake of the greatest number of people.”

Underground Man: “Ah, so here then enters the problem with freedom! If people have freedom then their human impulses to do evil may lead them to destroy themselves and others.”

Fyodor: “I strongly agree. Human life must be guided first of all by religious principles.”

Ivan: “You and your god, Fyodor! How can you take it to heart to praise a god who permits us, innocent children included, to suffer when we do not deserve it? How foolish it all is!”

Fyodor: “Ivan, intellectual that you are, but still quite naïve. It is clear that your only intent in this discourse is to bring about your conviction of a godless world.”

Ivan: “By all means it should be!”

Underground Man: “Just can it, Ivan. You’re going nowhere.”

*Ivan gets frustrated and instead of answering back, he sulks in a corner.*

Fyodor: “Ah well! Let him be.”

Underground Man: “Raskolnikov, you speak of killing an official when you are aware that I myself used to be one, and an obnoxious one at that. Would you not hesitate to have my blood on your hands, assuming that you think it beneficial to the people I supposedly oppressed?!”

Raskolnikov: “Depends if you want me to be a hypocrite.”

Underground Man: “Why you!”

*the Underground Man attacks Raskolnikov in a fit of rage but before anybody could calm him down, he fell back, the pain in his liver stopping him.*

Fyodor: “You really should see a doctor concerning your condition.”

Underground Man: “Bah! What do you care? What do the doctors care? This pain affects only me and no one else. My liver hurts? Good, let it hurt even more!”

Fyodor: “I could never comprehend your reasoning.”

Underground Man: “I do it out of spite! And I do not expect anyone to comprehend.”

*the Underground Man goes to his bunk muttering incoherencies, leaving the scene with only Raskolnikov and Fyodor.*

Raskolnikov: “Bah to the both of them! Always full of ideas that never get materialized! What this world needs is an innovative genius in the form of crime.”

Fyodor: “Pray tell, what is it that you mean?”

Raskolnikov: “Do you not realize it? Every single great man, leaders, conquerors and the like, in the history of mankind have all committed crime to bring about something noble. That…that is exactly what must happen again.”

*Fyodor observes Raskolnikov drift off into reverie, most likely musing about how he could be the innovative genius which he talks about.*

Fyodor: “That has been interesting. But I see we’re all tired by this time. Let us all rest for the night.”

*Strangely, Fyodor felt tired no more, instead a surge of ideas rushed through his mind. Giving his companions a final glance, he smiled.*

Fyodor: “Someday the whole world would know about the three of you and your ideologies. I’ll make sure of that.”

Labels: 2020, crime and punishment, fyodor dostoevsky, notes from underground, one act play, philosophical, philosophy, russian literature, the brothers karamazov

Monday, February 18, 2019 | February 18, 2019 |

Wax Philosophical (A Poem)

Ah Caprice, the mother of Spontaneity

your daughters are weeping

at the foot of History

all your whims led to Revolutions

the Synthesis of which

earned dissatisfaction

Technology is but a postmodern thirst--

for Immortality

a postmodern twist

to a thousand year old plot

of Man daring to become what he is:

educated and godless,

invention is his Vice,

devoted to his Objects, he becomes one:

a means, not an end.

NOTES:

I remember writing this poem after I read GWF Hegel's "The Philosophy of History." I was heavily fascinated with world history during that time and was invested in thinking about the future of Mankind. Admittedly, I am more mature now and have realized my smallness in the totality of the universe, that I decided not to be too affected by things I could not control (such as the "unknowability" of the future) and just live my life in the best possible way I could. That way, if I couldn't change the world for the better, at least I could do it for myself. One less noise in a cacophony full of voices demanding to be heard doesn't remove the headache, but on the bright side, it at least lessens its intensity.

Labels: 2019, aiko lactaotao, aiko-lactaotao, aikolactaotao.com, amwriting, asian poets, creative writing, female asian poets, filipino poets, filipino women writers, philosophical, philosophy, poem, poetry, writing blog

Saturday, December 17, 2016 | December 17, 2016 |

Sunday Afternoon Crisis

According to Plato, existence can be categorised into two realms: one is the realm of the material, and the other, the realm of transcendent forms. In the former, which is the topic of this discussion, everything is limited and measured. The world as we know it can be broken down into chemicals which ultimately becomes us, both flesh and not. Certainly it is a finite world, for imperfect Beings cannot subsist in a perfect one (the world of forms), as the result will be chaos.

