FIGMENT OF IMAGINATION, IMAGINATION OF BIG MEN

This One's To Heat Up Summer More

I just woke up from an hour sleep. I slept at around 3 o’clock this morning. I have been programming and boozing until the wee hours of the morning. Basically my life yesterday until this morning was sex, alcohol and pizza. I am not proud of what just took place but why am I telling you all this. I like you to realize that though I am your teacher, I am as culpable to sin just like anybody else. As what I have told you, I am not proud of what happened yesterday, but ain't no saint.

Only a few know me quite well as a person. Usually people know me by what I have done and what I have been doing. You are one of the former few people. And I consider you my close acquaintance. I hate to be known as a good teacher or a doctor or a leader. At least to you, I am an ordinary easy-go-lucky guy. Rest assured though that I am more than a good friend to all my friends. I am never afraid to show my weaknesses nor do I ever display them. I work on my assets and potentials and these I turn into personal excellences.

This is the lesson I want you to learn. You got the potentials to make it good in life later on – brains, looks and manners. You work on these potentials and turn them into your own personal excellences. Be the smartest brain that you can be and the finest looking, well-mannered gentleman you can. Be true to who you are. Do not be embarrassed by your human weaknesses. Do not hide them but do not flaunt them too. Be yourself. Do not try to appear what you really are not; otherwise you will be found much wanting to be who you are not – a fake. You can be good and still be human. I am not forcing the issue of you behaving like the next candidate for sainthood. It’s not just you.

What we have been up to for the last few months, I hope you will not mistake as my pushing you into it. I am treating you as a young man now, endowed fully with the capacities to decide for your own good. If you think there is nothing wrong about programming then there is nothing wrong about it but if you feel it is wrong, then it is wrong. I believe that as long as nothing gets hurt, the action is neither good nor bad. The morality of my action and its intrinsic worth depends on my purpose of doing it. This may not be correct because the end does not always justify the means. But who cares!

Now that you’ve seen one of my human weaknesses, I hope nothing changes. I have never said that I am perfect. No! I am not. So are you but do not try to change and make yourself appear so innocent to me. I understand your needs and I don’t care about them as long as you’ll hurt nobody and this includes yourself. You are smart. You know what you are doing. I look forward to a much better barkadahan next year.

(Read beyond the lines. This is not meant like how it sounds.)

WHAT IS A MAN?

Five Essential Characteristics Defining a Real Man

A man carries cash. A man looks out for those around him -- woman, friend, and stranger. A man can cook eggs. A man can always find something good to watch on television. A man makes things -- a rock wall, a table, the tuition money. Or he rebuilds -- engines, watches, fortunes. He passes along expertise, one man to the next. Know-how survives him. A man fantasizes that kung fu lives deep inside him somewhere. A man is good at his job. Not his work, not his avocation, not his hobby. Not his career. His job. It doesn't matter what his job is, because if a man doesn't like his job, he gets a new one.

The Communication Style of Man
A man can speak to dogs. A man listens, and that's how he argues. He crafts opinions. He can pound the table, take the floor. It's not that he must. It's that he can. A man can look you up and down and figure some things out. Before you say a word, he makes you -- from your suitcase, from your watch, from your posture. A man infers.

Man's Ability to Handle Mistakes
A man owns up. That's why Mark McGwire is not a man. A man grasps his mistakes. He lays claim to who he is, and what he was, whether he likes them or not. Some mistakes, though, he lets pass if no one notices like dropping the steak in the dirt. A man can tell you he was wrong. That he did wrong. That he planned to. He can tell you when he is lost. He can apologize, even if sometimes it's just to put an end to the bickering.

Man's Basic Instincts
A man does not wither at the thought of dancing. But it is generally to be avoided. Style -- a man has that. No matter how eccentric that style is, it is uncontrived. It's a set of rules. A man loves the human body, the revelation of nakedness. He loves the sight of the pale bosom, the physics of the human skeleton, and the alternating current of the flesh. He is thrilled by the wrist and the sight of a bare shoulder. He likes the crease of a bent knee. Maybe he never has, and maybe he never will, but a man figures he can knock someone, somewhere, on his bottom. A man doesn't point out that he did the dishes. A man knows how to ridicule. A man gets the door without thinking. He stops traffic when he must. A man knows how to lose an afternoon -- playing Grand Theft Auto, driving aimlessly, shooting pool. He knows how to lose a month, also.

A man welcomes the coming of age. It frees him. It allows him to assume the upper hand and teaches him when to step aside. He understands the basic mechanics of the planet. Or he can close one eye, look up at the sun, and tell you what time of day it is. Or where north is. He can tell you where you might find something to eat or where the fish run. He understands electricity or the internal-combustion engine, the mechanics of flight or how to figure a pitcher's ERA. A man does not know everything. He doesn't try. He likes what other men know. A man knows his tools and how to use them -- just the ones he needs. Knows which saw is for what, how to find the stud, when to use galvanized nails. A miter saw, incidentally, is the kind that sits on a table, has a circular blade, and is used for cutting at precise angles. Very satisfying saw.

