Last edited, May 17, 2023: Someone asked me about Lacanian approaches to femininity and hysteria. Look into Joan Copjec’s book called, “Imagine There’s No Woman”. Copjec is likely one of the most renown feminist Lacanian in North America. A controversial figure, but worth a read!

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This post includes a bunch of things from stargazing, communication, MBTI, all the way to a real life example of love transference. I’ve been really tired from work. Luckily I have a draft with around 30,000+ words full of these types of writings. It usually only takes me a few hours to organize and publish a post like this unless I feel like adding more to it. ✌

Good nap.

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The Alter Ego

I said this before, but think I need to say it again. Some people probably paints quite a picture of me from reading this blog. Truth is, this blog is more like my alter ego which only displays parts of who I am as a person. Just because I say something on here doesn’t always mean they are written in stone or represent who I am in reality. Some of these are brief random thoughts where I change my views later on. I prove myself wrong and change my mind all the time. I am not free from or ignorant of self-reporting errors. I often make inaccurate assessment of everything on here. I also only write during my alone time, which is different to my other day-to-day activities.

Coming to think of it, I actually live a double life batman style. In real life, I prefer to fly under the radar and be an ordinary person without drawing too much attention to myself. But once you get to really know me, I am quite the opposite to what most people think. For example, most people who reads on here can tell I have a vivid intellectual life—a life that I partially keep in secrecy from my ordinary life (hence my double life). Yet, I’m also not as serious as what most people think. So if you think I am very serious in real life, then you haven’t broken the outer layer of Bobby’s onion personality.

Most people who has been reading this blog for awhile only gets to know the intellectual, more serious and somewhat darker side of me, but not who I am entirely as a person. People sometimes likes to jump to conclusions about me with information that they don’t have simply because I haven’t given them any, or because they don’t know me irl (they don’t have proof). Other people likes to do selective reading over my writings on here and think it is the entirety of who I am. It’s almost like they are just trying to cherry pick and give themselves a reason to jump to conclusions about me (probably because they want to find reasons to hate me LOL). Definitely not a fair or accurate assessment.

In short, if you never spoke to me in real life and are coming to conclusions through this blog, you are likely wrong about a lot of things, even if you think you know everything about me. Yes, I am very aware of what kind of information I put on here. I’m not someone who can be easily seen through. The best way to know me is by meeting me in person—if you can ever find me. Hah!

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Infinite Thought

“To think is to confine yourself to a single thought that one day stands still like a star in the world’s sky.” —Martin Heidegger

Did you know that when we look at stars, we are actually looking into history? The lights from these stars took thousands and millions of light years to arrive before our eyes. History becomes present, and present becomes the future. I tend to think this is exactly how great thoughts are formed: between past and future. One should not be surprised that some of our brightest thoughts always arrives to our eyes last, right between the dark spaces of all the shining stars.

I am a big fan of star gazing and I’ve been thinking of buying my own amature telescope when I got some money to spare (I recently just paid off my new car). A few years ago, I used to drive out of the city to go stargazing by myself during the summer. I stopped because I work too much. But I always found it very peaceful. It’s just me and the universe with no one else. It feels great.

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What is something that you secretly like?

I secretly like to cuddle and enjoy physical affection despite disliking most people touching me. I’d say I am also secretly a romantic and a really passionate lover. Unfortunately, people probably just think I am a stone cold serial killer LOL. I always forget to smile.

But you know what I also secretly like to do? Sing in the shower / at home while making up my own lyrics on the fly. I am a freestyle rapper bruh. I also like to walk around the house with exaggerated movements like a child.

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What is the best way to tell who someone really is?

By looking at who they are friends with.

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The opposite of anorexia…

is muscle dysmorphia where people are obsessed with gaining big muscles. I just learned how this was a thing when my phone randomly recommended me a psychology article that spoke about it LOL. The study showed how muscle dysmorphia is becoming a prominent issue among men where they discovered how these men also have a lot of narcissistic symptoms along with troubled relationships with their father. The study also suspect it has to do with the effects of social media.

I’m not surprised honestly. In fact, I already spoke about this in several places on this blog a year or two ago. Freud is probably laughing in his grave right now. Y’all better get your daddy issues sorted out.

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Asian Heritage Month

I think it’s the dumbest shit ever. Get rid of it LOL.
It’s funny because some people can’t tell I am Chinese due to my facial hair where they are surprised when I suddenly speak fluent Cantonese. I can also understand a little bit of French and German from my studies in continental philosophy, but more so in written form.

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Should men always make the first move?

A friend asked me this the other day. My answer was, “No. It’s 2023”. What are you still living in the 50s? Or wait, everyone is still living in simulation. 😉 Though I usually don’t mind making the first move because I don’t like to beat around the bush. Pretty much everyone who I liked in the past will tell you I just randomly told them I like them romantically. It’s kind of surprising because it worked more times than I thought LOL. And in cases where it didn’t work, they still appreciated my honesty.

In general, you should never play games (I consider someone who tries to make you chase them as game playing). It’s emotional abuse for the other party, especially if they really like you. Game playing is also counter-productive because it can quickly become self-sabotage. Sometimes, people play games because they have some kind of ideological fantasy of what a relationship should be like, even when this is the result from problematic social conditioning (maybe more on this next time). Not to mention that game playing often attracts all the wrong people to you.

I remember there was this one girl I met where I straight up told her that I liked her and she got so happy that she immediately gave me her number and asked me out LOL. I’ll be honest, I liked her even more after that. I also remember how she was so flirty that I had to redefine my definition of flirting. She was very enthusiastic in a good way (or clingy for some people; depends on who you ask). Unfortunately, things didn’t work out because I wasn’t in a good mental space to be with anyone at the time. There was also some misunderstandings between us. I admit she was light years ahead of me in terms of emotional intelligence—something that I can learn a lot from. I’m also pretty sure she made an art piece about me.

She is a good example of someone who made the “first move” after I expressed my interest. Though I confessed to her first, so I technically made the first move where she met me half way. She was confident, sincere, authentic, sweet, devoted, and never made me guess. A year or two later, I heard from a friend of hers that she reads my blog where I taught her a lot about philosophy, language, and other worldly issues. Honestly, I’m happy she learned a lot on here. I think I hurt her pretty bad. It has been almost 10 years, but I hope she is doing well.

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Bobby’s Humor

I am fluent in sarcasm with a flare for irony and dark humor. Toilet humor is also not bad, especially during dinner time. People can’t always tell when I am being sarcastic and throwing down jokes because I sometimes do it with a straight face.

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On Communication

While I can be quite good at reading people when I try, I am not a mind reader. I’ve definitely been wrong before. Many times in fact. People often make a lot of assumptions that others can read their minds and the intentions of their words and actions. Truth is, no one can—at least never in a complete sense. If you can’t or are unwilling to speak clearly about your thoughts and emotions, especially during important moments where others really needs to understand you, no one will get you. Misunderstanding happens much more than you think because communication is a very finnicky thing. Sometimes, when people does choose to speak, they respond in a really defensive / aggressive way almost like they want to start a fight. It’s very interesting because this is (can sometimes be) a good example of transference in psychoanalysis. You see a similar phenomenon when you are just casually talking to someone and they randomly snap at you.

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There is a hardware store in my city called “KMS tools”

I bought something from there and joined the KMS club.
I know it’s a horrible joke to make if you don’t like dark humor. But damn, it’s hilarious LOL.

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Google search: Why are INTJs…

…so scary
They’re not. Most of them looks like grumpy cats (RBF) with laser beam eyes. They’re really nice once they warm up to you, even if they can sometimes lack finesse in their words because they don’t got much social filter. INTJs are some of the most loyal people that you will meet. They are consistent and takes commitment to a whole new level. INTJs sometimes have a tendency to make people think on a really critical level which can intimidate others. So I guess they can be scary due to how much they know. Some INTJs can appear Byronic which might scare people as well (someone who is secretive, dark, romantic, passionate, ironic, and cynical; the term is derived from 18th century romantic poet, Lord Byron). It is fair to say that INTJs are people who thinks with their heart, and feels with their mind.

…so attractive
Because they have razor sharp intellect who are really well read about a lot of worldly topics. But they are also modest and not flashy about it. If you are someone who likes to learn, INTJs will constantly fascinate you because everything mundane is beneath them. They will show you new ways of looking at the world that you never thought existed. INTJs are usually one of the most intellectually competent people in the room with a calm and solid deposition to them that some people are really attracted to. It might be because they balance out a lot of the more extroverted types that takes interest in them (and the extrovert can help the INTJ be more spontaneous). INTJ tends to be xNFP/xSFP magnets. Also, don’t let their outward seriousness fool you. They can be really big jokesters who can be surprisingly talkative once you crack them open.

…so rare
Because they are masters of Introverted Intuition (Ni) which gives them an ability to see through a lot of things in all sorts of abstract ways. Nothing escapes their Ni. INTJs are incredible observers, hyper self-aware big picture thinkers. Similar to INTP and INFJ, they have some of the brightest minds in the world who can carry the weight of the universe. When Ni gets combined with their other functions, they become a walking paradox who awaits for the right person to solve their puzzles. INTJs are not shallow people who only cares about what you look like. It is often said that if you want to make love to an INTJ, you must first make love to their mind!

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Another Sign of an Obsessive Neurotic

If you attend a survey course at universities that introduces psychoanalysis. Obsessive neurotics are the people who rejects the existence of the unconscious mind. They do this due to the experience of repression.

One of the surest places you can find obsessive neurotics is in philosophy departments (though realistically, obsessives are everywhere on the street). Have you ever wondered why so many philosophers are men? No, it’s not simply because of inequality. It’s not because they are smarter. It’s because they are mostly obsessive neurotics who are concerned with their “existence” which inhabits the fundamental questions that they all ask: “Am I dead or alive?”. There is a reason why Jacques Lacan was so famous for being an anti-philosopher.

In general, it is safe to say that neuroticism (hysteria and obsessive) is the keystone to human intelligence. Though I also think psychotics plays a big role as well. It might be why so many geniuses and intelligent people are often seen as “crazy” by the masses.

P.S. I am a good example of an obsessive neurotic. Though I’m no genius.

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Real Life Example of Love Transference

I have quite a few good examples in mind. Initially, I was going to talk about two. One of them is about my love transference onto someone who I spoke about in some of my other posts that I recently removed (when I saw her for the first time, she reminded me of my first love, which was why I denied most of my feelings for her initially; I was aware of my transference). But since she might get mad if I write about her and say the wrong things again, I will only talk about one example today LOL.

Exhibit A:

My sister’s ex-husband’s name is Eric whose personality is somewhat similar to mine—but not quite. Actually, he is a completely different person. Even when I realize that my sister’s love transference lies at this point where she transferred her love that she has for me onto Eric.

Here is the most fascinating part. When I was five or six years old and about to immigrate to Canada, my parents was going to name me Eric before I told them that I wanted to be called Bobby. My sister was always perfectly aware of this memory because she was the one who pointed it out. A coincidence? I think not. In psychoanalysis, there is no such thing as coincidence.

Does she consciously recognize this relationship between Eric and I as young Eric? While she recognizes that we are “similar” in personality (her imaginary projection), she doesn’t recognize how Eric represents little Bobby. If she was in a clinical session and I was her analyst, the discovery of such connection must be made by her (if I was an analyst with no relation to her, I would not know that Bobby’s old name was Eric until she free associates it during the session). The analyst can only assist her during the most critical moments of the session. If these interpretations arrives at the wrong time, she may deny it due to her ego trying to cover up her wound / castration (her repression). This is what analysts mean when they talk about how our interpretations of reality can sometimes “hit the Real” which produces the effects of surprise and encompass the experience of love.

When you love someone, you are unconsciously in love with someone else. One way we can understand this is how psychoanalysis makes us recognize how our transferences and projections are often elusive, just like how our interpretation of someone or something can be incorrect due to our desires. This isn’t to say that these transferences are completely “false”, such that my sister does not love Eric because she unconsciously loves me. Rather, as time goes by, these transferences will reflect unconscious conflicts between her feelings for me versus Eric as a real person who is nothing like me (she is passing through the Symbolic Other; the filter that I spoke about in Part I). She needs to, in some sense, give up (repress) her love for me to be with Eric. Love happens exactly at this point (hence as Lacan puts it, “Love is the experience of the Real without the tragic dimension”). This is why love is about locating our wound or castration in the Other—to give up parts of our unconscious desires and transferences which often leads us to frustrations, compromise, and sacrifice for the other person. Simply put, my sister will always deal with her unconscious conflicts between Eric and Bobby as long as they are together.

Most of what your everyday person views as “love” is simply their desires talking which is most prominently seen in new relationships. Love is what happens after all the initial attraction (lust) wears off; or the relationship might end where both parties recognizes it as a “fling”. This is usually where couples starts to fight / argue or realize each other’s differences as love passes into the Symbolic. Hence, love is a “surprise” that this person is not what I thought to be when I first met them. And real love is what makes these surprises and differences work. I recall I once spoke to a friend who told me how her relationship with her boyfriend got a bit “boring” after awhile. But little did she know that this is where love happens (they’ve been together for 10 years). Alain Badiou’s famous saying, “To love is to struggle” is true to its words. This is why I pointed out last time how there is no such thing as easy love and it is the people who chooses to stay in your life that matters. I also wrote about this at the end of #3 which can be found here. Love is not a contract between two narcissists.

Sometimes, people reads my work and thinks they have to somehow reenact the things I say in their relationships; they cherry pick certain passages to understand and ignore the rest; or they read about the symptoms of neurosis and intentionally avoid producing these symptoms in their life, which doesn’t make them any less neurotic (this is what analysts refers as “adjusting your ego”). Truth is, the things I write about are things people are always already doing effortlessly. It’s always already there, lurking in the background of your everyday life.

Recall when I spoke of how love is metaphor (substitutions) and desire is metonymy. In this case, Eric is a metaphor for me. He is my substitution. Similar things happen when people write songs, poems, or makes art and theater plays for their loved ones. Art and creativity is the product of love and the wound of our split subjectivity.

Perhaps what we can learn from this example is how our object of affection often resembles someone who we love from our past in ways that we might not immediately recognize. They might have a similar personality or voice. They might look similar in certain ways with their eyes, facial hair, and so on. In this example, they have same or similar names, old names, nicknames, etc. Most importantly, what appears to be my sister’s conscious love for Eric reveals to be the impossibility of her relationship with me. The moment one declares their love for someone, they are unconsciously locating their wound or castration (repression) in the other person. Or as Jean Baudrillard might put it:

“If you say ‘I love you’, then you have already fallen in love with language, which is already a form of break up and infidelity.”

Last edited April 05, 2023: I didn’t make any changes. I just wanted to tell all of you that I am really busy with work and my butt hurts. Good night.

I always try to post once a month. But I want to devote more time on important writing projects and other things in life which means I might not post as frequent as I used to. To make up for it, this post is slightly longer than usual. It includes a section on clinical psychoanalysis, the symptoms of hysteria, art, and a story about Bobby’s lung collapse experience. 💀

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“The measure of a person’s disposition is this: how far is he from what he understands to what he does, how great is the distance between his understanding and his actions.”

—Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love

💯

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What Pokémon would Bobby be?

One of my friends once said if I was a Pokémon, I would be Zapdos, the legendary lightning bird. You know what? I can see that LOL. Disrespect Bobby? Be prepared to get zapped!

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Cognitive functions around the house (hyperlinked and timestamped here)

Recently, I watched a YouTube video on what each MBTI cognitive function are like around the house and the one on Ni was hilariously accurate. I almost spat out my water on the part where she went “you’re not going to know what I’m working on until it’s too late” HAHA. It’s so true.  And the staring at wall thing is also very accurate. 😎

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Daylight Saving Time (DST)

Messes up me up so bad every year. It’s like getting jet lag out of no where. I told my friend about it the other day and he sent me a bunch of scholarly articles on daylight savings and how mortality rate goes up by 3% in the weeks after DST, especially in Fall where you lose sunlight. It’s a very interesting pattern that I am not even surprised (it fuels depression). DST always makes me lose sleep which weakens my immune system and gets me sick all the time. DST also happens around flu seasons as well which might be another explanation why it appears like mortality rate goes up around DST. ☠

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On Friendship

Most of my inner circle friends are from elementary and highschool. We are a loyal bunch. I think when it comes to friends, I am not someone who actively goes out looking for them (though I used to when I was 20, but often failed to find people who really understood me except for a few). It’s likely because sometimes, I notice people are only nice to you because they want something from you.

I am also not always the one who plans and invites people to do random things unless you are in my inner circle. This is why it is often the confident people who takes initiative to talk to me that befriends me. It is not that I don’t put in the work to befriend others, it’s the fact that I am often preoccupied with stuff in my mind which makes me forgetful and absent minded. So if others show interest, then I will too. In fact, I will often put as much effort into knowing someone as the other person will.

If you are someone I care about, then I will be the person who will listen when you have something to say. If you need help, I will help you out. I will go to places with you when you invite me (it also depends on where). I also won’t judge you. I’m a pretty loyal person once you befriend me. I’m not much of a gossip girl which means you can count on me to not talk behind your back (gossip is junk food for the mind).

It’s strange to say, but I am not someone who keeps friends. It’s usually people who decides to keep me where I keep them in return. Most people achieves this by taking the initiative via talking or messaging me randomly, or sending me random links to things they find funny, invites me to do things, or tells me stories (I will often do the same in return if they do this enough times). Basically, they are usually the people who constantly bothers me and genuinely opens up to me before I open up to them. Coming to think about it, I am basically a human cat who gets adopted by all sorts of different people.

I am friendly if you talk to me. I can also be a bit soft spoken. I am definitely not someone who would change myself to make others want to be my friend or like me. If someone wants to be my friend or something more, they will make an effort. If not, then so be it. I don’t force myself onto others or try to manipulate or control them into liking me. I also don’t compete with other people for individuals that I am interested in platonically or romantically. It’s not how I do things. If I like you romantically, I will eventually tell you and let you make the choice. I often try to be as straight forward and honest as I can be. It’s more about timing if anything.

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Greatest living photographer

I spoke about this to a friend the other week. It is a difficult one and it depends on the category. I think great photography is like a great piece of writing—it provokes culture, depth, and thought. I would say either Andreas Gursky, Juergen Teller, Annie Leibovitz, or Nan Goldin. Cindy Sherman is up there as well.

