Monday, June 23, 2008

Aswang


Some may not know or care that my original province is Capiz. But some people, if not the majority of people I know, it could be a big deal. A few years back, it was a big deal and was even put back to spotlight again. I decided then to write about it. It was published in The Philippine Daily Inquirer. Here is the copy. zoom in to have a full view of it please. Thank you.


Saturday, May 17, 2008

Art and Pornography

We have to admit that publishing one's work is not anymore a hindrance to make your idea known. Not long ago, even the best idea could hardly be published, read or known simply because the artist or originator of an idea could not get the approval of the editor and has no money to advertise it. Now, everybody is a writer, a publisher, a photographer! It' s good. And it's bad.



It's good because people could be easily heard , seen and fed back. It's not good because these surges of information are not filtered. Everybody is educating everybody. And the only survival weapon you could give to our children is an early childhood experience of love and the sturdy sense of right and wrong. Once, they step out of our house they have the whole world to educate them. What hope we have in the end is on the 'orthogenesis', a theophilosophical theory of evolution by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Meaning, we hope that this digital revolution may still be within the divine plan of Whoever-your-God-is. But of course, the more is the need to assert our humanity as intellectual beings.


Now, let's go to the more tactile part of this discussion. Let's talk about pornography. I wont go to its detailed meaning or history. Don't worry. This gonna be short. People are publishing their works every second. Now, most people called these works arts. People around the web would pitch in with their coments or media response. Fine. But how can we decide if a certain work is really an art or simply a subtle expression of once pornographic mind without going back to high school or college class???



Here it is....


When you look at a picture, or read a literature and you feel that it feeds and gives you some kind of sexual satisfaction, then it has an element of pornography. Pornography satisfies our sexual appetite which we share with the rest of the animal kingdom. Art satisfies the intellectual appetite. Art makes you think, analyse, reflect and feel more human... Art calls for reason. That's why some people need some level of education to appreciate higher forms of arts. If you take a picture of a lonely tree in the middle the plain and show it with your friends, you hope that these people would understand your statement, your sentiments, your aspirations.



So, next time you read a post, look at a picture or evaluate a work, sense your appetite. Which part of your being is satisfied: sexual appetite or intellectual? Pure intellectual pusuit or just a sheer simpleton curiosity of someone else's lives?