The Paradox of Man
He does not rely on rationalizations or explanations. He doesn't winnow, winnow, winnow until truths can be humbly categorized, or intellectualized, until behavior can be written off with an explanation. He doesn't see himself lost in some great maw of humanity, some grand sweep. That's the liberal thread; it's why men won't line up as liberals. A man resists formulations, questions belief, and embraces ambiguity without making a fetish out of it. A man revisits his beliefs continually. That's why men won't forever line up with conservatives, either.

This article is from Esquire's columnist Tom Chiarella.

BASER INSTINCTS, RATIONAL SELF & TRANSCENDENT BEING

Id, Ego, Superego and What Will You Do, Where Will You Go?

Humans are purportedly the most intelligent animals. They are endowed with a brain more complex than the rest of all the vertebrates. Theirs is a complex thinking cap that is very much capable of abstract functions, such as analysis and judgment. Man's brain may not be the biggest nor the heaviest but its capabilities are beyond what he himself can imagine. Man's brain is capable of complex calculations. It is capable of total recall of events that have happened long in the past. It is capable of making a choice, deciding which action to pursue for his own safety and survival. Sadly, it is also this same brain that gives man most of his problems today.

One of the most fascinating study of the brain and its function is Sigmund Freud's psychosexual theory of human development. Although this theory has been fraught with too much controversy, some even bordering into the absurd, it is indeed able to explain man's very peculiar psychosexual behavior. His ideas of id, ego and superego that were landmarks of the different psychosexual stages of development-oral, phallic and anal-can very well explain most of man's adult sexual behavior. Lack of knowledge of this highly controversial theory explains some of man's sexual deviancies.

Two of the most challenging problems I faced today is brought about by ignorance to Freud's psychosexual theory of human development. One of our senior graduating students got pregnant by another graduating student. This is a very sad case of penis envy gone awry. Another problem is the case of a young freshman whose misplaced Electra complex caused a school bus driver his future, the future of his children and the future of our young student. All these two cases are tainted with much ignorance to man's sexuality, his sexual development and how his sexuality affects his behavior as he grows to adulthood.

Our senior student who got pregnant was, sadly before, a very promising student. She was born out of wedlock. Freud said that she must have been longing for a father figure. Her penis envy intensified so much and blamed her mother for her father's absence. She would have thought that her only source of happiness and security, which is the father, was purposely taken away from her as a punishment for the father leaving the mother. The boy is troubled by his helplessness in fending off his father from his mother. He is the eldest in a brood of four, and felt it was his duty to protect the mother (Oedipal complex) from the onslaught of the father who is the main cause of his castration anxiety. Both their needs complement each other. Both their unresolved conflicts find ultimate resolution in each other's company.

I do not expect for a school bus driver to know his Freudian psychosexual theory of development. This is the very mistake for his ruining everyone's future-his own, his children's and our student's. She is a beautiful girl, more mature than her age. She is the third in a brood of five consisting of two older brothers and two younger sisters. She is the proverbial middle child-confused of where she stands and what is supposed to be her role. Her father works abroad. When the older brothers was still studying in high school, the mother was often with them, preparing usually their lunch. When both boys went to the city to pursue college studies, the mother's attention got divided, and unfortunately was mistaken by the middle sister as the mother more favoring, loving the older boys. This second case sadly portrays how life may suddenly be overturned simply by a misperceived Electra complex that has intensified so much penis envy.

The damage has been done. It can no longer be repaired like brand new. Worse, emotional collapse has had happened simply but sadly because of the lack of understanding of how we, humans, behave based on the dictates of our baser instincts, our rational self and our transcendent being. Unfortunately, the Freudian theory cannot be taught with much understanding among high school students nor can it be taught among grade schoolers without sounding so sexually perverted. One still has to go to college to know Freud, but if only one listened well to his Psychology professor. A lot has not finished high school. A lot has not gone to college. Will there still be a lot of future and hopes to be broken? So sad...sadly...so sad...

THE RAPE OF FARCE

Lance Corporal Daniel Smith

When the news broke that a teenage girl was gang raped by US servicemen that befriended her in a bar, I told myself, "Well it was her fault." If ever there was no sign of violence and that she willingly rode with them inside a van where she was purportedly raped, then it was her fault. Why in the world would she go out with these obviously burly men she just met in a bar? Any girl trying hard to be a lady will not ever dare engage in deeper conversation with men she has just met, much more ride with them in the middle of the night inside a close van. Nicole, as she has fondly been known ever since, is definitely not a lady.

Lance Corporal Daniel Smith was convicted of raping Nicole more than a year ago. For few hours of giving in to his baser instincts, he was made to realize the foolishness of his decision only when inside the cold city jail. There was so much outrage afterwards. Women's group claimed triumphant. Some government officials viewed everything a threat to the VFA. I pitied Smith because he himself was a victim too tried in a country whose judicial system is as rotten as her leaders. I pitied Nicole because she herself became prey of her own foolishness and the anger of marginalized groups promoting the cause of women.