I never learned to appreciate Gursky’s works until I got older. His mesmerizing large format photographs of supermarkets, factories and buildings really shows you the repetitiveness of contemporary society. Actually, I think Gursky is likely one of the greatest photographers of our time. If you look at his work called “Amazon”, it really shows his critique on contemporary capitalism and the problems with mass production and fetish commodity. I think a lot of Gursky’s work showcases consumerism and how the production of consumer products resembles to the production of human beings in society. Apartments, institutions, social media platforms, and schools becomes factories that mass produces certain types of people. I think Gurksy’s works is a good example of bringing up the problems of globalization.

I also like Rhein II, which sold for something stupid like 4.3 million USD. One of the things that stands out to me is how geometric and plain the photograph is where the Rhine river flows horizontally almost like the flow of water is opposing the laws of nature. The way the photograph is positioned makes the river, green field and grey sky almost geometric like. For the most part, nature does not produce straight lines, especially the type of lines and shapes you see in Euclidean geometry (though the edge of a crystal is a straight line; the next closest thing is likely a ray of light, but it is affected by gravity; spider web is another one). I suppose in this case, it is a matter of perspective where human invention and perspectives (photography) intervenes nature which turns the natural into something abstract, cultural, and human. Very clever.

I wouldn’t always say that those who doesn’t understand contemporary art photography lack culture and intelligence (though I’m not ruling out its possibility LOL). They just haven’t been exposed enough to contemporary intellectual dialogues to understand them. I think most professional photographers who looks at the works by Nan Goldin would be like, “she needs to learn her camera settings and how to take a nice picture”, even when they don’t realize it is the intimacy, authenticity, and rawness of her works that makes it so great. Nan Goldin actually captured a lot of different sub-cultures back in 20th century where some of them became quite prominent, such as the LGBT community.

I should write about art again. Great photography that makes you ask difficult questions are hard to come by these days. Art is not your popular cliché of pictures with your sock stuck to it. Great art provokes and challenges human knowledge about the world. In fact, looking at art and trying to figure out what it is saying is one of the best ways to learn how to think critically!

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On grad school funding

Since someone asked. My opinion is that if you don’t get full funding for grad school, it might not be worth doing because it can get expensive. In Canada, universities will often offer at least partial funding for graduate studies. It really depends on your major and what you are studying along with how good you are; and the type of resources and funding available for that particular department. It is always preferred to have full funding that covers not just your tuition and books, but also your living expenses.

Often times, funding won’t come from a single source unless you land a big grant. For example, a chunk of my funding was from my supervisor’s SSHRC grant (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, a Canadian federal research funding agency). Another chunk came from my department, and another chunk came from the provincial government. I would like to thank the tax payers of Canada for funding my degree and contributing to sustaining Bobby’s junk food addiction for the duration. 😛

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What types of books does Bobby like to read?

I am mostly a non-fiction reader. My interest in certain books stems from my on going inquiries about various worldly topics. When it comes to authors, I often try to read those who left a profound influence in modern history. I like original, impactful authors whose ideas changed the world or influenced a lot of people. I don’t always like to read commentaries (people who talk about these influential figures), I like to directly read their work and make my own discoveries. Other times, I enjoy reading banned books or books that are written by marginalized writers (i.e. people of color), but they must also be influential that brings new critical perspectives to contemporary thought; and not just some random person who aren’t even all that good (sorry lol).

I often enjoy books that demands high cognitive abilities because I like solving intellectual challenges and puzzles. Sometimes, people likes to blame their incompetence on the writer. Yes, some authors are horrible writers who also happens to be a really cryptic (kind of like me lol), but it’s not much of an excuse if you want to understand them.

Bobby likes to learn from people who are significantly smarter and more influential than everyone else. It doesn’t matter what race or sexual orientation they are (these are the last things I care about; it’s not about the person, it’s about their ideas). But it also has to play a role in my interest too.

Learn from the best. Push your mind to the limits. Go big or go home!

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I am self taught

A lot of people think I gained my knowledge in deconstruction and psychoanalysis through school which is only partly true. Most of my experience in these disciplines came from personal interest and studies. I am mostly self-taught. It definitely takes a lot of will power and discipline. It is very different when compared to going to school, having assignments and a teacher who makes you do things.

For me, going to grad school was more of a proof to myself of my years of hard work. It also marked a significant turning point on my personal and intellectual maturity. If anything, getting my MA was more of a formality. It was easier than I thought. Getting in was the hard part because I didn’t have an academic research background for my undergraduate degree. I still remember when my supervisor read my sample essay and told me how not very many people at a masters level understands deconstruction the way I did. A great compliment for sure! He was an elusive man who often gave me the psychoanalyst vibes.

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Buying a new car

My current 2010 Toyota Venza that I drive is 13 years old and there are lots of things that I don’t want to fix (new tires, spark plugs, new wheel, and a few other things). All the maintenance adds up to $2k+ and its current 2nd hand value is around 9-13k. I am thinking of buying a newish used car because new cars are never worth it due to depreciation.

Overall, the Venza is a great car and I managed to keep it in pretty good condition, partly because I don’t drive it too much. The interior looks spanking new with leather heated seats, panoramic sunroof, upgraded stereo, automatic hatch back, and everything. People who sits in my car often tells me how new it feels. The only downside is that this car is not very fuel efficient; mostly because it is a V6.

If I get a new car, I want to get an AWD because I don’t want to buy winter tires. I also prefer a car with a sunroof because I like it for summer drives (I sometimes like to go for late night drives because it is peaceful). Currently, I am looking at Toyota, Honda, Lexus, Mercedes, and BMW. It depends on what I end up with and if I am actually going to get a new car. If I do, I will likely put a big down payment and take a small loan to avoid paying too much interest. But I also don’t want to ding my savings too hard. Honestly, I can probably pay off the car early within a year or two if I end up getting one.

Japanese cars are reliable, economical and cheap to maintain. German cars are fancy, over-engineered (but well built), expensive to buy and maintain. Not to mention that my insurance will also go up. Some of them also needs premium gas. The German cars that I am looking at right now are at around the same price as the Japanese, I can’t say the same for maintenance though. Logic dictates that I should get a Japanese car. But I also want something that is a bit nicer because who doesn’t like to own nice things? My mom was like, “If you buy a Mercedes, you will get paranoid when you park because you don’t want other people to scratch it”. She is 100% correct LOL.

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Clinical Psychoanalysis

In my last post, I spoke of how psychoanalysis is not always about giving up on the desires and symptoms that the subject enjoys in their everyday life. The keyword we should note here is “not always”. It is situational in that, while a lot of people today would only seek psychoanalysis when their life is in crisis, some would seek for it during times where they might not always need it. The reason why I said this is due to the fact that in North America, psychoanalysis is often seen as a last resort for many people—especially when medications and other forms of therapy had failed (from a psychoanalytic perspective; medication had always in some ways, failed). Thus, most people who sees a psychoanalyst likely already have severe symptoms who are on medications.

Psychoanalysis attempts to help people find new or different ways to desire (it is about difference, just like love). It attempts to interrupt their symptoms by clearing the obstacles that obstructs their desire and/or substitute them for something new that is healthier and better. While some symptoms won’t pose much problems for some individuals, others will. And thus, the exchange of one desire over another is situational, but is often required for those with severe symptoms.

While most popular forms of therapy involves the assumption that the subject who seeks for help are willing to make changes in their lives (which they do, to be fair), psychoanalysis assumes that most people who goes to therapy actually (unconsciously) don’t want to change their lives. Instead, most people sees a therapist or analyst so they can help make them enjoy the things that they used to enjoy. In other words, people sees a therapist so they can repeat their old symptoms where they regress back towards their narcissisms and old symptomatic projections and transferences. This is somewhat reminiscent to people who goes to see a doctor because their life is in crisis since they are no longer satisfied by the things that they do in life. Then the doctor prescribes them some anti-depressants, or recommends therapy, tells them to go to the gym to produce more serotonin, so they can enjoy the things that they used to with zero changes and true understandings as to where their symptoms and desires come from.

Sometimes, studying psychoanalysis can make you start to wonder if medication is the solution and if people truly want to change. A lot of people gives up half way through analysis due to all the frustrations, irritations, projections, and resistances that they encounter during their sessions with the analyst, where they end up regressing back towards their old symptoms.

The psychoanalytic experience is not fun and games. It often involves patients who must, at some point, re-experience their most painful memories and sufferings from their childhood where they repeat all of their transferences, traumas, and symptoms that they project onto the people in their lives back onto the analyst. They must do so in order to potentially discover the truth behind them (the truth of their unconscious desires which drives their everyday behaviors, projections, and frustrations). Essentially, psychoanalysis makes you think about the things that your conscious mind avoids thinking about in your everyday life. People avoid them because it “triggers” them, causes trauma, gives them anxiety; and because their ego resists unconscious thoughts. As Freud might say, being entirely honest with yourself can be a really good exercise.

This is why I never use the word “client” in any of my psychoanalytic writings (though some Freudians uses this term). The term “client” involves some form of consumerist contract where the subject visits the therapist, pays them, and requests them to help find the satisfaction in the things that they used to enjoy, like how they go see a doctor who prescribes them meds. The “client” is not there with the intentions to produce new knowledge and discoveries about themselves on why they have X and Y symptoms, but are simply seeking for band-aid solutions that won’t solve their symptoms. They seek to repeat their old symptoms (I am generalizing here).

In short, the client does not want real changes on how their symptoms are shaped and formed in their unconscious mind. They don’t want to discover what unconsciously drives their everyday behaviors and transferences because it causes too much anxiety and frustrations. Psychoanalysis is not a consumer contract where the patient buys enjoyment like how they buy a pair of shoes. In fact, psychoanalysis often involves a lot of unconscious conflicts between the analyst and analysand via transference and countertransference. The analyst and analysand actually speaks two different languages (discourses) during the clinical session, and must remain so in order for psychoanalysis to take place.

P.S. I just gave you a really big hint on what one of my new writing project is about. 😮

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The Symptoms of Hysteria

I will give you a quick explanation.

Hysteria is most commonly diagnosed in women and sometimes in men, the latter who are often diagnosed as obsessive neurotics. Hysteria is a really popular area of study in psychoanalysis. It is also a common ground for debates among scholars and feminists. There are variations to hysteria depending on the school of psychoanalytic thought and how you approach it.

In modern psychology, hysteria is often translated as histrionic personality disorder. But since psychoanalytic diagnosis is more broad, it is safe to say that everyone consists of hysterical and obsessive traits which are considered as a form of neuroticism (because we are all neurotics; what people see as “normal” is actually a symptom in psychoanalysis). It comes down to which one predominates that particular person. While neuroticism is the everyday norm, some will have more severe symptoms than others.

The fundamental structure of a hysteric consists of the question: “Am I a man or a woman?”, or “What is a woman?” (a good way to think of this is contemporary identity and gender politics; though I’m not trying to throw shade). Moreover, we can think of the hysteric through the relationship between a child and their parents where the child may ask, “What does my parents want me to do?”, “Who do they want me to become?”, “Where do I fit in the family?”.

A hysteric’s desire is the Other’s desire until it is directed at them (keyword is “directed”). We can think of this as how some women may feel pressured when the man suddenly expresses their desires for them, where the woman may feel like the Other’s desire is pointed directly at them which leads them to reject the man, or to run away. The woman may unconsciously feel like if they submit to the Other’s desire (the man’s), they will lose their subjectivity or free-will. A hysteric does not want to be reduced to whatever it is that the Other desires for them, such as the man’s desires of who he wants her to be in his life (for example). We can think of modern society’s desires on what a “real woman” should be like and how a hysteric might reject how society defines a woman. In other words, a hysteric avoids being pinned down by the Other’s desire, where they may transgress such desire by rejecting it altogether (sometimes in unhealthy ways). Yet at the same time, it is only through the Other’s desire where they experience free-will—even if such will (desire) is never entirely their own.

As a result, this springs up a series of unique symptoms. A hysteric is someone who represses painful memories, experiences, and unconscious desires that are manifested through their physical bodies that appears to have no organic cause. They may for example, lose weight without any physical cause; or display certain physical symptoms without actually being sick. The most common symptom is found through the hysteric’s feelings and emotions. They may have rapidly shifting emotions where they feel like X then Y moments later. These repressive symptoms may also appear as regressions, self-sexualization, or self-objectification. Hysterics tend to be energetic who are attracted to attention, drama, social games, power, and risks. On certain occasions, hysterics can be unintentionally seductive, where they will be shocked when the other party interprets their behaviors as sexual invitation, where they may outright deny and does not enjoy erotically (this is due to effects of the Other).

Finally, hysterics sometimes appear as controlling through performativity, manipulation, and social games, even when they are trying to seek for safety and acceptance. This latter idea is often categorized by their unconscious fear of being thrown into a world that they have little control over, as they encounter people who they perceive to have more power than them, namely, the big Other (i.e. the hysteric wants to have control over the Other; such as to have power over society, other people, or their partner in a relationship; obsessives also displays these symptoms in a different way). In truth, this type of behavioral symptom actually stems from their coping methods that originates from the relationship with their parents in childhood, particularly the father (by “father”, I don’t always mean the hysteric’s actual father, though it can be; what I am also implying here is the “Law”; such as social laws and the laws of society). These types of games so to not submit to the Other and to overcome it can sometimes appear as insecurities to most people where the hysteric needs a lot of validation given by others and have control over them (insecurity is derived from the experience of “shame”).

Generally speaking, when accompanied by a quality analyst, the hysteric will have an easier time to enter clinical psychoanalysis than an obsessive neurotic. This is due to how the hysteric’s discourse associates much closer to the unconscious mind than the obsessive who represses it. In fact, hysteria can sometimes resemble like an analyst’s discourse, the latter whose sole job is to function as the enigma of desire (object a). This is one of the reasons why Lacan had once expressed his admiration for hysterics.

I will talk about the symptoms of an obsessive neurotic next time. If I remember.

* * *

Honesty

Some time ago, I asked my friend if he thinks I am too blunt and honest. He was like, “Fuck yes, but I need someone who tells me I smell like shit when I actually do and not lie to me for the sake of being polite”. I guess that is why we are friends LOL.

There were instances where I would tell people the truth because I don’t have patience to play social games. Sometimes, the more honest I am, the more they won’t believe me. They would think I am manipulating them like most people would, even when I’m not. And if I tell them the truth and they still don’t believe me? Well, that’s not on me. It’s on them.

* * *

Clarity and Focus

I am someone who likes to maintain a clarity of mind. I think most people can tell that I am a really introspective person who constantly questions everything, including my own thoughts. I also meditate, but not in a religious sense. My meditation is just me staring at a wall for 2 hours (ok maybe not a wall, but you get the point). I also have laser sharp focus when I write—especially when I write late at night. And when I am in “the zone”, I get irritated if someone interrupts me. I may also ignore you by accident without meaning to be rude. Sometimes, I will be talking to someone and ignore someone else by accident due to my laser beam focus. Not because I don’t want to talk to the other person.

* * *

Bobby’s Lung Collapse Experience

When I was 18, my lung randomly started to give me this sharp stabbing pain every time I inhaled. At first, I thought it was a small deal. so I just took a hot shower and laid in my bed for a bit. Pretty soon, I became immobile and couldn’t move due to all the stabbing pain that I had every time I breathed. My parents didn’t know what was going on and drove me to the emergency. During triage, the nurse measured around 60% oxygen in my body and didn’t know what was wrong, but they knew it was serious because that was not a normal oxygen level. I budged everyone in the emergency and was admitted within 5 minutes of waiting. I took an x-ray and the doctors told me that I lost around half of my left lung capacity due to a condition called spontaneous hemopneumothorax, where blood and air got trapped outside my lung which pressured it and caused breathing problems. They told me that if I didn’t go to the emergency, the pressure would continue to build up where my lung would pressure and shift my heart and kill me.

So they put me to sleep and stuck a small tube in my lung between my rib cage to let the air and blood out. Few hours later in the ER, the doctor said that the tube is not working and they have to put me asleep again and take it back out to get another x-ray + CT scan. This time, they got a respirologist to see what went wrong where they ended up putting me to sleep again to stick an even bigger chest tube in my lung (I was in the emergency room for 6 hours). When I woke up, I saw a pool of blood on the floor and a big ass tube around the size of a water hose stuck between my rib cage and into my left lung (I’d say it was around half inch in diameter—not sure how big the tube was inside my body though). The tube was connected to a container with a handle on it that was designed to drain out all the fluid, air and blood that pressured my lung. I ended up getting admitted into the hospital for a week. Since I was 18, they managed to give me a private room in the children section. I remember they also used one of the biggest needle I had ever seen in my life and extracted so much blood from me in the emergency. The nurse saw my reaction and was like “Don’t worry, you won’t run out of blood” LOL. I also had a very fast heart rate because my body couldn’t get enough oxygen to circulate my body.

It didn’t hurt that much while the tube was in my chest as long as I remained immobile in bed. But the nurse and doctor told me to get up and walk around to get some exercise and blood moving in my body. So I went on short walks while carrying a container of my own lung juice (it was mostly puss and blood). But every time I got up and walked, I could feel the tube wiggle between my rib bones where it would cause so much pain that the nurse had to give me morphine through my IV. The nurse was like “Some people got high on morphine and told me they saw pink elephants”. I was like “Huh? Really?” which made me curious as to what would happen to me. But I just passed out LOL  I ended up getting morphine quite a few times during that week due to the pain the tube caused. I also remember my room was located across from the refrigerator where I often got up and stole a lot of juice boxes from at night. I had to get blood tests once or twice a day along with a blood thinner shot. Due to how many needles that I had to get, they ran out of spots to poke me. The nurse told me it was either my stomach or my butt. I was like, “Don’t touch my butt you pervert”. So I got shots on my stomach which felt really weird. Painful even.

When I got better where they had to remove the tube, they undid the stitches around the tube and pulled it out of my chest. It was scary, but they told me it’s not supposed to hurt, and they were right. After they removed the tube, I saw a hole on the side of my left lung right under my armpit area where I could feel cold air going into my rib cage. After that, they just closed the hole with the stitches that was already there where I was released from the hospital.