With science, this world that has once filled the ancients with awe suddenly became bland and contrived. Detail after detail it informs us about what-is, what-there-is, how-is; under the banner of medicine it meddles with our lives, highlighting how ought we live when in fact no amount of medicine and scientific know-how can guarantee us immortality. And is that not what the progress of science aims for? Immortality— that is, the fountain of youth, the road to El Dorado, etc.? When our eyes hanker for what is in plain sight, it creates ways to satisfy that lust. The explorers of yore made us yearn for an exotic palate when they discovered spices; they made us aspire to be wealthy when they discovered treasures of all kinds from around the world, and for all of these, they made us want to live as long as we can to covet and have the strength to satiate our desires.

It makes it clear to me to see that science, when used as a business commodity, becomes a tale of tragedy.

Science has not escaped the clutches that the power of greed have over men. This limited world was supposed to be full of mystery until mankind decided that it does not want surprises or mysteries anymore. Hence we exist in an age where the only entity that matters are numbers: “what time does one have to get up?”, “how many hours does one have to work?”, “how much do you get paid?”, “how many admirers do you have?”, “how many places have you travelled to?”, “how many friends and followers on social media?” “how many years does one get to live?” All of these questions are a destitute reminder of how far— and how low mankind has come. Living by the numbers is a pledge to live as a failure.

“Man-unkind”, as E.E. Cummings would say.

Man-unkind indeed has infiltrated the once inscrutable abyss of the world and beyond. While it has not yet fully discovered every nook and corner of the universe, it is continually seeking ways to do so.

What science fails to give us, the power of the imagination can supply. Science itself started as a project of the imagination when the first philosopher (Thales) asked “What comprises the universe?” but it has long since escalated into a downward spiral to being a thing used for monetary gain. What goes on in the confines of the mind is a wide-range of possibilities, though certainly not infinite. The imagination is a great tool to possess when one refuses to live by the numbers. Again, although not limitless, the imagination offers us the idea that we are more than mere numbers, that unless Providence decrees for it to be so, the possibilities of what we can achieve if we set our hearts and minds to it are endless.

Now here arises the problem, since what started for science as a project of the imagination ended in by-the-numbers pedagogy, is it not foreseeable then that the end of the imagination is the mundane? That every man’s journey in life leads him to the commonplace, to a mere number? This is no ordinary problem, but an existential crisis of the highest order.

If man’s raison d’être is to avoid boredom as much as possible, how come mankind strives to acquire knowledge of everything? Does he not know that is shall bore him out of his wits should the world not be shrouded in mystery anymore?

Man, however, is very stubborn and like Sylvia Plath, we all “desire very deeply that which will destroy us in the end.” So it is the same with man’s desire for progress, his wanting to quench his thirst for infinity and immortality. To live by the numbers, the how-many’s and the how-much’s, this is our secret longing— and the imagination is just a pawn in our striving for it. If we look deeply, our eagerness to live with the principle of not getting bored inclines us exactly to that path.

The imagination is a pawn, science is a pawn; the intricacies of worldly knowledge are nothing more than pastimes for a species whose motivation to live is to not get bored.

We all fall in this category and there are no exceptions. To summarize it, life is just one great big pastime until judgement day comes. Imagination, while it lifts us to heights we haven’t been in before, is bound to go downhill to its destination of drab facts and plebeian figures. We get bored easily so that we could invent more things to get bored of again. The cycle repeats itself in a Sisyphus-Like manner, and we are contented with this setting for lack of any better option. It may not be pretty, but this is the raw, incorrigible, and nonetheless prosaic fact of being human as I realize it on a mundane Sunday afternoon.

Labels: 2016, essay, philosophical, sunday

Thursday, March 12, 2020 | March 12, 2020 |

A Dialogue With Fyodor Dostoevsky