They told me I can’t go scuba diving for the rest of my life due to the water pressure (I can’t swim worth shit anyway; throw me in the water and I will die LOL). I also can’t lift anything over 15 pounds with my left arm for a month, which sucked because I am left handed. They told me I have to go back to the hospital in a month for a check up and meet with the doctor. I had a lot of pain recovering where I couldn’t lay in my bed to sleep due to the pain of my wound. So I slept in a chair every night for two weeks. It took around 10 months to a year for me to fully recover from the pain. I would freak out whenever my left lung gave me a small stabbing pain (I still get scared when I get stabbing pains). When I met with the doctor, she showed me an x-ray of what happened and told me that there is a 50% chance it would happen again. She said if I smoked, the chance of it happening again is around 70% (I don’t smoke). I now have a scar right under my left armpit where they put the tube into my lung.

Ever since this incident, I refused to put anything in my lungs other than air. It has been 10+ years and I never got it again. Strange enough, I used to have quite a few smoker friends who I hung out with as I inhaled second hand smoke (they were mindful to where they blew the smoke). I remember I knew a Korean friend who got pneumothorax (this happens to smokers and vapers quite a bit). He told me he got traumatized of having a tube stuck in his chest and will never smoking again LOL.

I mean, it’s actually not that funny because my uncle was a heavy smoker who died from cancer a few years ago. My dad also used to smoke, but quit after my mom had my sister. One of my friend who I used to talk to quit smoking because I told her it makes her look like a grandma faster lmfao. It’s true.

The end.

Brain dump. I was going to publish this a bit later, but decided throw it out there now because I’ve been busy with work and other projects. This post consists of my afterthoughts on my latest piece on psychoanalysis and death drive, which can now be found in my “Popular Posts” menu on this site. I will also talk about idealism, materialism, psychology, writing, all the way to what it means to say “yes” and make a promise.

Have a good day. 🙂

* * *

This blog…

Probably saved a lot of undergraduate students who are learning deconstruction and psychoanalysis in their intro courses. Due to Derrida and Lacan’s difficulty, most professors and TAs aren’t expecting too much from undergrads who writes about them for the first time. And to be honest, I often find a lot of the ways some profs and TAs introduce Derrida and Lacan aren’t always good readers of their works (sorry, but it’s true lol). Whereas some of them gets it, but without fully recognizing the real life applications and implications of their ideas.

* * *

On Becoming a Psychoanalyst

It depends on the school of psychoanalysis you want to practice and it varies between different institutions. But a lot of them requires at least a Masters degree in a related field (some requires an MD or PhD) where you go through rigorous psychoanalytic training for several years.

In a lot of Lacanian schools, you also have to go through “The Pass” (le passant). It is where the student undergoes psychoanalysis and reach a successful analysis which yields to new psychoanalytic knowledge. The pass is basically where the psychoanalysand (patient) transforms into a psychoanalyst who is acknowledged by juries within the school. They are also granted a new title after they successfully pass. I forget what it was called.

Psychoanalytic training in Lacanian schools are an on-going process where training analysts are required to go through treatment as a patient; along with learning through the discourse of the other (experienced analysts) and the study of psychoanalytic theory. Some are also required to learn mathematics, arts, and other cultural phenomenon that is happening in contemporary society.

You need to learn math because Lacan was influenced by a French philosopher in mathematics—I forget his name. There is a reason why Lacan uses diagrams riddled with complex mathematic symbols known as “mathemes” to teach psychoanalysis. Basically, Lacan thinks language is an unreliable way to transmit psychoanalytic knowledge due to how our desires warps our interpretations of words. There is a lot of nuance in this area of psychoanalytic thought that I won’t extrapolate today. It has to do with the way knowledge is produced based on the discourses that the split subject takes position as in relationship with the other and their unconscious mind. Don’t worry, we will likely read more of Lacan’s crazy graphs and math symbols in the future together.

* * *

Afterthoughts on psychoanalysis and death drive

Overall, I’m pretty happy with how the post turned out (linked here). I really tried to show you the scope of psychoanalysis, its applications and relationships with other disciplines. I also tried to show how all the examples that I’ve used in my psychoanalytic posts operates at the same fundamental level through desire, drive, repetition, and the unconscious mind. Just to be sure, the goal of psychoanalysis is not to get people to stop desiring. It isn’t always about getting them to stop doing what they enjoy doing. Rather, it is to get them to desire and enjoy these things in a healthy way and establish a better relationship between their conscious and unconscious mind (it depends on who you ask).

If you are interested in Freudo-Marxism, I highly recommend Slavoj Zizek and people like Frantz Fanon, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse. Zizek is one of the most famous public intellectuals today who is a leading figure in Hegelian-Lacanian Marxist thought (he is also a funny dude). Zizek was psychoanalytically trained under Jacques-Alain Miller (often known as JAM), the son in law of Jacques Lacan and the sole editor of his seminars.

The Zizekian branch of Freudo-Marxism is a bit different to how I explained it in my post. Essentially, Zizek thinks people have inherited the ideology of capitalism as their unconscious fantasy where every subject would endlessly perpetuate the system without consciously realizing it (which drives everyone mad over time). More over, this capitalist fantasy that has been imprinted in our unconscious mind is also why there has never been any real changes in society despite all the changes that people want. In his eyes, one of the reasons why communism had always failed was because even the most famous leaders of communism, such as Karl Marx and people like Joseph Stalin, also succumbed to the unconscious fantasies of capitalism. This is another reason why communism always failed where it turned into totalitarianism, government corruption via greed, etc. Moreover, Zizek also argues how the invention of the scientific method, Newtonian physics, and Kantian metaphysics are conditioned by what Marx refer as “fetish commodity” that is found in capitalism. The core of these ideas can be found in Zizek’s magnum opus, The Sublime Object of Ideology, which made him well known and placed his ideas at the forefront of contemporary debates.

Anyways, the dialog that took place between Maurice Blanchot and Jean-Luc Nancy where they talk about community can be found in books called, The Unavowed Community, and The Disavowed Community. They are really hard to read. Meanwhile, when I spoke about jokes, Freud wrote a famous book on how it relates to the unconscious mind. It’s called Jokes and Their Relations to the Unconscious. The passages that I cited on metaphor and metonymy are from Lacan’s famous essay, “Instance of the Letter of the Unconscious” from Ecrits. It is frequently assigned as an intro text to Lacanianism in universities. Finally, when I asked if whether society can have perpetual peace, I was alluding to Kant’s famous book called, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch.

Some of the relationships I presented on deconstruction and psychoanalysis were part of my masters degree capstone project. In psychoanalysis, the subject is always divided by the symbolic Other. In deconstruction, the subject is always divided by time. The repetition compulsion (death drive) in psychoanalysis is reminiscent to the repetition of time in deconstruction. And no, I’m not sharing my capstone on here because it is way too long.

While there were a few hiccups here and there, I passed my capstone project with flying colors. I’m not going to complain about it because my masters degree was free (I got funding). I am grateful. I also wrote my capstone during the COVID lockdowns. This means nearly the entire thing was written in my underwear while eating Pringles. 🥴

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Solipsism, Idealism, and Materialism

Solipsism holds the view that nothing exists outside of your mind; and that your mind is the only thing that exists in the world.

Idealism is an umbrella term. In general, it holds the view that there is a reality that exists outside your mind, such as other objects and other people’s mind. Yet, reality does not carry any ontological meanings other than the ones that you assign them through your intuitions and concepts.

There are different schools of idealism, but most of them falls under what I just said. For example, Platonic Idealism acknowledges the existence of numbers in the outside world. The pioneer of modern idealism is the Irish philosopher, George Berkeley (University of California is named after him). Berkelian idealism is not considered as solipsism because it acknowledges that there is at least more than one mind—such as the mind of God who produced reality. Berkeley was also one of the major figures who influenced Immanuel Kant that began the philosophical movement known as German Idealism.

The opposite of idealism is materialism which is an umbrella term that holds the view that matter (i.e. atoms) is the fundamental substance that is found through objects in nature. One can already guess that the philosophy of science is largely a materialist philosophy which opposes to idealist approaches such as German Idealism, phenomenology, and even existentialism. Other forms of materialism would be something like non-reductive materialism. Recently, there is also “transcendental materialism” which seeks to incorporate Kant’s idealist arguments along with other idealist philosophies into a materialist position. It attempts to incorporate positions found in phenomenology and even psychoanalysis.

Sometimes, people also consider realism in opposition to idealism. Realists takes on a position where one sees the world as it is without any filters. Whereas idealists would refer to this type of thinking as “Naïve realism” which implies how, while a realist may think they can see the world as it is, they are only seeing it through their own perspective.

There are lots of debates that goes on between idealism and materialism. We can for example, think of the problems between mind and matter in psychology. Is anxiety caused by various brain activities, hormonal responses, and the products of our different mental states? Or is it produced by our conscious and unconscious thoughts that are affected by our environments, which in turn, produces these mental states in our brains as such? Some of the debates between idealism and materialism are fierce and heated. Where idealists would argue that our consciousness (and unconscious mind) plays a key role to our mental health, materialists argues that these thoughts, feelings, and emotions are caused by various mental states and hormonal causalities and correlations which explain people’s behaviors. If you ask me, I’d say it’s a bit of both.

But we must also consider psychology, along with sociology and other soft sciences which are currently facing a “replication crisis” where scholars discover that a lot of the influential studies that these disciplines conducted cannot be replicated. As a result, it brings to question the validity of its findings (David Hume saw this problem 200 years ago). This is why you often see psychology studies with contradicting evidence. I think that sometimes, modern psychology tries too hard to be a science even when a good chunk of it cannot be explained through materialist positions. This is not to say that psychology is useless (quite the opposite). I just think human consciousness is far too complex to simply be explained through material causalities and correlations. Modern psychology is only part of the picture. Things like medications and other methods to remedy mental illnesses are band-aid solutions to much deeper problems of the human mind and how it engages with reality and modern society. While I certainly think these methods are better than nothing, I just don’t think they are end all solutions. I might be wrong though. 😊

* * *

Sometimes, people just wants to be heard…

It sounds so stupid on my part. But there were times in my life when someone shares their problems with me where my first thought would be to try and find ways to fix it. As a result, it makes me appear dismissive and insensitive to their feelings. It wasn’t until I got older where I realized that when people shares these things with me, a lot of them just want their situation and feelings to be heard and understood. They want someone to listen, and not some annoying guy trying to fix their problems with cold blooded logic.

This type of unintentional dismissive behavior is not only something that I do to other people, it is also something that I do to myself. As I got older, I realized how harmful it can be on others and myself as a human being—especially when you start to ignore and deny your own feelings and bottle them up inside. As I got older, I learned that it’s okay feel and learn how to understand and express our emotions properly.

I eventually realized that this type of behavior that I’ve grown up abiding to actually stems from my family relationships—particularly the relationship with my dad. For example, my dad has a very similar type of behavior towards my mom which I began noticing several years ago. I even told him that he shouldn’t be so dismissive because I can tell she gets hurt by it. But it wasn’t until later where I realize that I can be just as dismissive to people’s feelings. Talk about transference! Nowadays, I know when I should just shut up and listen.

But it may also likely or at least partly stem from the socio-cultural phenomenon that people refer as “toxic masculinity”. It’s interesting to think about it under the context of psychoanalysis. Think of the symbolic Other who challenges a macho man’s self-image (narcissism) by telling them to be more feminine and express their emotions and vulnerabilities. How do you think some of them would react? As Zizek would say, a man is a woman who believes he exists. Masculinity is a question of belief. There are lots of nuance to Lacanian views on sexuality with different variations of it depending on who you ask. But it is something that is best left for another time.

* * *

MBTI and Neuroscience

Check out Dario Nardi, well known for his work on MBTI theory and neuroscience. I’ve watched some of his lectures in the past on YouTube and they were pretty interesting.

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I am left handed…

Please stop asking me in person Lol.

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Accessible continental philosophy books

With no specific time period in mind. From the top of my head:

-Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil by Alain Badiou (taught to high school students in France)
-Infinite Thought by Alain Badiou (great intro to his major work, Being and Event)
-In Praise of Love by Alain Badiou (it’s really good and easy to read)
-On Forgiveness by Jacques Derrida
-Plato’s Pharmacy by Jacques Derrida
-Structure, Sign, and Play by Jacques Derrida
-Deconstruction in a Nutshell by John D. Caputo (great intro to deconstruction)
-Radical Atheism: Derrida and the Time of Life by Martin Hagglund (deconstruction)
-Kant on the Frontier: Philosophy, Politics, and the Ends of the Earth by Geoffrey Bennington (deconstruction)
–On Escape by Emmanuel Levinas
–Simulations by Jean Baudrillard
-Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes (on photography and philosophy)
-A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes (super famous book on love; very good)
-Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre (great intro to French existentialism)
-No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre (this is a play)
-Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (play)
-The Courage of Truth by Michel Foucault
–The Logic of Sense by Giles Deleuze
-The Question Concerning Technology, and Other Essays by Martin Heidegger
-Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of a Future by Friedrich Nietzsche
-Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
–The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche (gay used to mean “happy”)
-Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard
-The Concept of Anxiety by Soren Kierkegaard
-Civilization and its Discontents by Sigmund Freud (great book, easy read)
-The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud (on truth and error)
-Seminar XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis by Jacques Lacan
-How to Read Lacan by Slavoj Zizek
-What is Sex? by Alenka Zupancic (Lacanian psychoanalysis)
-Meditations of the First Philosophy by Rene Descartes
-Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
-Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View by Immanuel Kant
-Cartesian Meditations by Edmund Husserl (great intro to phenomenology)
-Ideas by Edmund Husserl (phenomenology as the science of consciousness; great for advanced readers)
-The Universe of Things: On Speculative Realism by Steven Shaviro
–Tool-Being: Heidegger and Metaphysics for Objects by Graham Harman
–After Finitude: A Necessity for Contingency by Quentin Meillassoux
–We Have Never Been Modern by Bruno Latour
–A Summary on Non-Philosophy by Francois Laruelle
-Ontology of the Accident by Catherine Malabou (great intro to Malabou; talks about trauma)
-The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir (French Feminism for intermediate readers)
-Google Me: One Click Democracy by Barbara Cassin
-Power of Gentleness: Meditations on the Risk of Living by Anne Dufourmantelle
–Of Hospitality by Anne Dufourmantelle and Jacques Derrida
–Gender Trouble by Judith Butler (gender theory for advanced readers)
–Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence by Judith Butler

All of these authors are ground breaking and very influential thinkers. Some of them are not easy to read, but are good places to start if you want to learn some of their ideas. I avoided listing major works (except for a few) because they might overwhelm beginners.

You’re welcome

* * *

First Crush

I remember my first elementary crush lasted nearly 8 years (at that point, I’m not sure if it still counts as a crush LOL). It wasn’t until my early 20s where I briefly reconnected with her and confessed that I really liked her back in the days. She told me she liked me as well and we both laughed it off. By that point, it obviously didn’t matter anymore. We knew we were each other’s past.

* * *

Does Bobby party?

No. The closest thing is probably family parties. I used to be a lot more outgoing in my early to mid 20s, but I was never much of a party person. I also rarely go to pubs and bars unless some extrovert friend takes me. And whenever I go, I am usually the person who drives people home when they get wasted because I don’t drink. 

Speaking of parties. The other day, one of my friends went to a party for work (he also doesn’t drink) and he told me how some guy got so wasted where he went outside to eat snow because he was thirsty, and everyone was like “Bruhhh, there is water in the restaurant”. 😂

* * *

The Family Birthdays

Every year, the birthdays of my family (mom, dad, sister and I) are always on the same day of the week. Nobody noticed until I brought it up and everyone was like, “How did you even notice that?”, and I’m just like: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

* * *

…Yes, Yes

“When I say ‘yes’ – as you know, ‘yes’ is the last word in Ulysses – when I say ‘yes’ to the other in the form of a promise or an agreement or an oath, the ‘yes’ must be absolutely inaugural. In relation to the theme today, inauguration is a ‘yes’, I say ‘yes’ as a starting point, nothing precedes the yes, the yes is the moment of the institution, the origin; it’s absolute originary. But when you say ‘yes’, if you don’t imply that the moment after that you will have to confirm the ‘yes’ by a second ‘yes’ – when I say ‘yes’, I immediately say ‘yes, yes’ – I commit myself to confirm my commitment in the next second, and tomorrow and after tomorrow and so on, which means that the ‘yes’ immediately duplicates itself, doubles itself. You cannot say ‘yes’ without saying ‘yes, yes’, which implies memory in the promise; I promise to keep the memory of the first yes and when you, in a wedding for instance, in a performative, in a promise, when you say ‘yes, I agree, I will’ you imply, ‘I will say ‘I will’ tomorrow and I will confirm my promise’, otherwise there is no promise. Which means that the ‘yes’ keeps in advance the memory of its own beginning. That’s the way it’s a different word. If tomorrow you don’t confirm that you have founded today your program you will not have any relation to it.

Tomorrow, perhaps next year, perhaps twenty years from now we will – if today there has been any inauguration; we don’t know yet, we don’t know, we can’t today, where I am speaking… who knows? So ‘yes’ has to be repeated, and immediately, immediately it implies what I call ‘iterability’, it implies the repetition of itself. Which is a threat, which is threatening at the same time because the second yes may simply be a parody or a record or mechanical repetition; it may say ‘yes, yes’ like a parrot, which means that the technical reproduction of the originary ‘yes’ is from the beginning threatening to the living origin of the ‘yes’, which means that the ‘yes’ is hounded by its own ghost, its own mechanical ghost, from the beginning. Which means that the second ‘yes’ will have to reinaugurate, to reinvent the first one. If tomorrow you don’t reinvent today’s inauguration… it will have been dead. Every day the inauguration has to be reinvented.”

—Jacques Derrida

For most people, Derrida speaks gibberish. For those who reads him well, this passage is stunningly beautiful. It is pretty well known among the Derridean circle. Certainly, if you read my post on Derrida (hyperlinked here), you may already get what he is saying. Understanding Derrida is like learning how to taste fine wine. It is an acquired taste at an intellectual level.

In Of Grammatology, Derrida talks about Jean-Jacques Rousseau on how a child’s first cry and words are the most authentic. For, one would not know if their second words are not used to manipulate you into giving them what they want. Therefore, the repetition of their second words involves a threat where it might simply be a parody of the first which makes it inauthentic. In order for their second words to be as authentic as the first, it must reinvent itself so to produce new meanings.

What Derrida refers as iterability of “Yes” is this experience of repetition and reinvention. It is the repetition of time that one experiences as they read this sentence. I can for example, write these words for you to read today, and you can read it again tomorrow, the day after, or ten years from now. And every time you reread these words from the future, it may offer new meanings that you had never thought from the past. Just like all my writings on this blog. The repetition of sameness becomes a repetition of difference. The future changes how the past is perceived. This is the natural destiny of language, where interpretation becomes reinvention through substitutions.

Thus, one cannot say “Yes” without immediately saying “Yes, yes” where the former haunts the latter that is repeated on the next day. Yet, the “Yes” is always threatened by a risk from the future where it may no longer be authentic through its own repetitions. A counterfeit yes, a repetition compulsion, a death drive, where it is like a parrot that only knows how to say, “Yes, yes”. To negate this threat, the yes must constantly be recontextualized and replaced through new systems of differences and metaphors (love). In order for the second, third, and fourth yes to remain authentic, it must be haunted by its own ghost where it gets reinvented in ways never imagined. The yes cannot be a simple repetition of the past.

When Derrida talks about “Yes” as a form of promise, he is implying that whenever we make a promise, or when we declare our love for someone, it must always maintain the authenticity of the very first declaration from history as its absolute origin. Such as during a wedding, when two people says, “Yes, I will” for the first time (just like a baby’s first words), they are making a promise towards a future, which often consists of obstacles ruptured through spacetime that they must overcome. And that everyday, such promise must be kept and reinvented in a new way. This new yes, while maintaining its original inauguration, becomes a difference through the production of new meanings. A new yes, a new love that is kept as alive and authentic as it were on the first day. Thus, for example, when we encounter an event where the human heart says yes, this very condition of yes must repeat until death in order to keep its promise. Everyday, the yes must be reborn. Just like memories. Just like love.

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On Writing…

Perhaps after reading my last random thought post, you might be surprised by how much of myself are inscribed into some of my writings. Truth is, my writings are meaningless to me if I did not pour my heart and soul into it. There is so much more to my words than what most people see. You just have to learn how to see it.

Certainly, I think this is part of what a photographer does—to learn how to see. This is one of the most important things photography had taught me during my undergraduate days. To capture a photograph is to see the possible meanings that the world may unravel before our eyes. When done correctly, a photograph becomes visual poetry—a visual essay. In turn, a photographer becomes mediators and translators of light. To capture a photograph is to translate light into writing with our eyes.

After all, photography is a word that means “Light writing”, which is to say that, seeing is writing. In many ways, I am still a photographer. I still write with light. Only that, I no longer simply write with the light that blinds the eye. I also learned to write with the light that blinds the heart and soul. It might be as Nietzsche once said:

“Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit.”

I’ve been so busy with work that I don’t have much time to read and write. Luckily, I took a few weeks off in the hopes that I get to plan some future projects where I might revive a few old posts on German philosophy from 2019. But unfortunately, I will be spending a chunk of my time laying low because I haven’t been feeling very well lately. I got sick and my dog recently passed away. Watching them go to sleep forever is really depressing.

This will likely be my last post of 2022. I am aware that some of you read the first version of this post that I deleted a couple days after I published it (near the end of October; I remember I got a like or two). The reason I deleted it was because I wanted to think over some of the sections again. As a result, I took some out and added new ones  in. To make up for the changes, I added new thoughts on French feminism, essentialism, post-humanism, along with more insights on psychoanalytic topics such as depression, anxiety, and jealousy. I will also show you some of the influences of deconstruction in fields like feminism.

You might notice how some of these sections builds off of my previous posts. This is because my writings can sometimes get too long where I take paragraphs out and throw them into a future post. For example, the section on German philosophy from my last post (#3) was actually written before I wrote about the Korean-German philosopher Byun-Chul Han from #2.

As usual, these can be read in any order at your own pace. 🙂

See you in 2023,
B.

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A friendly reminder

“To be harmful with what is best in us. —At times, our strengths propel us so far forward that we can no longer endure our weaknesses and perish from them. We may even foresee this outcome without wishing to have it otherwise. Thus, we become hard against everything in us that desires consideration, and our greatness is also our lack of compassion.

Such an experience, for which we must pay in the end with our lives, is a parable for the whole effect of great human beings on others and on their age: precisely with what is best in them, with what only they can do, they destroy many who are weak, unsure, still in the process of becoming, of striving; and thus they are harmful. It can even happen that, everything considered they are only harmful because what is best in them is accepted and absorbed by those alone whom it affects like a drink that is too strong: they lose their understanding and their selfishness and become so intoxicated that they are bound to break their limbs on all the false paths on which their intoxication leads them astray.

—Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Aph. 28

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When you don’t try…

A long time ago, a friend of mine told me that I was way more attractive when I don’t try. Thinking about it now, I think she was right. When I try, I tend to try too hard because I think too hard. But when I don’t try, my natural confidence kicks in which often attracts other people to me.

I remember I once gave a presentation in front of a class of 30 or more people. When I was giving the lecture, I looked at her every once awhile where I saw her looking at me with these really big shiny eyes as she kept smiling to herself. I asked her what that was about afterwards and she was like, “Your confidence is really hot”. We were just friends, but it was pretty funny LOL. I think she eventually ended up liking me—or maybe she liked me all along. I wouldn’t know back then. I wasn’t very good at these things. I’m still not very good at it now.

I have quite a few of these stories from back in my early 20s where I was friends with some girl only for me to discover that they liked me years down the road when it was way too late. It’s really stupid. There was one girl who got really mad at me for not asking her out because I literally thought we were just friends. I remember I got her contact info from helping her at an art show. I wasn’t actually trying to hit on her or anything. I was trying to be nice because she was having trouble setting up her art where I just thought we could be friends. After a few months of talking, she ended up indirectly ranting about me on her Facebook statuses and eventually removed me as friends. I even wondered who she was ranting about and why she removed me. And it wasn’t until two years later where I found out she was ranting about me LOL whoops. It was totally not funny for her. She definitely thought I was an asshole, which I was honestly. But here is the thing: if she opened up, I would’ve dated her.

Back then, I was too focused on my intellectual endeavors to think about girls which ironically attracted a lot of them to me. It was funny because some people thought I was gay because they could tell girls liked me where I seem to take no interest in them and only treated them as friends. While I got much better at picking up these signals with age, I still suffer from these problems in a different way. If people don’t tell me, I will almost always figure it out way too late.

While it is nice when someone is honest and up front with their feelings, I also understand that I often don’t give them the proper space, assurances, and build enough trust and comfort for them to open up (I’m working on it as a person). I have laser beam focus where I often miss these signals from people because I am too focused on other things (I live in my head who can be really forgetful). At times, I can be so focused on my work that people would be talking to me and I won’t hear a thing from them.

So what we can conclude is this: when I don’t try, I literally don’t care whether or not someone likes me because I am too focused on other things (and it doesn’t matter how attractive they are; or who they are). But when I put my mind to it, I become an overthinker where I would endlessly ruminate about them and try too hard. So it’s a matter of balance to try, but not try too hard; and learn to give people space and focus on your own things so to let things happen naturally. Yes, yes—that is what I learned over the years. 🙂

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The most common logical fallacies

The most common logical fallacies are probably confirmation bias or strawman. Basically, confirmation bias is sort of like when you meet someone new where you don’t like them without any real reason. So everything they do will confirm your bias that you don’t like them. Simply put, you are confirming your own bias through false evidence where you are selectively seeing what you only want to see. Whereas strawman argument is when you twist someone’s argument and make it seem like it is the argument that the other person is making, even when it isn’t. Then you go on to make a counter-argument against this new distorted argument that you just made up. These two fallacies are so common that not many people pick up on it when they make it.

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Psychoanalysis, Depression, and Anxiety

There are three basic psychoanalytic structures: neurosis, psychosis and perversion. Neurosis consists of obsessional and hysteria (and fetishism?). Psychosis consists of paranoia, schizophrenia and melancholia (or manic-depressive psychosis). In psychoanalysis, depression can be associated with any of these clinical structures and is often related to anxiety—something that everyone experiences in all sorts of ways.

This is particularly true for Jacques Lacan, who was well known as the master of anxiety, and for his clinical ability in reducing anxiety in his patients. Unlike Freud who saw that external circumstances in the world would induce anxiety into individuals. Lacan saw how, anxiety is actually embedded into the heart of human consciousness and split subjectivity through the way they experience language and meaning (Symbolic). While your everyday individual’s desire is caused by lack through a object (a) that is unconsciously missing, a depressed individual is when this lack is sometimes lacking. Anxiety is produced when the subject is caught within this lack of the lack who encounters the horrors of the Real where no symbolic language can represent.

As mentioned in my other posts, another way anxiety is produced is when the subject gets too close to object a. It’s kind of like running into someone you really like where they make your heart race as your face turns red and your mind goes blank (or what people refer as “butterflies”). Sometimes, this happens to the point where one may go into denial so to avoid such anxiety. They may counter this anxiety by denying these feelings and using unhealthy methods such as aggression, ignoring them, etc. (note: denial is not always conscious by the person who is doing it). So the bottom line is that, anxiety occurs when we get too close to object a (object cause of desire); or when the Real is laid bare where there is a lack of object a.

Often times, the symptoms of a depressed person consists of persistent sadness, loss of appetite, loss of interests in the things that they used to enjoy (desire), and suicidal thoughts. In short, a depressed person is someone who no longer properly desires (the subject’s relationship with object a has been lost). In other instances, it could be where certain individuals are caught into a downward spiral of the desire for negative thought patterns. This is why in some modern treatments of depression, one of the ways to stop this is learning to identify these negative patterns. These techniques are often found in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. In psychoanalysis, this idea is often associated with masochism and sadism where the depressed individual unconsciously enjoys repeatedly inflicting pain on themselves, leading them to self destruction (Freud believed that this tendency for self-destruction is caused by the death drive). There are many ways the split subject can experience depression through anxiety via different clinical structures. No one is the same.

I sometimes like to use the analogy of a river to introduce people to psychoanalysis, where the water in the river represents our desires and drive for enjoyment. When the big Other imposes too many laws onto this river, such as building too many walls (dams) and blocking off the flow of water, the river will flood and overflow, causing all sorts of mental illnesses. Psychoanalysis is about clearing up these obstacles that blocks the flow of water (your unconscious desires). This is another reason why the analyst sits behind you during a session because no one is watching, imposing laws and judging you! The analyst attempts to give the analysand the needed space to produce their own desires through sublimation, either by removing some of these obstacles or give them an opportunity to find a new way to desire around these obstacles. Their job is to help them desire in a healthy way again.

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INTJ or INFJ?

I sometimes think I am an INFJ and not INTJ. But when I think more about it, I fall closer to an INTJ. Regardless, I am definitely an Ni-dom. I have an intense type of focus that people can observe through the way I look at them or at other things. Friends in the past had told me that they see my intensity as a form of passion which I find much more comforting. Being mindful of it is still something that I am working on. My nephew used to be scared of me as well. But we’re pretty chill now where we sometimes play video games together because I am secretly 10 years old.

This reminds me of my post on the INTJ (here). Keep in mind that it was written in third person perspective which tried to include other INTJs. People vary and no one is the same (AKA don’t put everyone in a box). Some of the stuff I wrote on there is not always true for others—even for myself (unless I pointed out that it was true for me). I am probably one of the more stereotype defying INTJs out there. While I dislike MBTI stereotypes, there are some that are true for a lot of INTJs, such as minimal facial expressions, hard to read, experts at dispensing abstract knowledge, sarcastic, insightful, smart, honest, and efficient. They are independent thinkers who won’t easily fall into herd mentalities. Also, they are usually one of the types who are least active on social media. INTJs are basically a human cat who likes to be left alone, but really appreciates attention from their loved ones every once awhile.

I think both INTJ and INFJs are some of the most misunderstood types in MBTI. Many of them also tends to struggle in a sensor dominated world because they value all the things that most people don’t care about. Both types often feel like they don’t belong which may induce the feeling of loneliness. They have what some people refer as an “onion personality” with many layers to them that may endlessly fascinate others (they are usually really deep). I always found it weird how some people wants to be an INTJ or INFJ. Trust me, you don’t want to. Being misunderstood by people you care about is one of the worst feelings on the planet.

Personally, I am used to people misunderstanding me since I was born. On the surface, I tell others that I don’t really care and even make jokes about it. Yet deep down, I want people who I value to understand me. As I got older, I realized that all I really ever wanted in my life was for someone to get me. Making assumptions about me is the biggest mistake most people make when they are trying to know me because 90% of them are usually wrong.

INxJs are hard people to find. They require a lot of patience to understand. This is why it is better to go slow with these types and not jump to any conclusions, since they tend to be unpredictable walking paradoxes. Romantically, meeting the “right” INxJ is more rare than what most people think because it is difficult for any type to run into an INxJ that fits their books. For example, while the odds of running into a male INTJ is around 1 in 60 (give or take). Once you factor in other qualities like mutual attractions, language barrier, age difference, and other things, the odds of running into the right INTJ will quickly jump to something stupid like 1 in 20 000. Double this if you are looking for female INTJs which makes up 0.5% of the world. INFJ men are also somewhere along this percentage.

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One thing I learned growing up

Most people are not as smart as they think they are. Myself included. This is why it is best to always assume that you are wrong and give benefit of doubt. If you think about it, there is so much we don’t know about everything that there is always something we can learn from everyone. Thus, never settle for a conclusion until you are absolutely certain that it is correct and have sufficient reason and knowledge to believe so. As I said before, jumping to conclusions is the culprit of humanity—just like those who jumps to conclusions about me from reading this blog.

Ciao.

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What happens when you ask a stupid person for advice?

Everyone is good at certain things and stupid at others. The problem happens when people give advice on things that they are incompetent in answering—precisely because they think they know best, even when they know nothing. Other times, people genuinely give good advice where the other person doesn’t listen. So you just have to watch them learn things the hard way.

Personally, I don’t give advice. But I can tell you what I think is true—if you ask nicely. 🙂

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The Best BBQ Experience

My friends and I did an outdoor BBQ for the first time at a local park in the city. We don’t have much experience on how to heat up charcoal grill (my friends planned it). Eventually, we ran out of wood to start a fire and started looking for leaves and small twigs on the ground to burn. We failed to start a fire to heat the charcoal and ended up eating pre-cooked sausages that we bought from the grocery store. We laughed so hard going like, “Okay, nobody needs to know about this” LOLLL.

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Human as Machine; Human as Human

One way we can look at the differences between modern psychology and psychoanalysis is how the former often involves studying people as if they are like a biological machine. This includes how scientists and doctors studies the underlying causalities on how human behavior reacts to their environments which triggers various hormonal responses in their bodies. The idea that humans are becoming increasingly like machines and should be seen as a machine is subject for debate.

This idea takes us to disciplines like post-humanism where people argue how human animal and machines should become as one. Donna Haraway is your woman in this department—particularly her famous essay called “A Cyborg Manifesto”. Although I don’t completely agree with her positions on how Western dualisms are placed against each other (i.e. self vs. other; man vs. woman, etc.), I think it’s a really interesting essay. Honestly, the last time I read this piece was almost 10 years ago, so I don’t remember that much from it.

Meanwhile, Jacques Lacan mostly rejected scientific approaches to modern psychiatry where scientists studies humans as a biological machine. Unlike your post-humanist thinkers where they attempt to conceive of humans as cyborgs and machines, Lacan thought that psychoanalysis could become a discipline that represents humanism. He sought to develop a psychoanalytic framework that acknowledges the importance of the dialectical relationships between conscious and unconscious mind where things like madness and insanity are part of human intelligence. This theme of madness is not far off from Lacan himself, who was quite a weirdo in real life. Lacan was a man who never liked naming any of his works. I think there was a TV series on him back then where it was simply called “Television”. His one and only book published with all his essays on psychoanalysis is called “Ecrits” which means “Writings” in English (Lacan speaks croissant).

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Detective

Last year, a detective called me about some homicide that happened in my neighbour community. I missed the call, but he texted me and told me to call him back. So I called him and apparently, some dude got shot on their own driveway, but it wasn’t anyone I knew (I don’t know any shady people lol). So I said to him, “You got the wrong number, but I think I found your suspect”. I wonder what happened after LOL. I think it was a mistake.

One of my uncle was a detective in Hong Kong who used to tell me all these creepy stories of crimes that they couldn’t solve. There was one case I remember vaguely about a man who hung himself in a skyscraper that was still under construction. The police received a call from a man of unknown identity who reported the discovery the dead person in the building. After initial autopsy, the police discovered that the man died something like 13 years ago. They contacted the victim’s family who said he went missing a long time ago. At the time, there was still one piece of puzzle missing where the police could not find the man who reported the discovery of the body. The popo let the family members listen to the phone recording where they got spooked out saying that the man who reported the dead body sounds like the man who hung himself. Apparently, my uncle said a lot of people who were involved in that case had to go see psychologists, thinking that maybe they heard wrong (it might be someone else who sounded like the man who hung himself). At the end, the mysteries of the case were never solved and the man who called the police was never found. Spoooooooky.

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Academic Journals

Critical Inquiry from the University of Chicago is probably one of the most well known and prestigious journals on contemporary theory. They basically only publish ground breaking ideas. Many well known scholars had their works published on there before. There is an interdisciplinary journal from Johns Hopkins University that is also really good, but I forget the name. In general, I think journals that are dedicated to certain influential thinkers are usually pretty good. For example, there is the International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, and the International Journal of Zizek Studies. There is also Derrida Today from University of Edinburgh which is peer reviewed by a lot of renown Derridean scholars like Catherine Malabou, Michael Naas, Leonard Lawlor, John D. Caputo, and Christopher Norris (most journals are reviewed by experts in their field). Unfortunately, most of the works from them are also locked behind paywalls, which sucks.

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The Other’s Desire

An interesting example on how our desire is the Other’s desire is when you notice how some people rely too much on the opinions of their friends and family when they like someone. The question becomes: is it your friends and family dating them, or you? In a psychoanalytic context, this makes a lot of sense because our desires is the Other’s desire. So for example, if all of your friends hates your crush due their erroneous judgements (or they are being manipulative), then there is a good chance that you might end up hating your crush as well. This sounds stupid, but it happens quite often where the person will end up repressing or deny these desires for the other person. Unexpressed emotions and desires will always return to haunt us in our lives, causing all sorts of new symptoms. While I am oversimplifying here, what we can learn from this is simple: it is important we learn how to think for ourselves.

You see something similar with advertisements where companies make you desire to buy something because your desire is the Other’s desire (the advertisement). And this is why big companies spends so much money on marketing because it works. Apple is a good example of this.

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On Jealousy

Sometimes, you see people play games by trying to make the person they like jealous. And if they get jealous, said person will think they love them. This is false—it’s really just their ego speaking. Jealousy is not love. Not to mention that this is a risky tactic because the last thing you want to do when you like someone is to make them think you don’t like them (pretty much the definition of self-sabotage Lol; but it is also situational).

In psychoanalysis, jealousy is often considered pathological and is sometimes confused with envy (the former is derived from the latter). While it is normal to feel jealous at times, certain forms of jealousy is actually a protruding symptom of paranoia which is occasionally associated with schizophrenia (both of these are often diagnosed as a structure of psychosis). For example, consider a couple who divorced because of the husband’s jealousy who keeps making him think that his wife is cheating on him. Regardless of whether or not this is true, after their divorce, the man’s symptom of jealousy remains intact where he continues to be suspicious of others and their intentions (other times, paranoia will manifest as the consistent feeling that someone is watching, stalking, or following you). In some cases, the underlying cause of this is not due to their symptom of being jealous—even if he may consciously perceive it as such during his psychotherapy sessions. His jealousy is unconsciously structured by something else—namely, the structure of psychotic paranoia. This is why a person’s symptoms may not be what they consciously perceive. Hence, it is best to not diagnose yourself. Psychoanalytic diagnosis can be really tricky and difficult, even for skilled clinical analysts.

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Future Emergencies

On my way home one evening, I drove by a construction road sign with the word “emergency” written on it. Out of boredom, I asked myself: what is an emergency? What does it mean to emerge? The word “emergency” is derived from the Latin term “emergo”, which means “to come out” or “rise”. To emerge is to come out or rise from an unexpected event in the future; it is to merge or collide with a certain form of danger or injury. An emergency is thus, a wound; it is an open invitation to a risk unforeseeable and incalculable by the human eye. It can even be said that, to emerge is to be surprised by a future that demands for our utmost attention, love, care, and hospitality. What does it mean to care for the emergencies that erupts from the future? What does it mean for humans to emerge with the future as they traverse from life to death? Is the possibility of our future death an invitation for us to reflect about our lives and the natures of humanity—and of love and knowledge?

I often think that the future is predictable because human nature is predictable. But I would rather have a future that is radically anterior, unknown, and unpredictable. I would rather have a future that is always to come—always to emerge, that invites us to collide with the greatest passions known to the human soul. I would prefer a future that constantly surprises me—just like that of love. Just like forgiveness.

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On Debates, Feminism and Essentialism

The other day when I was having dinner with the family and my sister’s boyfriend brought up Jordan Peterson on how awesome he is at speaking up against feminism. He spoke about how a lot of men does all the hard labour types of jobs and yet feminists want equality. So does this mean that all the women wants to equally lay bricks like men do as well? I mean yeah, if they want to lay bricks, they could and I won’t judge them at all. But this is an oversimplification of the problem and it is not what equality is really about—at least not from an economical, lawful, and critical-sociological standpoint (i.e. woman should have the right to vote, have control over their bodies, fair wages, etc.; which are things that I support). It is also probably one of the most short sighted and strawman argument I’ve heard anyone make against equality.

I think this makes for a good case to talk a little about essentialism. Such idea has a long history that stems from Platonic metaphysics on how every object consists of an essential and immutable form or idea about it that are necessary to making up that object. While this might strike us as true in various contexts such as science, where every object has essential aspects to them that constitutes them (molecules, etc.), it is not always true in other discourses and contexts. The best everyday example in our case is gender essentialism. Consider the statement that, all men likes to lay bricks and play sports while all women likes to cook and watch TV (in everyday language, we refer these things as discrimination, sexism, stereotypes and gender roles, etc.). On the surface, these statements may reveal an essential aspect of the identity for all men and women that are unchangeable—even when they are hardly essential to both of them (because this argument is naïve, weak, and lacks critical depth). While this is an over simplification, many of us can already see the problems of this statement because it is simply not true. Yet, Mr. boyfriend makes an assumption that these essentialisms are true and measures it against “equality”. While in some cases, essentialism can be seen as a valid position, there are many instances where people will argue against it in all sorts of ways, where essentialism becomes a paradox for a non-essentialist position. Let me quickly show you some of them.

In a way, one can say that Jacques Derrida was an anti-essentialist or non-essentialist thinker. Within the structure of language and interpretation, there are no essential meanings that constitutes a word’s specific meaning as such (there is no fundamental “essence” in the meaning of a word other than alternative meanings that constitutes its perceived meaning). This is due to the influences in our experiences of spacetime, difference, play on words, contexts, and mental states; where meaning and intentionality can change due to these constant shifting conditions. Yet paradoxically, Derrida’s deconstruction sets up a sort of non-essentialist-essentialist position where he shows us how it is precisely these essential conditions which produces the fundamental building blocks for essentialisms that are always inherently unstable and non-essential. In other words, the essential essences and definitions that determines a man and woman are unstable. Therefore, not every man likes to play hockey and lay bricks; and not every woman likes to cook and watch television. While I am oversimplifying here, this is what makes deconstruction incredibly influential in gender theory and feminism. In many ways, deconstruction allowed feminists to see how society is actually built upon privileging these essentialisms of man and woman, where it would define them and unconsciously control them so that every man who grows up within said society would only like to play hockey and lay bricks; and every woman would only like to cook and watch television. By doing so, society would endlessly reinforce and perpetuate these essentialisms as a form of social control (this goes back to my last post where I spoke about Foucault, who was also really influential among feminists; hyperlinked here). As we can see, this is one way feminist scholars will utilize deconstruction so to deconstruct gender essentialisms. Yet little do some of these feminists understand that deconstruction is not a method or a political tool. Deconstruction cannot be essentialized as a stable method because deconstruction deconstructs itself 💀.

Something similar can be found in Alain Badiou’s ontology, where he uses Georg Cantor’s set theory to talk about how the multiplicity of truths are born into existence through events that are produced through pure chance (set theory is a mathematical theory that tries to explain the concept of infinity and how each set of integer/number or objects have an infinite amount of sets within it). Chance becomes this non-essential, yet essential condition in producing truths in our world. It is just like the chance that an apple fell on Isaac Newton’s head which allowed him to discover gravity; or the encounter of the love of your life where two people produces a new truth together (this opposes to say, the simulations of chance found in dating apps; even when there is nothing left to chance in date matching algorithms). You can also see this type of position in Slavoj Zizek’s interpretation of Lacanian psychoanalysis on how gender differences lies at the heart of the Real where gender identities are produced to cover up the traumatic experiences of the Real. In this context, psychoanalysis becomes the essential building block for gender theories in a non-essential type of way. For it is either there is sexual difference, or there is no sex at all.

Finally, we see this non-essentialist stance in Lacan when he infamously pointed out that “Woman does not exist”. Contrary to people thinking that Lacan was a misogynist trying to erase woman from history, he was provocatively pointing out how woman cannot be essentialized by the symbolic dimensions that are defined by patriarchy (and that above all, women can take position as the symbolic and redefine woman in ways never imagined). In other words, the essential definition of woman does not exist and cannot be defined in a masculine dominated society. According to Elisabeth Roudinesco, a leading French historian of Lacan and a practicing psychoanalyst, this infamous and controversial saying was Lacan’s belated response to the renown feminist existentialist Simone de Beauvoir, who once asked Lacan for advice on her book called, The Second Sex before it got published in 1949. While Lacan never responded on time, this ground breaking book would later become the driving force behind third wave feminism in the 90s. In it, de Beauvoir famously said, “one is not born a woman, but becomes one”. And if you think about it, such phrase really echoes to Lacan’s infamous “woman does not exist”, since no one is born a woman.

Anyways, after Mr. boyfriend told me about Peterson, I smiled and told him how I think Peterson is a bad reader of Derrida and Nietzsche. Then he was like, “I don’t know who they are, *continues talking*”; and I was thinking to myself, “Well you really should Lol”. The funniest part was that the other day, he sent me a video of the famous speech by Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globe where Gervais spoke up against actors who likes to give their acceptance speeches about politics while they have less education than Greta Thunberg. Honestly, I’m beginning to think he was using the video to talk about himself. But I don’t blame him for not knowing because he never studied these things the way I did (and I think he has a good heart; it’s just that he is a bit misguided and lack critical judgement and insight).

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind people disagreeing with any ideas. What I sometimes have a problem with are people who disagrees with something by nitpicking arguments, make erroneous assumptions and think they are right. This shows me that they can’t even properly understand the fundamentals of other people’s arguments before making a counter-argument (at least try). You can’t disagree with something that you never studied or don’t understand.

If I spoke up during dinner about his arguments, it might’ve escalated very quickly into a debate. The older I get, the more I don’t like to debate people because it can put me at a disadvantage in interpersonal relationships (it depends on who, but it is usually not good for me in the long run). I’m also too lazy because it sometimes ends up with me talking too much about ideas that they never considered or thought about. And by that point, people will start to think I am patronizing them which is never my intention. If people are interested and I genuinely like you, I am willing to explain and talk for hours about topics that I’ve spent years studying in an open minded and nice way—even if you disagree with me. It really depends on the person. But more often than not, I’d rather save my energy. I just learn to choose my battles and when I should keep one eye closed. It is much better to have discussions rather than pointless debates that goes no where. Other times, it is nice to turn your brain off and have fun.

Nowadays, I just live and let live.

…

✌

Here are some more brain dump where I offer my thoughts on German philosophy, law, justice, forgiveness, passion, love, photography, along with other stories. I kind of like writing these due to how casual they are. They can be read in any order at your own pace.

Have a nice day 🙂

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The Influences of 19th-20th Century German Philosophy

German philosophy had always been dominant and influential throughout 19th and 20th century continental European philosophy. Much of German phil continues to influence many scholars today in unimaginable ways. Let me quickly show you why and how they all came into being.

In 18th century, Immanuel Kant was really influential in founding what most scholars refer as “German Idealism” and Kant’s own school of thought known as “Transcendental idealism”. Following Kant (also known as “Post-Kantian philosophy”), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel wrote one of the world’s most influential book called the Phenomenology of Spirit. Despite that this text is consistently ranked as one of the most difficult books to read in the world, Hegel is a key thinker that anyone interested in European philosophy must understand (I’ve only read three chapters of this book—it is extremely hard to read). Hegel was famous for inventing a type of dialectical-idealist thinking that occurs between the conscious subject and the world around them and how knowledge is produced through their dialectical relationships.

It wasn’t until later where Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels would invert Hegel’s ideas into a socio-political framework towards a materialist philosophy (the opposite of idealism is materialism). As a result, this led to the (in)famous political ideas known as “communism” and “socialism” (unlike what most people think, contemporary China is not communist; economically, they fall closer to state capitalism; though one can argue that China has communist values). Marx and Engels were really influenced by Hegel’s famous writings called “Master-Slave dialectics”. In today’s world, we can roughly translate its title as proletariat and bourgeoise AKA the poor (slave) and the rich (master); the latter who controls and exploits labour (“Let me pay you minimum wage while I make bank!”). Marx and Engels founded a new type of thinking known as “dialectical materialism”. They were also famous for their super influential critique on capitalist economy from a four volume book called, Capital, where they provided the foundations for labour theory (edit: I misremembered and realized it is actually a four volume book).

Existentialism also began to take form in 19th century by German (and Danish) thinkers—largely as complete or partial rejection to Kantian and Post-Kantian philosophies. There was Arthur Schopenhauer who was incredibly influential and renown for his nihilism and pessimism (a great writer, who wasn’t exactly an existentialist, but was sometimes at the brink of being seen as one). Then there is the legendary Friedrich Nietzsche who was famously influential for his aphoristic writings and his philosophy on perspectivism (he was influenced by Schopenhauer among others; and Chinese philosophy). If I remember correctly, Nietzsche was one of the first to conceive of the idea that humans are thinking when they do not think they are thinking. In late 19th – early 20th century, this idea influenced the renown Austrian neurologist and inventor of psychoanalysis named Sigmund Freud, who discovered the unconscious mind.

Phenomenology (the study of phenomena, intuition, temporality, intentionality, and experience) also came into existence in mid-late 19th century by a bunch of mathematicians turned philosophers (mostly from Germany and Italy if I remember correctly). Two famous figures came into play: Gottlob Frege and Edmund Husserl; the latter who formed a school of phenomenology that laid out the intellectual landscape of 20th century German, French, and a good chunk of other European philosophies. I believe Husserl did not write his most influential work until he was in his 70s—a book called Logical Investigations (it is hard to read; I recommend Cartesian Meditations where Husserl introduces phenomenology through his inspirations of the French-Dutch philosopher, Rene Descartes). Husserl was Jewish and lived under the Nazi regime that banned him from publishing. They also tried to burn his books. During World War II, his works were saved by a philosopher named Herman van Breda who smuggled his manuscripts into a Catholic library in Belgium which later became a university. One of Husserl’s students at the time was Martin Heidegger, who ended up dominating 20th century thought. Heidegger—influenced by Husserl and Nietzsche—combined phenomenology and existentialism together which in turn, influenced a ton of French philosophers in 20th century such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, Giles Deleuze and many more (tragic fact: Deleuze jumped out the window of his apartment and killed himself due to his respiratory health problems).

In early 20th century, Freud’s work on the unconscious mind and human nature also took center stage (there was also Carl Jung who was Freud’s student that Freud disagreed with; unfortunately, Jung wasn’t as influential in the philosophy circle as Freud). Freud was also well known for his encounter of Albert Einstein where they exchanged letters and spoke about war and human conflicts.

In France, a Russian-Hegelian philosopher named Alexandre Kojeve taught a very small class of students on Hegel where most of them became renown intellectuals: Jacques Lacan, Jean-Paul Sartre, Georges Bataille, Maurice-Merleau Ponty, and a few others. Like Marx and Engels, Lacanian psychoanalysis was influenced by Hegel’s “Master-Slave dialectics” (and Freud). One can perhaps, think of the relationship between the unconscious mind (master) that controls our conscious thoughts (slave) as a dialectical relationship. This is why Lacan’s writings—especially his lectures—are full of Hegelian allusions which makes him really hard to understand. Then there is German philosopher Hannah Arendt (a student of Heidegger and also his lover) who was renown for her political philosophy on totalitarianism. There was also the novelist and short story writer Franz Kafka who was influential among the philosophy circle (I think he was Czech or Bohemian). Kafka was also famous for his love letters that he wrote to a woman named Jesenka Milena that he only met once or twice (now published as epistolary literature called Letters to Milena).

Influenced by Hegel, Marx, along with other thinkers like Freud, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, and Georg Lukacs, 20th century Germany developed a famous school of thought known as the “Frankfurt school” (part of the Goethe University Frankfurt). It remains incredibly influential in its social theories on linguistic subjectivity, social communication, modernity, advanced/late capitalism, and other branches of critical theory. In it, there was Theodor Adorno who was famous for his philosophy on aesthetics. Walter Benjamin known for literary and art criticism (another tragic fact: Benjamin killed himself to avoid getting captured by Nazis; there is a really cool memorial art made for him where he took his life at the border of Spain and France). There is Hans-Georg Gadamer (a student of Heidegger) who is well known for his works on hermeneutics (the study of interpretation). There is Erich Fromm who is known for psychoanalysis and social theory; Max Horkheimer known for his works in authoritarianism; and Herbert Marcuse known for his criticism of technology and Freudo-Marxism. Marcuse was one of the first few thinkers to conceive of technology as a form of social control. Then there is Juergen Habermas (who is still alive?) renown for his works on communication and rationalism. Habermas and Derrida had really famous heated debates in the past where they eventually became friends later on.

Ultimately, Frankfurt school formed what some people today refer as “Cultural Marxism”. The term “Freudo Marxism” also came into existence via Frankfurt school, where scholars use Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis to analyze modern society. The most famous contemporary thinkers to do this are the Slovenian scholars Slavoj Zizek, Alenka Zupancic, and Mladen Dolar. Together, they formed a new school of psychoanalysis that is now known as the Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis.

I missed some stuff here and there, but this covers a good chunk of the influences of German philosophy.

Gute Nacht

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Those who reads this blog…

Probably learns a lot about me. Truth is, I am stuck in my head 80% of the time when I am alone. It’s nice to have a random stranger or friend to come up and say hi when I am in public because it shakes my mind up a bit. But I think some people are intimidated when they talk to me where I have to be extra nice so they know I mean no harm Lol. My brain is always buzzing through a billion thoughts at once. It moves so fast that I can’t even tell you what I am thinking about if you ask me in person. It is only after a certain amount of time where these ideas and thoughts slowly gather where they start to appear on here in fragmented form. This usually happens at night when my brain explodes where I go on a writing spree.

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“There is something really different about you”

When I first officially met my MA supervisor back in 2019 at his office, the first thing he said to me was, “There is something really different about you from all the other students I taught”. I looked at him in shock going, “Huh? Really? Lol” (that’s a lot of students). I honestly didn’t know whether it was a good thing or not, but it was something that I always remembered him saying. I also remember how he used to read my blog and told me how he likes the way I explain things in my posts on deconstruction and psychoanalysis. And if he reads this, Hi. 🙂

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On reading philosophy and mental health

Reading these big difficult texts that continuously throw hard truths at you about how messed up our world is can take on a mental toll. Sometimes, it is better to stay away or take a break from certain books because ignorance truly is bliss LOL. I think the truth about our world can be really scary the deeper we dive into it. Knowing and thinking too much can be a curse.

When I was in my mid-twenties, philosophy destroyed me. I realized our world runs on taking advantage of others and making a profit off of them. The most depressing thing is that there is not much I can do other than sharing with you the things I’ve learned (I don’t advertise this blog—only those who knows where to find it will know). I still remember when I was 25 where I cried to my dad telling him that I really wanted to change this world and make it a better place, but there is nothing I can do. In order to make this world better, we actually have to reinvent the entire structure of society and the ways we think. And it wasn’t until I got older where I made peace with it and tried to focus on smaller things.

On bad days, this still gets to me because my current job is not very meaningful to me. Work can be grindy, but I think that’s just life in general Lol. It’s true that I often find myself disappointed in humanity and society (my dad sometimes tells me that I was born in the wrong time Lol). When my social energy is topped off, I can be happy and chill with most people. Yet deep down, I have this otherworldly, hyper gravitational core inside me where I have a tendency to ruminate very deeply about life, humanity, love, knowledge, space, and time. As I got older, I learned how to think less about these things because ignorance is bliss Lol. Nowadays, I am reluctant to tell people about the things I know because they would likely get intimidated or think I am crazy.

Just like love, where it is much better to have failed and lost than to never have loved. I think it is better to know the truths about our world than to not know—even if it hurts. It is much better for us have passion for something (or someone) than to feel nothing at all. In a way, it can be liberating to understand and see the world for what it really is. Being human is not always fun. It often involves suffering, struggling, and fighting (and of course there are good things as well, such as joy, etc.). Whether this battle is something personal, a social cause or for someone you love, it is these battles that makes us who we are, giving us our unique character.

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Disc golf is peaceful…but it is also ghetto

I was solo disc golfing some weekend ago and joined some random girl who was also playing solo. She was new to the sport and told me how peaceful disc golf makes her feel. I totally agreed with her. So we played a few holes together peacefully where I taught her how to putt and parted ways.

But disc golf can also be pretty ghetto. There is this course located in this high crime rate community that my friend and I abbreviate as “FL”. The course is quite popular due to how beginner friendly it is. Every time my friend and I go there, we would always hear police sirens every 10 minutes. The course obstacles are different every time because homeless people always sets up their camps in different places. The most FL energy thing I’ve seen was a woman snorting what I assumed to be cocaine on a picnic table. She even cheered for our drives as we tried not to dome her with our discs while we teed off. Getting hit by a moving disc at full speed can send you to the emergency.

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Facebook

I got a brand new Facebook after permanently deleting my old one 2 years ago. I got it so I can go on local disc golf groups and keep myself updated with the news that goes on in my area. The platform changed quite a bit since the last time I used it. I don’t even scroll through my Facebook feed. But it’s not like I scroll through my other social media feeds either LOL. I will look at the first few posts at most and get off.

Facebook is kind of like feudalism. The king gives you some land (your FB profile) and tells you that it is yours and you are free to do whatever you want (communicate with others, post stupid stuff, etc.). But at the end, they have the authority to take all of it from you, collect all your data, spy on you, and make money off you. The same can be said for most social platforms these days. Luckily my Facebook is just a wasteland of nothingness. It’s blank. I don’t post and use it for anything outside of disc golf and maybe talk to a few old friends every now and then.

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Why does capitalism strive for perpetual growth and endless consumerism?
I am no expert, but I would explain it like this:

Imagine a society with only 10 people in it and no money has been injected into its system. If each person wanted to buy a house and apply for a loan, the bank or government would have to conjure money out of thin air and lend it to them (or they print them). So lets say that it costs 10 dollars to buy a house. Each person borrows 10 dollars from the lender which pays for the house (the 10 dollars pays for the cost of building the house, workers, etc. which are money that gets injected into the economy). In return, the bank or government asks you to pay them back 11 dollars total which includes a 1 dollar interest rate. How would anyone be able to pay back that extra dollar when the system only has 100 dollars injected into it? The system would need an extra 10 dollars in order for the ten people to pay back their interest rate. So the -10 becomes debt and people would end up trying to earn it from each other with never ending debt (this is why almost every country is in debt). Essentially, everyone ends up trying to pay back 1 dollar that does not exist in the system.

To “solve” this problem, the system would need to rely on producing “future money” or loans (credit) from people who joins the society in order to inject more money into the system which would produce more debt. In this sense, we can say that interest rate is money that does not (yet) exist in the system until more money is injected into the economy. And this is not accounting for things like greed, labour exploitation, third-world wage, and people lending their borrowed money to others and asking for even more interest in return. Then there are also people who defaults on their debt which forces interest rates to rise. All of this is one of the reasons why when inflation rises, countries will increase interest rates and lend out less (future money) so to level out exchange rates, control inflation, and try to not turn your 100 dollars into 1 dollar.

Meanwhile people pay their taxes or invest in some government retirement plan where they take all your money and spend it all on infrastructure or something much worse like killing people in other countries. As a result, the money generates even more debt (the government owes the person who gave them money to spend). This mounting debt that countries have will continue to grow until no one can pay anything back where the system resets through some miracle or by going to war (just kidding, governments can pay you back by producing more debt of course! Duhhhh). Meanwhile, politicians accuses each other going like “This monkey is spending too much money, vote for me instead!”. The bottom line is that in order for capitalism to thrive, people must constantly work (or volunteer to be slaves; whichever you prefer), consume, borrow money, and produce so to generate capital and pay back interests that never really existed in the first place.

Damn, this sounds dumber than I thought LOL.

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Law, Justice, and Forgiveness

Saying this kind of makes me sound like a criminal, but it is true that I am often critical of authority and laws. Obviously, I am not saying that we should walk around harming, murdering or kidnapping people. What I am trying to get at is how many of our written and unwritten laws today functions as a form of social control. This idea was famously presented in Michel Foucault’s book called Discipline and Punish where he traces how modern prisons came into existence. He argues that prisons are essentially everywhere, from schools, factories, hospitals, military, and even psychological institutions that seeks to liberate other people (it’s true that I like to make dirty jokes with the title of this book LOL). These prisons seek to discipline us and create controlled bodies and minds. For those who studied psychoanalysis, this sounds really similar to the function of the Other who imposes laws on the conscious subject that makes them obey.

When one speaks of laws, we also imply some form of justice. Does the law bring justice to our world? Is justice what we need—especially after generations of conflict, colonialism, war, and other forms of violence? Can justice be served by punishing someone or a group of people? Could there really be peace by serving justice?

What if justice is just another word for revenge? If so, history is a never ending cycle of generational revenge and violence. Such theme can even be witnessed as a norm in films where some protagonist wants revenge for their loss of something or someone (or the loss of their dog). Is it possible to talk about justice without revenge and punishment? What if the origins of justice is not founded on such terms but by something that radically exist beyond all laws? What if justice is founded on forgiveness?

I think forgiveness is a very important theme that must be addressed and considered in our world today. It is something that isn’t talked much about because people are too indoctrinated to think outside of their ideologies. This reminds me of Jacques Derrida’s famous public lectures on forgiveness (called, On Forgiveness). In it, he points out how real forgiveness has nothing to do with forgetfulness, juridical law, amnesty (government pardon), and any forms of authorities. Forgiveness is a “madness of the impossible” because it exceeds all the conditions established by law and justice. It is madness of the impossible because true forgiveness is nearly impossible to achieve. Can we for example, forgive someone who killed one of our loved ones? To truly forgive is to forgive the unforgivable.

Near the end of his lectures, Derrida points out how—quite the contrary to the juridical which punish others either out of revenge or discipline—forgiveness is what lies at the origins of laws and justice. Similar to the ways I spoke about love in the past, Derrida asserts how forgiveness is like an event that arrives before us like a surprise or an unexpected revolution that challenges all institutions, laws, and authorities. He writes some really beautiful and humane passages on forgiveness:

“Must one not maintain that an act of forgiveness is worthy of its name, if there ever is such a thing, must forgive the unforgivable and without condition? And that such unconditionality is also inscribed, like its contrary, namely the condition of repentance, in ‘our’ heritage? Even if this radical purity can seem excessive, hyperbolic, mad? Because if I say, as I think, that forgiveness is mad, and that it must remain a madness of the impossible, this is certainly not to exclude or disqualify it. It is even perhaps the only thing that arrives, that surprises, like a revolution, the ordinary course of history, politics, and law. Because that means that it remains heterogeneous to the order of politics or of the juridical as they are ordinarily understood. […]

Yet, despite all the confusions which reduce forgiveness to amnesty or to amnesia, to acquittal or prescription of the work of mourning or some political therapy of reconciliation, in short to some historical ecology, it must never be forgotten, nevertheless, that all of that refers to a certain idea of pure and unconditional forgiveness, without which this discourse would not have the least meaning. What complicates the question of ‘meaning’ is again what I suggested a moment ago: pure and unconditional forgiveness, in order to have its own meaning, must have no ‘meaning’, no finality, even no intelligibility. It is a madness of the impossible. […]

Must we not accept that, in the heart or in reason, above all when it is a question of ‘forgiveness’, something arrives which exceeds all institution, all power, all juridical-political authority? We can imagine that someone, a victim of the worst, himself, a member of his family, in his generation of the preceding, demands that justice to be done, that the criminals appear before a court, be judged and condemned by a court—and yet in his heart, forgives.”

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When people talk about you

A friend brought up this topic awhile ago. Honestly, I’m probably the last person people come to for people stuff unless they want some deep philosophical and psychoanalytic insights LOL. I am quite good at analyzing people, but most everyday person don’t really concern me. If you hang out with me, you may notice that I don’t talk about other people very much. I almost never gossip. But I understand this is how some people bond and have conversations, so I usually don’t mind when it is brought up. In general, I think people likes to talk about others without any underlying reason—so it doesn’t always mean anything. There is also not much you can do when others talk about you.

It’s weird because I am someone who often tries to avoid attention from others. Despite the fact that I am pretty good at being invisible, I sometimes draw unwanted attention. I was kind of famous back in my undergraduate days where people who met me would openly tell me how they talk about me with others. Thinking about it, I also got a sense that people talked about me in grad school. I remember I once met with a prof for the first time because I couldn’t take her course (but really wanted to). I told her I came from a design background where she gasped and gave me this surprised look as if she discovered who I really was (I assume someone told her about me). My supervisor told me how profs who were on the grad school admission committee kept asking him who I was (he wrote one of my reference letters). I am Bobby…I guess. Hah!

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Fashion photography and art

When I was in my early to mid 20s, I was very much a fashion photography guru. Not only that, I also understood the economical, sociological, historical, and art theories that surrounded the discipline. Back then, I was really into photographers like Guy Bourdin, Helmet Newton, Corrine Day, Juergen Teller, Tim Walker, Nick Knight, Steven Meisel, and a few others that I can’t immediately recall. My main fascination lies in its intersection between fashion as a capitalist product and anti-consumerist art.

There are photographers and artists in fashion industry who took up to the challenge of critiquing consumerist and elitist aspect of fashion. Many of their works weren’t simply pictures of some pretty lady in some beautiful dress, they were photographs that made you think. Through their works, they became challengers of the system that reflected varies states and aspects of society—something that I really liked. In many ways, they were pretty rebellious, just like me Lol.

At the time, I realized that being a photographer was about learning how to see the world. This way of seeing lead to studying big difficult disciplines like philosophy which eventually took me to graduate school (i.e. my studies of deconstruction and psychoanalysis). During my undergrad, I had a reputation where people knew me as a guru in all sorts of art theories. It is true that my interest in philosophy and cultural theory outgrew my interest in fashion and photography—even if I maintain the thought that it was photography and art which taught me how to see the world differently. Even when in reality, it was my passion and love for these things that took me beyond them in all sorts of ways (to have infinite thoughts about them, precisely).

That was when I met a teacher (and later became a mentor) who showed me the intersections between philosophy, art, and fashion. She recommended me a book called All for Nothing by Rachel K. Ward, who was a student of the renown thinker Jean Baudrillard from the European Graduate School. The book was Ward’s PhD dissertation that talks about the ethics of desire and how it leads to decadence. It was the very first book that introduced me to other French and German thinkers. I spent the entire summer close reading Ward’s book where she changed my life. I should write about her one day. I think she is brilliant.

With all this said, I still have a ton of fashion magazines and books sitting around. I have a huge collection of the French fashion magazine called Numero that I got shipped directly to me in Canada from France. I also have various small collections of different Vogue magazines (Italia, Germany, and others).

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What is passion?

Just like love, passion is difficult to describe with words because it involves really intense emotions and feelings. It is important we understand that passion is not a description of feelings. Passion is a form of tension that is produced beneath the surface of our words, thoughts, and actions. You can for example, experience passion being produced through the narrations of a great novel, poem, art, film, or the melody/lyrics of a great song (passion is a manifestation of love). You can experience it being produced by someone who knows how to make use of the flow of their words, tone, and punctuation. Passion is always produced underneath the surface of everyday experiences that requires a certain form of concealment. Passion is an intense and powerful movement of the human heart. And for some people, it can be a frightening experience that they actively avoid.

As a result, and as paradoxical it may seem, it is much easier to turn passion into something simple and consumable like happiness and light hearted fun. I sometimes think people intentionally dilute their most intense passions that they have for someone (or something). As such, people will try to hide passion which ironically makes it naturally play itself out like an unescapable destiny. People hide their passion without realizing that passion is always made to be seen. To hide our passion from someone is to say, “I want you to know that I am hiding something from you”. Passion can be seen because the act of hiding can be seen. For here lies the secret to the greatest passions of humanity: the more someone tries to hide their passion, the more you can see its tensions tucked beneath its surface. For passion is always there where you are not where it triumphs over all our attempts at neutralizing it. —This is seduction at its highest order.

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On love, commitment, and infinity

It is very hard to talk about love while also be original without reciting clichés. This was one of the things that made my writings on psychoanalysis and love really difficult (you can find it hyperlinked here). I think the underlying reason why some people are commitment phobes is because society offers too many distractions and choices for them (there is this handsome guy, that pretty gal etc.). Perhaps this might be a protruding symptom of our consumer society that unconsciously made us this way. For is it not society that teaches us to maximize our options in life like we are running our own business? Are we not made to choose and pick the person who can best satisfy our desires? In turn, love becomes some commercial exchange of satisfying our own desires which is—in my view—very degrading in the name of love. And if there is a desire that love makes us want to satisfy, it would be the other’s desire; i.e. to want them to be safe and happy (I will get to this).

You can sometimes see this in the dating world where some people likes to casually date 10 people at once or those who likes to bounce around for casual sex (but it is as Lacan would say: when one loves, it has nothing to do with sex). On the surface, they will often say they just want to figure out what they like or don’t like, even when this is their desires talking (a wishful projection). But doesn’t this also sound similar to your average consumer who wants to purchase the right product that best suits their own desires and needs?

Regardless of whether love has anything to do with the nurtures of consumer society, love often arrives when we least expect it. This is to say that, love has nothing to do with our desires and needs. And love is certainly not a product or commodity to be consumed. Just ask parents who I hope loves their children, and they will all say the same thing: it is about their children’s needs. They want their children to grow up to be happy and healthy. Love that is catered to our needs (or desires) is narcissism (I simplified it here). And the funny thing is that I often see “self-help” posts like this all the time on social media where people tell others that everything should be about themselves. Don’t get me wrong, it is important that we take care of ourselves and love ourselves to a certain extent. But I think there are boundaries that must be understood.

Perhaps some of you are familiar with the famous Greek mythology of Narcissus who looked into the fount of water and fell in love with himself—sort of like people’s obsessions with looking at themselves in the mirror or their own photographs (many mythologies and religions are symptoms of the human psyche). Quite the contrary, love is not about the reflection of ourselves. It is about the reflection of the other person. Real love is not a contract between two narcissists who loves themselves more than they love the other person. Love is not simply feelings of euphoria or sadness that we consume. Love is not a mutual exchange of selfish desires (money, objects, sex, fun, etc.). When love is produced through the declaration of our words (“I love you”), it is no longer about these words alone. Love transforms into selfless acts for the other where we love them more than we love ourselves; where we care for them, protect them, fight for them, and die for them. To love someone is to put their needs above our own—to love them more than we love ourselves in the reflection. Therefore, love often involves struggling, compromise, and sacrifice. Or to put it light heartedly, love is about who cleans the toilet and does the dishes. Thus, we can say that, love is determination, commitment and faith, where it has the ability to overcome some of the greatest differences and obstacles between two people. And it is only through this faithful commitment to the other where love can become eternal and infinite.

“To love is to struggle, beyond solitude, with everything in the world that can animate existence. This world where I see for myself the fount of happiness my being with someone else brings. ‘I love you’ becomes: in this world there is the fount you are for my life. In the water from this fount, I see our bliss, yours first. As in Mallarme’s poem, I see:

In the wave you become
Your naked ecstasy.”

—Alain Badiou, In Praise of Love.

Another brain dump post where I write a few paragraphs and stop. Once again, there are zero consistencies to the things I write in between asterisks. It includes insights on the prolific Korean-German philosopher Byun-Chul Han. I also touch on the problem of consciousness and share some other random stories. I reorganized them to flow better, but they can be read in any order. Some of these are pretty long.

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“I heard a lot about you!”

Every time someone says this to me, I laugh and think to myself: “Oh wow, you heard a lot about me? It’s probably not all good” LOL. I am a pretty big weirdo who can be hard to understand sometimes. But once you understand me, everything else will fall into place. I am not as serious as what most people think. Since my early 20s, my friends coined the term “Bobbyism” to imply things that only a Bobby would say and do. I can be pretty goofy once you know me well. I am the person who throws pinecones at my friends during a disc golf round (in the winter, I start snowball fights on the fairway). I am the person with toilet humor while you are eating dinner. I like to sit around the house reading and writing in my underwear. I am also the ultra dry and sarcastic dude where you can’t tell if I am joking or being serious half the time. I also banter quite a bit and may roast someone just because they annoy me (and because it’s funny). Some people probably find me annoying because I can turn almost anything into the butt of my jokes. They probably wish they never knew me so I can go back to the serious stone cold silent killer Bobby LOL.

* * *

The problem of consciousness

The problem of consciousness is really old and has been studied for a really long time. Basically, it revolves around the idea that neuroscientists can study the neural causalities and the maps of our brain when someone is happy or sad, etc., but they cannot explain the actual experience of happiness and sadness. There is something about consciousness that has long believed to be non-tangible. As such, the problem of consciousness (and unconscious) is more often talked about by philosophers than scientists simply because you can’t always empirically prove it.

[Did you know that scientists used to be called “natural philosophers”? Did you know that 95% of all Wikipedia articles eventually leads to the philosophy page? (see here). Philosophy is probably one of the oldest intellectual discipline in human history. A lot of disciplines in universities used to be considered as part of philosophy: art, mathematics, science, law, physics, politics, economics, sociology, psychology, etc.]

If two different person had the same identical patterns of neurons firing in their brains when they are happy, does this mean they experience happiness in the exact same way? How can you know for sure? If our biology is identical—or at least very similar (that is, we all have a brain, heart, lungs, etc.), why are we so different from each other with different personalities and preferences? Shouldn’t we all be the same? Can I ever experience the world outside of my first person perspective so I can truly understand the other person?

The more questions you ask, the more you will realize that there are a lot more things that goes on in our brains than neurons firing in specific ways. Although it is not my intention to downplay the importance of neuroscience, consciousness is very complex which often stretches beyond scientific empiricism and into the metaphysical world (i.e. the idea of an “idea” in our head begins from non-tangibility—something that we may one day make tangible). Things like gender for example. If you ask a scientist, they will often give you a naïve answer like “gender is a choice” which is certainly not wrong, albeit an oversimplified one. Whereas disciplines like psychoanalysis and gender theories can provide much deeper insights on gender and sexuality—even if there are many debates between the two fields. In another sense, one can find the causes and changes of our hormones and nervous systems when someone is depressed and thus, find ways to fix it via medicine, but perhaps depression isn’t simply about the causalities of our bodies, but the way human consciousness functions in relationship with reality.

Just some food for thought.

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You know what I just discovered?

I was at a family BBQ and my cousin told me that one of our cousins is a famous YouTuber with over 700k subscribers.

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Why some leftist scholars are critical of liberalism

It is common for people to think that by favoring liberalism, one is in support of socialism—and even communist values. However in the intellectual world, the term “neoliberal” (contemporary liberalism) is often criticized by various leftist scholars. There are leftist thinkers who believes that contemporary liberalism is not much different to right wing ideologies (this is not to say that liberalism don’t have any leftist values). As such, many of them don’t vote because they see it as right wing conservatism in disguise.

This type of skepticism has a long history which stemmed from Karl Marx (who invented socialism, communism, along with publishing a lengthy critical analysis of capitalism) and people like Sigmund Freud. In general, there are many reasons why these leftist thinkers hold such views and some are more complex than others. Basically, the problem with our capitalist world is that it has snowballed out of control where every aspect of our lives has become commoditized—including the ideology of liberalism, socialism and communism. The explosion of technology made it even easier. Everything in our lives is up for exploitation and consumption where even our identities has become capital. Everything is up for sale so to serve our desires. You see this in the way people become an entrepreneur (self-exploit), turn themselves into a “brand”, or how people “market” themselves in the dating world. Meanwhile, love is reduced to sex, and the intensities of our passions is reduced to comfort and safety. We exploit ourselves and others in the digital world (social media, dating apps, etc.) in exchange for narcissistic pleasures. The effects of capitalism can be felt everywhere in our lives without us realizing it. This is why real change has become really difficult to achieve because some of these people argue that capitalist ideologies has been imprinted into our (unconscious) minds which took over our lives (this idea originates from Slavoj Zizek’s famous book called, The Sublime Object of Ideology).

Other leftist thinkers will talk about dictatorship through digitization of our world where technology (re)organizes everything in our lives. Google predicts and suggests what you will like and what your next holiday destination will be at. It tells you what your favorite restaurant should be, and what websites to visit by putting them on the first page of your searches (an indirect way of censorship). Dating apps will predict what type of person you like and who you should talk to and date. Everything is determined through sameness and similarities. There is not much room left for contingent encounters of love. There is nothing left to risk, possibility, or chance; and for authentic events to occur which may produce real changes, differences and novelties in the world (instead, we have the same shit over and over again, just like your latest iPhones). Everything is revolved around control, safety, comfort; everything is about ourselves, our narcissisms, and desires. Many of them thinks that we are living in an age of digital totalitarianism and mass surveillance while people think they are free as they are enslaved to their desires and the frenzies of capitalism. Such frenzy is discovered from our never-ending productive labour all the way to how we are encouraged to always find constant connection with others and avoid getting stuck in our thoughts. Society wants you to be productive and take action. It doesn’t want you to think. It wants you to be distracted and be afraid of your thoughts. It wants you to endlessly consume and desire.

If you think of it like this, perhaps the cause and proliferation of mental illnesses in 21st century are not unfound. The paradox is that our society has become less about humans producing society as the symptom of their neuroticism. Rather, it is society which produces human neuroticism and narcissisms which feeds into a vicious never ending circle. Modern society has become a breeding ground for all sorts of mental illnesses. We are the products of our society.

* * *

Psychoanalysis and Phenomenology

One major idea that psychoanalysis consistently fails to account for is human intuition of space and time. For those who are familiar with philosophy, intuition and time consciousness is something that big disciplines like phenomenology studies extensively. Jacques Lacan tried to incorporate temporality into psychoanalysis early in his career but ended up disbanding it.

Freud once spoke of how our unconscious mind is timeless, yet nearly all of his patients have a tendency to regress back into their childhood traumas/past, producing all sorts of neurotic tendencies in their adult lives (due to transference). If the unconscious mind is timeless, why would people regress back into their childhood? All of this seem to suggest that psychoanalysis as a discipline appears to resist time. While Jacques Derrida was influenced by psychoanalysis (his wife was a clinical psychoanalyst who passed away from COVID-19), he thinks the discipline is incomplete. The criticism of psychoanalysis is most prominently seen in Derrida’s book called Resistances of Psychoanalysis (I wrote about it hyperlinked here). It is also explored by contemporary philosophers such as Adrian Johnston.

* * *

Essay writing and trolling your professors.

The requirements for research papers in grad school can sometimes be a hinderance due to how they require you to cite 8+ mixture of primary and secondary sources. Profs make you do this because they want you to learn how to write publishable papers and join contemporary intellectual conversations (in grad school, you are learning how to become a “professional scholar”). Back then, I sometimes just want to write essays where I cite 1-4 books but get really deep and create something cool out of them. I am more interested in theory crafting from scratch than joining contemporary conversations that I don’t always care about.

During my undergraduate years, I clashed with one or two of the teachers where I ended up trolling them with my assignments. I admit, it was very funny watching them get annoyed (what can I say? I’m just your everyday sadist). I’m pretty sure they still hate me till this day LOL. The best part was that I technically didn’t break the assignment outline. I went outside the parameters and did what I wanted to do by slipping between the rules (I did it because they had dumb rules that made no sense lol). I think I got a D in one of them. But that’s okay because D stands for Done. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

* * *

On Professionalism 

I never liked using this word since my early 20s. Terms like “professional scholar”, “professional philosopher”, or “professional artist” are words that I refrain from using. But it also depends on how you define it. Most people probably associates professionalism with someone who does something for a living. I think there are instances where I am okay with using it—such as a doctor or a nurse. But in the context of art, philosophy, and thinking, I see professionalism as an obstacle to overcome.

In many cases, professionalism can function as a form of authority to make others obey (like some political ideology). You are a professional now. You can’t do this. You can’t say that. You can’t think like this or that. Professionalism can sometimes make us blindly follow rules that makes no sense. Due to this, it may limit our ability to think critically and make us forget who we are. In many cases, I think learning how to be human is much more important. I sometimes hear people talk about wanting to become a “professional philosopher”. Like, wtf does that even mean? It sounds so stupid LOL.

Let me put it this way, there is nothing professional about philosophers like Socrates who walked around Ancient Greece debating with everyday citizens. There is also nothing professional in the way some public intellectuals give their presentations. In many cases, the more professional one tries to be, the further away they are from truth. It’s too proper. Too formal. Too normal. —It’s too boring. Great thoughts and ideas comes from not being afraid to think beyond boundaries, offend others (unintentionally), and challenge dominant modes of thinking. When there is too much structure and filter for the sake of “properness”, there is no room left for truth and the risk for producing anything new. There is no room left for thought and imagination. We need a spark to start a fire. This kind of reminds me of Michel Foucault’s lectures called, The Courage of Truth….Anyways.

* * *

On Byun-Chul Han

Han is a very well known Korean-German philosopher who specializes in deconstruction and Hegelianism. I’ve heard of him several years ago, but only recently got a chance to read some of his works. I was surprised by how well read he is. His work is really accessible by your average readers. Though I think Han’s writing makes intuitive leaps that can make it difficult to follow if you don’t have any background in continental (European) philosophy. I can certainly see why he is so popular. Han is a very creative thinker whose provocative thoughts resembles a lot of counter-intuitive ideas that is found in Jean Baudrillard.

In the first essay/chapter of Capitalism and Death Drive, Han, following Baudrillard’s thoughts, turns the Freudian / psychoanalytic death drive against itself and argues that our system of capitalism deprives our lives from death where people are left to imagine a deathless life which leads to all sorts of mental illnesses. Han points out how our society is oriented towards the death drive where people unconsciously propel themselves towards self-destruction as they become narcissists. For Han, humans are negating their own deaths by producing capital (money) and leaving them behind during their lives. As a result, society produces fitness zombies, Botox zombies, and performance zombies. Everything is about performance, efficiency, and optimization—you must perform and be efficient in every aspect of your life, even when you are sleeping (think of smart watches that tells you how well you slept). People are too alive to die, and too dead to live. By paradoxically negating and avoiding death, capitalism leads itself to self-destruction by making people exploit themselves.

Han suggests that what is causing mental illnesses is through our society that produces endless ideologies of happiness, performance, and efficiency. The idea that one must always strive to be positive and negate any negative feelings and their death leads to people not knowing how to deal with negative emotions. Instead of arguing that negative thoughts leads to depression, Han thinks it is the constant societal pressure that people put in their lives—of always wanting to be happy, positive, efficient, perform, and to achieve something which leads to their self-destruction.

Han points out how our enthusiasm for work is already a symptom of burnouts and depression. Why else would one need things like Monday mantras that seeks to get you motivated? It is as Slavoj Zizek would say: “You don’t hate Mondays, you hate capitalism” (this line became a pretty popular meme lol). You must be enthusiastic about your job! No matter how rough life gets, you must stay positive! Overtime, this positivity becomes overbearing and “toxic”, which induces the feeling of emptiness and guilt (i.e. when you are sad, you feel guilty that you aren’t happy while other people are). Certainly, the experience of guilt is quite famous within psychoanalytic thought since it is produced by the effects of the Other (super-ego) that imposes laws on the subject who must obey them. You must be happy! You must be a productive member of society! Sell yourself! Sell your body! Sell your soul! For Han, work and self-exploitation dominates our life to the point where even on our time off, relaxation becomes part of the job as we focus on mental health management activities (we learn how to be more efficient). We do all of this just so we can continue to produce and perform better at work. All of our time becomes labour time. There is no longer time for the other—or time that is devoted to “otherness”. For Han, capitalism exploits freedom and makes you believe you are free, even when you are shackled by your labour where you are forced to constantly produce.

Han seems to take on similar positions to Baudrillard among other thinkers that the only way to halt capitalism and its frenzies of production is for people to confront symbolic death and encounter “otherness” (foreignness; or death). Han follows Baudrillard’s interpretations of how capitalism challenges and avoids death, which can only end by confronting death itself. He uses an interesting example from the film Melancholia where Justine’s (Kristen Dunst) depression appears to have cured itself near the end of the film when she confronts death as she discovers people around her and cared for them. Melancholia (the celestial body that collides and kills everyone on Earth in the film) arrives in the most untimely fashion. It is a catastrophic event that interrupted her existence.

By avoiding and challenging death, Baudrillard saw how capitalism paradoxically becomes a system that commits suicide—to the point where people take their own lives (again, this is due to the Freudian death drive and Capitalism’s endless desire for infinite production and efficiency) [recall in my Baudrillard post where I spoke about the story of “Death in Samarkand”]. The extreme form of this is terrorism where a terrorist makes death a reality. Following Baudrillard, Han points out how terrorists are taking selfies with their deaths as their acts are captured in photographs that gets disseminated in the media (they are narcissists with a bomb). For Baudrillard, terrorism is the product of (the globalization of) capitalism. The collapse of the World Trade Center was the symbolic death of capitalism where its event challenged capitalist structure as it challenged death (this was from Baudrillard’s famous book called, The Spirit of Terrorism). Borrowing from this, Han draws relationships between the terrorist who takes their own life with the person who self harms due to their depression and anxiety. Aside from obvious moral differences, perhaps the two individuals are not so different from each other who follows similar pathologies; for they both have tendencies to self-destruct. A very provocative thought, indeed.

Since people must confront their symbolic deaths, Han also associates love with death—an idea that has a lot of merit. Love is a fatal event. To love someone is to narcissistically die—it is to give up parts of ourselves for the other person we love and care for them (to stop being narcissists where we discover the other person—just like Justine in Melancholia). From that point on, our world is no longer about ourselves (our narcissism), but the other. This position is consistent with Freud who thinks that everyone is a narcissist who must forfeit parts of it (in Han’s term, it is to die; in Lacan’s term, it is to become the split subject). I too, am quite consistent with such view. This is why you may notice that I sometimes talk about how the cure to our contemporary world is love itself. To love is to, in some sense, confront our death. Our world can only be cured through the metaphors of love, which is something that is radically other and foreign. Love is a catastrophic event that shakes our world. It arrives when we least expect it—just like Melancholia that collides with Earth. Love is untimely; and it is our job to keep it as alive as it were on the first day.

Moreover, Han’s interpretation that death is the solution to living a meaningful life is also reminiscent to Jacques Derrida’s famous book called The Gift of Death. I wrote about this shortly after my dog passed away (it can be found here). Although I took a different approach, I think we both arrive at similar conclusions that the gift of death is the gift of life. It is because we will die one day which makes our lives meaningful. Yet, humans live like they will never die and prefers to “not think about it”.

Overall, I think Han offers interesting insights on what is happening in our world today. He is a lively philosopher of doom whose ideas can strike some as optimistically depressing Lol. I’m not surprised that he teaches at an art school rather than a university. He seems too radical and provocative to be a university professor (I sometimes feel like some uni profs are afraid of saying the “wrong things” because they don’t want to get cancelled and lose their jobs). Not to mention that a lot of Han’s ideas are against dominant modes of political ideologies and the facades of contemporary society (i.e. his sustained attacks and criticism of neoliberalism). The works that I read on him are beginner friendly and quite interesting if you approach it with an open mind. Han’s most famous book is called The Burnout Society and is worth checking out.

* * *

I landed my first ace in disc golf

First throw off the tee and into the basket. That’s the story. The end.

* * *

“You don’t look Chinese”

I am Chinese. I was born in Hong Kong and moved to Canada when I was 5 years old. But ever since I grew facial hair, some people started to mistake me as Japanese and sometimes as mixed race. Some people are surprised that I can speak fluent Cantonese. I also used to be able to read a little bit of French and German. I forgot most of it as time went by Lol. I actually want to travel to France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, and Spain one day.

In my mid twenties, I went through a transformation where I managed to grow a decent goatee beard that I’ve kept ever since (though I will occasionally do a clean shave just because). Many people really liked my new look compared to my younger boyish Bobby in my early twenties. Others not so much. It definitely makes me look older and more mature. But it makes people take me more (too) seriously. And because they take me more seriously, they can’t detect my quick and dry sarcastic jokes.

Maintaining nice facial hair can take work. You have to know which areas must be longer, shorter and what looks best on you when you trim it (your face shape and hairstyle plays a role). Consistent maintenance and beard oil is essential to having it look nice. Facial hair is genetics. Many of my Chinese friends tried to grow facial hair and most of them ended up with a patchy scraggly pedo stache (LOL sorry). I guess if you really want facial hair, you can always cut some of your armpit hair and tape it on your face. Very sexy.

* * *

Compliments

I was at the hospital with my mom earlier in the year where I had to remove my mask for a COVID-19 screening (had to get a new mask). The nurse asked me how old I was and thought I was handsome. I was like “Uhhhhhhh…thanks?” and she just smiled. My mom didn’t say anything and just started laughing. It was funny because I can be pretty socially awkward and not know how to respond LOL.

Thinking about it, one of the greatest compliments I received was not about my appearance. It was from my professor in grad school who gave me an A+ for my final grade. He was a prof who specialized in deconstruction and doesn’t give out A+ very easily. In fact, I was so flattered by his comment that I saved it in my email. Reading it still makes me smile till this day:

“Reading this essay is not only an extraordinary pleasure, but an intellectually invigorating process of reliving my own moments of thinking through the issues you engage with in the piece. This essay not only exhibits a wide-ranging familiarity on our part with contemporary critical theory and philosophy, but offers an ingenious, original, insightful account about Derrida’s theory of hauntology, his concept of the time to come as the matrix of the absolute infinite Otherness of the Other, the past-future dialectic, the violence and finitude internal to interpretation or any human effort to touch the thing in itself. You not only prove to have the intellectual capacity to explicate difficult concepts with ease, confidence, and clarity, but reveal yourself to be an insightfully innovative reader of imaginative literature as well. What is said about Barton and her relationship with Friday enriches our encounter with her, though you do not provide much space for discussion on the novel. To do full justice to the paper despite its minor insufficiencies, I must say, it deserves an A+; course grade: A+”.

🙂

…Coming to think even more about it, I received a few glowing compliments from one or two other profs. But I can’t find them anymore. One was from my MA supervisor, a Feminist Lacanian British Romanticist, who I learned a lot of psychoanalysis from. I remember I met him while auditing one of his courses where he had been very supportive of me ever since. Back then, it was funny sitting in his lectures on literary theory because I blended in pretty well. Nobody knew there was a random super nerd Derrida guy sitting beside them. I still remember the PhD student who gave the lecture on deconstruction and postcolonialism wasn’t very good—no offense. I still can’t get over it because honestly man, deconstruction does not lead to decolonization LOLLL. Fight me.

* * *

It’s raining right now

Rain is so romantic. Damn, why is rain so romantic? It makes me want to share another tragic story where Bobby was clueless with women, but I have to pee really bad right now (unfortunately, I have quite a few of these stories Lol).

* * *

When will Bobby publish his retracted post on psychoanalysis and death drive?

Those who regularly visits this site got a glimpse of this piece awhile ago. I actually haven’t worked on it since I took it down (too busy being lazy Lol). The death drive (or repetition compulsion) is incredibly influential among various strands of contemporary thoughts and ideas. I don’t know if I will republish it anytime soon, but I will one day. In the future, I kind of want to write more about Jean Baudrillard and maybe a bigger post on Byun-Chul Han. We shall see.

Until next time,

—B.

A casual post with zero consistencies to the stuff that I write in between asterisks. This was the post where I write a few paragraphs and stop. It has been sitting around as a draft for the last six months, so I’m just going to throw it out there. Some of these writings includes things that inspires me, random stories, disc golf, philosophy, decolonization, psychoanalysis, my views on academia, and other random things. I reorganized some of the sections so they flow better. I also didn’t spend much time editing because I am too tired from work these days. 🙂

* * *

The Simulations of Bobby’s Identity

The other day, I was thinking about how some people reads this blog as if it completely represents who I am as a person. While much of my writings on here reflects a lot of my internal thoughts and who I am intellectually, I often find it alienated from who I am in reality. It reminds me of Jean Baudrillard’s thoughts on simulacra and simulation, where he spoke about Borges fable and how cartographers mapped out their empire with precision. Yet over time, the empire falls into ruins and new empires are formed. Reality changes, but the map remains the same. Where reality initially functioned as the foundation for the map, it is now the map (simulation) which establishes the foundations for reality (I wrote about this here).

Does this blog function as the foundations for who I am over when you meet me in reality? Does it function as the basis of assumptions about me over what you perceive of me in real life when you talk to me? I often—or sometimes—find this to be the case. I’ve also known people who snoops on this blog and pretend they never read anything, but “knows everything about me” (why are y’all so crEeeeeePy? It’s a joke, I don’t care Lol). In the past, there were people who came to many erroneous assumptions about me through this blog. Other times, they think I am writing about them which is not always an accurate assessment (unless I specifically mention it). It is true that I sometimes write about things that are inspired by people and events that goes on in my life (who isn’t?). But I only do so in a way that is detached from said person or life event in an objective way. I do this because I believe that these events and people are those who taught me certain things in life that are worth thinking about.

Am I everything that I’ve written on here? Partially, yes. But never entirely. I think many people likes to jump to conclusions about me which is a big mistake (jumping to conclusions is the culprit of humanity in general). If people were to read this blog 5 or 10 years from now, will they continue to see all my old posts as the basis for who I am? Not to mention that I don’t 100% embrace everything that I write on here (for example, I don’t embrace myself as an INTJ, MBTI typology; or enneagrams—even if I published a post about the INTJ). To conceive of Bobby’s identity through this blog would be a fatal mistake. Yet, it is also one of the few places where people can understand some of my passions and who I am as a person.

With all this said, I almost never talk about the things I write on this blog with any of my friends and family unless they take interest in them. This is because I know philosophy is not a very good table conversation for most people. It is difficult, complex, which often reveals the darker sides of humanity and truths that no one wants to hear. Instead, I usually try to talk about everyday people topics where my speech is riddled with fluent sarcasm along with a bit of irony, hyperbole, and exaggerations.

* * *

20th Century French Philosophy

20th century France was an intellectual powerhouse where many renown philosophers took over academia. The most well known from the bunch is Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Helene Cixous, Louis Althusser, Jean Baudrillard, Georges Bataille, and Alain Badiou (I missed a few). Together, these people formed an intellectual arena populated by numerous debates while influencing each other at the same time.

Many people take interest in these figures not only because nearly all of them were incredibly influential, but because they had all these dramas that went on between them. Deleuze and Guattari published a book called Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia that Lacan banned from his institution and told his students to not read it (in reality, D&G actually agrees with Lacan on quite a few points; D&G are not as harsh of a critic on Lacan as people say—imo). Lacan was like a cult leader of sorts. At the beginning, his public lectures only had few students which eventually got jam packed with people. He was always like a performer in his lectures which I found hilarious (there are videos of his lectures on YouTube). Lacanian psychoanalysis was really influential which set up the landscape of intellectual thought in 20th century (this is also true for people like Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Friedrich Nietzsche, G.W.F. Hegel, and Sigmund Freud). Slavoj Zizek, a contemporary Hegelian-Lacanian is well known for popularizing Lacan’s works. Meanwhile we have our boy Jean Baudrillard who is still existing through hyperrealities.

The debates that went on between these figures—which continues to exist among their followers—are nuanced and requires specialized skill and knowledge to understand. Not to mention that these people are incredibly hard to read in their own ways which means that learning their ideas are not easy. In order to understand them, it is important that readers have a fluid understanding in the history of modern philosophy which began in 17th century Netherlands (you also need to understand ancient Greek philosophies).

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Students of Jacques Derrida

Some of the most well known students of Derrida are incredible thinkers in their own right. There is Martin Hagglund, whose reading of Derrida is surprisingly similar to my own. Though I think his attempts at fusing time consciousness and psychoanalysis requires reworking. Geoffrey Bennington is another well known Derridean whose work I enjoy reading—especially his interpretations on Immanuel Kant. Then there is Catherine Malabou, who I think is one of the brightest French intellectuals today. Much of Malabou’s ideas tries to fuse philosophy and science together—particularly neuroscience and various aspects of psychoanalysis while going beyond it (i.e. death drive and unconscious mind). I often find a lot of Derridean inspired themes and allusions in her works, which I enjoy. She is also a great writer who is really clear. One of my mentor who got me into French philosophy, her PhD advisor was Catherine Malabou (they are good friends in real life). Her other two advisors were Geoffrey Bennington and Alain Badiou which was quite an all star line up.

There are a few more well known students of Derrida, such as Barbara Cassin who is really good. I remember reading one of her book where she criticized Google search engine and page rank. Anne Dufourmantelle is also really good and is particularly well known for her book published with Derrida called Of Hospitality. This essay became really famous which talks about the function of hospitality when we confront the other (person). Dufourmantelle’s philosophy privileges taking risks in life. Unfortunately, she died a few years ago from (taking a risk) trying to save two children who got caught in a storm. Finally, there is Jean-Luc Nancy who also recently passed away, but is a really well known student of Derrida. He is super hard to read, but incredibly good. I have only touched on his works here and there during grad school days and may revisit him in the near future.

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Thoughts on Academia

I was someone who went from nearly bombing high school to becoming a straight A student decorated with fancy awards that I don’t care about. In the past, I expressed my distaste for contemporary academia and the way university and institutions do things along with all their politics. Getting a PhD is a huge time investment. I think anyone can do what a PhD does. I’ve met people without degrees who are just as smart and intelligent as any PhD (smarter). While degrees and fancy awards can highlight someone’s achievements (things which they should be proud of), it doesn’t mean much at the end. Back then, I was some random guy who had no academic background and audited random courses (I came from a design degree which was hands on and not research based). When I started my MA degree, some professors thought I was a PhD student who was writing my dissertation due to how much I know (they were surprised that I was only a Masters student). I’m not flexing or saying that I am smart. What I am trying to say is that anyone can get into grad school if they have enough determination, passion, commitment, and will power. Just because someone doesn’t go to school or once failed in school doesn’t mean they are a failure or not smart.

It was grad school which taught me that I can help more people understand really difficult and influential ideas by writing on my blog than a jargony essay that gets published in journals kept behind paywalls. And even if there were no paywalls, people wouldn’t understand any of the jargons most scholars write anyway. People might not know, but I learn just as much writing on here as those who reads it. I see the world very differently from most people. Maybe I will start a really big book project and get it published one day. Though I don’t think I have sufficient knowledge and life experience to start something this big yet.

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Being Ahead of Time

When I was in grad school, I was always 3-4 weeks ahead of all my classes’ reading schedule and workload. I have most of my final research papers done 2-3 weeks in advance (they are long 10000+ word papers). This allows me to “finish school” earlier than the semester actually is. Anyone who gone through grad school knows that the workload is insane. But I often blasted through most of them early in the semester so I won’t have to worry about it later. I was a pretty efficient student. I wasted no time in the beginning of the semester because I want to maximize my free time. This is actually my way of being “lazy” which is to get all the stuff done fast so I can maximize my time doing nothing. Thinking back, I pretty much cruised through my MA degree with relative ease. It was getting into the program that was the most difficult. Everything else was straight forward.

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On Decolonization

In case you want a quick answer as to why I think decolonization is not possible. None of the things we do in our cultures are natural. From the first humans who colonized Nature by producing tribes, cultures, cities, languages, art, technology, or whatever that you can think of. Colonial violence lives at the heart of all human civilizations due to human interpretation of Nature and producing things that are unnatural which usurps the latter (it would be as Rousseau might say where nature denatures itself which makes culture simultaneously natural and unnatural). Colonialism is a subtle, paradoxical, and originary violence that happens every day—even as you read this text. It is embedded deep within the act of interpretation and how external knowledge takes position of the internal subject. People who followed this blog might already understand my position (I hope) because I said this a billion times in different ways. 

I think all of this comes down to the definition of decolonization. For example, if the term means teaching young generations the violence of colonial history and bringing back lost traditions, then I think it’s a good thing—even if I argue that such teachings fundamentally operates as a form of colonial violence—just like any modes of interpretation, or how culture (or science) usurps nature. Furthermore, due to how colonial violence lives at the heart of interpretation, “decolonization” means that there was never anything decolonial about it except by its name. Thus, it makes little sense to call it decolonization despite its intentions to do good. With all this said, I think colonialism is problematic, even if it is impossible to avoid in our world today. Perpetual peace is not possible and violence will always exist. All we can do is minimize it by treating others with respect and understanding. As much as I would like to see colonialism as it is, the world is not as black and white as what most people think.

I still remember back when I was auditing an intro to literary theory course. Some PhD student was giving a lecture on deconstruction and postcolonialism. They pointed out how “deconstruction leads to decolonization”. While this is not a wrong interpretation, it’s a rather inconsiderate one. Personally, I think they were wrong. But that’s just what I think.

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…Tragic?

Back when I was in my final year of undergraduate studies, I had a clueless platonic relationship with a female friend. I’ve known her since I started post-secondary school and I used to have a big crush on her near the beginning when I met her. But she had a boyfriend at the time and I didn’t mind being friends—so I treated her as a friend because we were in the same classes everyday for 3 years. Overtime, she went through a few relationships and we continued to be good friends as we got to know each other. Coming to think about it, she is probably one of the few female friends I know who could finish some of my sentences (there are only a handful of people who can do this). She is one of the few people I know who understands my humor. When I crack my dumb jokes in a group, she would be the only who gets it and laughs. I recall one time when one of our friends was wondering if they should invite me to some party and X was like “Bobby would never show up, so don’t bother inviting him”. She told me afterwards which made me laugh because of how well she understands me. I would never show up because I am not a big party person. I like peace and quiet.

Near graduation, X was single and started showing signs of interest without me realizing. What kind of signs? Accepting my casual invites to take her out and do random things together, and her telling me how she defended me when she spoke to her friends about me, etc. Telling me how well she understands me—which is true. I thought of her as a friend because that is what I thought she just wanted to be.

At the time, there was another guy who was really interested in her. One day, he came up to me and asked: “Why don’t you go for X?”, I shrugged and I was like “What?”. I was confused as to what he meant. One year down the road, I finally understood what he meant and how he was a true gentleman for confronting me about it (I liked him more after that; X probably said something which made him ask me). They started dating shortly after and had been together ever since. I sometimes wish she would be upfront about her feelings. But none of this matters now. I am really happy for them. Even if I sometimes wonder what would happen if she told me how she felt. We are still friends, even if we never talk these days. She is really pretty and smart. She always had people chasing her and sending her flowers at work. But I’m over it. I just think back and have a good laugh at how stupid I was.

I think people should be more direct and say what they want. But nah, people like to use code words like “Netflix and chill”, or “lets hang out” only so they can end up calling you a “buddy”. X was the perfect example where we hung out only for me to realize that she intended them to be dates. I literally thought we were hanging out as friends. It only took me a little over a year to figure it out. Now it only takes me 10 months. Excellent progress!

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“Psychoanalysis is out of date”

I hear people say this a lot sometimes and it is not true. Psychoanalysis is not out of date. There are many organizations around the world that are devoted to psychoanalysis and continues to practice it. The discipline is sometimes considered as “pseudoscience” even when most analysts don’t necessarily consider their discipline as a science. Like philosophers, psychoanalysts are not trying to do science where everything needs to be evidence-based. Instead, psychoanalysis is based on practical experience and observations of people. This is actually what makes psychoanalysis psychoanalysis as such. It’s just about the only discipline that studies the influence and effects of the unconscious mind (there are however, emerging disciplines which seeks to converge science and psychoanalysis together which I find really cool).

Despite its controversial status, psychoanalysis has been influential among modern psychology. It offers a lot of insights that many psychologists would likely agree and build off of. For example, psychologists cannot deny that some of the most important things that occurs in our conscious mind happens outside of it (i.e. within the unconscious; or “subconscious”). This is probably one of the greatest contribution of psychoanalysis: we are thinking when we are not thinking about thinking. Psychoanalytic ideas like repetition compulsion and how people have urges to repeat certain behaviors is also crucial and related to many mainstream psychology disciplines. Then there is attachment theory which is heavily influenced by psychoanalysis (think, Melanie Klein). Furthermore, many psychologists can also agree that much of our current experiences and personalities are shaped by our childhood experiences.

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I am Human. I Have Emotions.

Often times, my feelings are not as important as the truth. I would rather hear a truth that hurts me than to not hear it at all. I feel very deeply—probably much deeper than what most people think or what my face suggests. Sometimes, my emotions are so powerful that they overwhelm me and take control (at that point, I just break down and cry lol). When I feel, it is very intense. And it is either I don’t feel anything, or I feel all of it at once.

I also often have trouble being emotional and logical at the same time, and it’s usually either one or the other. As I got older, I manage to wield both of them and learned to be more emotionally open to people who I would otherwise not be open to. It’s crazy because it sometimes turns me into a contradiction that freaks people out. Everything I say or write about, every single thought becomes reason and passion all at once.

I understand myself much better than most people understand me. Sometimes, I really want to change many core aspects of myself. But I realized that these are things which makes me who I am and I should cherish it—even if most people misunderstand or dislikes me for it. And most importantly, even if people hate or misunderstand me for who I am, I will treat them with infinite respect and forgiveness; because I think this is what we need most in our world today.

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My Disc Golf Endeavors

Last year, my friends took me to the Rocky mountains and introduced me to disc golf. They got me really hooked into the sport because it is really fun. Disc golf is basically ball golf that is played with flying discs. People often overlook how hard throwing these discs can be—especially if you want them to fly far and accurate. Unlike frisbee discs, disc golf discs are not designed to be caught. They are designed to fly (in the right hands and conditions, they can fly incredibly far and fast at over 80km/h). Each disc has its own flight ratings which tells you how it flies when you throw it up to its intended speed. Your form plays a big part on your accuracy and how far you can throw your disc. The distance of the throw is not really determined by strength—it is about speed and good timing. Throwing a disc well is about performing a series of well timed kinetic movements which transfers the energy generated from your legs, hips, shoulders and arms to your disc. You are basically turning your arm into a really fast whip. Having good form takes many years of practice for most people.

Ever since, I bought my own set of discs. I also go golfing in the mornings with a friend whenever I have time off work. I also enjoy golfing solo. I noticed that I play better when I am alone because I am more focused and not chatting with anyone. I still suck, but it’s okay. I’m a little better when not many people are watching me (too much pressure man Lol). I also started following professional disc golf tours and watched how all the pros play. I always try to beat myself every game and improve.

Disc golf can be therapeutic in the sense that it helps me clear my mind or whatever it is that I was thinking of. It helps me focus on the game and stop my mind from wandering too far off into the clouds or the depths of an idea; or forming connections between past, present, and future. It wasn’t until I started playing disc golf where I realized how much concentration and focus is required to make a good throw.

Buying discs became somewhat of an addiction of mine. This is probably because of me constantly wanting to try out new discs and have them fill certain roles throughout the course rounds. But I’ve been trying to limit myself to only getting the discs that I really need and am able to throw. I ended up upgrading my disc golf bag within a month of playing and have a full bag of discs to play with. Eventually, I upgraded again to a very expensive bag. It doesn’t cost much to start disc golfing…until you get addicted.

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About This Blog

Some time ago, Google news recommended my own blog on Derrida’s deconstruction on my phone. I laughed and said to myself, “I wonder who wrote that shit post?”. Thanks to all the random people who clicked on it and probably didn’t read it (and all the bots). My introductory posts on deconstruction and psychoanalysis are by far the most popular on this site. In fact, my writings on psychoanalysis are overtaking my writings on deconstruction. I’m not surprised, because psychoanalysis is a really cool discipline that will constantly make you go, “Oh shit, that is totally me”.

I also receive emails about these posts every once awhile. Sometimes, they are random questions. Other times, they are about how wrong I am or how they want to cite my work (I am flattered). When it comes to communication, I play by a simple rule: I always (eventually) respond to strangers who emails or messages me (except for scammers). For, how could there be meaning when there is no dialogue? How could there be truth when it is only me speaking? With this said, I disabled my comments on my blog to avoid moderating it (I’m lazy).

When I first started this blog a few years ago, I wanted it to be a place where I share my knowledge for free because I am not a big fan of turning knowledge (or anything) into commodities. I make no money from writing anything on here because I think money is dumb (yet I need it lol). I’m just here to provide my batshit crazy interpretations on what I think these philosophers that I am interested in are trying to say. In addition, I also didn’t want this blog to be professional with too much formality. I always wanted it to be casual and write whenever and whatever I want. I don’t like writing formally (yet, I am usually quite formal Lol). I prefer to be myself; even if I sometimes spew out some pretty “Wow, did he just say that?” kind of things because I tend to think without much social filter, rules, and limitations. Keep in mind that just because I write about these philosophical works does not always mean that I embrace their thinking. I adopt parts of their ideas and fit it into my own perspective. —Interpretation is reinvention.

Philosophy has taught me many things, from metaphysics, linguistic turn, the brilliance of art, all the way to the question of love, hospitality, forgiveness and how one should live. I admire those who takes on the challenge to read these difficult philosophical works. I have gone through the same path; and often find myself continuing on such path. It’s not easy and very frustrating at times. I knew several people who gave up reading Derrida and Lacan after the first few pages and I understand why. To be sure, philosophy doesn’t make you smart. It makes you wise and allows you to understand the bigger picture in ways that you have never imagined before. After all, “philosophy” literally translates as “Love of wisdom”. I honestly think that everything great in humanity comes from love. It is as Nietzsche would say, that which that is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.

If this blog helped you understand 20th century continental philosophy and difficult French writers, then I am happy to help. Once you start to unravel their ideas, thinking styles and familiarize yourself with 17th-19th century philosophies, you may recognize how intelligent they are. And once you understand them, you may realize that many of them are producing a “theory of everything”—such as the first principles of how people conceive reality, cultivate perspectives and different forms of truths. It is not just about “facts”, nor the causalities which produces facts as such (i.e. science), but how facts (knowledge), and truths are perceived by our conscious and unconscious mind through the infinite movements of space and time.

Lots to think about.

—B.