Just two days ago, however, Nicole recanted everything about the alleged rape. Through a letter she asked her mother to give to her lawyer, she wrote that she was tired of how slow the case was moving and that she no longer was sure if she was indeed raped or was it her own undoing of flirting with the men that led to her being gang raped. Our memory indeed is so bad that after a year or so, we can no longer remember how savagely degrading we were raped or how blissfully satisfying was it climaxing with four or so sex-crazed US servicemen. How quaintly foolish a statement this is. From the very start, I knew it was Nicole who was guilty and not those sex hungry burly young men out of sea for just few hours of fun.

For these turn of events, a lot speculated that Nicole was bribed. She allegedly has received a sizable amount of money bigger than any slut's boobs and, surprise of all surprises, she is now in the land of spunk and honey, in the land of men who made her their spigots' end. What a crazy unfolding of plot this has become. What a sad twist of fate for the women's group. What a welcome news to Daniel Smith's throng of crazy fans. What a blow to our already rotten judicial system. What a farce! The joke of all comedies, making our courts look like small-time moro-moro stages.

If Nicole was really true to the cause she had been fighting ever since, she should not have done this comedy of errors. If she was indeed gang raped, no amount of money could ever dissuade her out of the case. If she was indeed violated, however slow her case was moving on could not have caused her to recant what she told the court then under oath. If everything she said was true, and that she was indeed gang raped, then her action definitely was sending a very wrong message about women in general. I was never all praises to her when this hullabaloo started. Deep within I knew something was out of picture, not in sync with the whole song Nicole was singing.

A lesson or two may be learned from this comedy. A young girl's mind that sets in between a slutty pair of ears is changeable, and unfortunately holds only a few memory cells. She may be gang raped but for a few dollars more, she will forget everything and confuses rape with mere child frolic. Her cerebral folds are almost indistinct with apparently just a smear of gray matter. Another very important lesson to bear in mind is that when a man's brain is allowed to sit in between his legs, expect for a catastrophic foreplay that will have its climax inside a stone cold jail. This case may not go down in the annals of our rotten judicial system. Definitely though, this is no equal to even Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors.

FREUDIAN SLIP FROM JOCELLE'S LIP

Of Inverted Nipples, Breastfeeding and Hernia

I don't know but I feel happy today. Was it because I finished all our graduation papers to be submitted to the DepEd? Partly, because indeed that was one hell of a feat. I think it was more because I finished my final exam for computer programming. I was very happy because I was sure it would be very difficult for my students. Remember what I told you - that I enjoy tormenting people. I love to see my students suffer. I know I am unkind and I don't deserve to be a teacher. Sadly, I have been awarded thrice already as an outstanding teacher and one more is coming come March 25. See, I am not just sadistic. I am also egomaniac...but you have been warned, so don't blame me.

I had a speaking engagement today among Grade VI graduating students. I was invited by their principal who happens to be a close friend. Before I left, I dropped by one of my junior classes to remind them to submit their compilation of programming problems. As my parting message to the group, I reminded the girls not to get their bubbles busted this school break. I knew this would open more questions of the bees, the birds and how both sting. I always treat questions of this nature clinically without hint of malice. Why should I? There is nothing supposed to be malicious with life and how it all began.

Somebody asked a question about self breast examination which I gamely answered with all demonstration obviously to myself. No, don't get me wrong. I did not get naked. I just demonstrated the arm position and the movement of the examining hand. I am good at this and if you ask why? I am a medical doctor too and I must have been the most egotist teacher from hell you've ever heard of. How can a mother with inverted nipples breastfeed her baby? I answered that the mother should have prepared well both nipples during her pregnancy. As I finished with my answer, I heard a most likely comment coming from the most unlikely student at the back.

Then it would have been so arousing on the mother for the father to prepare well the inverted nipple - so went the comment from a small boy who according to his classmates has a hearty appetite for Internet pornography. I told him, it was not the intention of the father to arouse the mother and the mother has no intention whatsoever of being aroused. I told the class that the father indeed can suckle the mother to bring out the inverted nipple - a very clinical advice which was sadly taken out of context because of Freudian slip. Well, I have so much fun taunting, tormenting Jocelle for good reasons. Sadly, he learned human sexuality wrongly from the Internet.

I am in favor of teaching reproductive health and sex education among students. There is a great need for this information among many teenagers today. However, the teaching of this subject should be done by somebody who can be very clinical in his approach; therefore, he is comfortable with talking about the penis (not the bird), the clitoris (the flower?) and coitus (the mighty bubble sting). But these should not be all. Human sexuality goes beyond the copulatory organs but also encompasses the healthy relationship that exists between men and women, husbands and wives.

I left for my speaking enagagement with the Grade VI students very sad. I cannot just imagine (for the second time) how naive teeagers are today regarding human sexuality and sex. If not for the Freudian slip from Jocelle's tight lip, I could not have even imagined that not only the ladies are so uninformed about the bees, the birds and how both sting (again?) but the gentlemen too. Unfortunately, the men always learn it from the wrong source; thus, they are usually misinformed, misguided and grew up to be less than perfect husbands and fathers. So pathetic that I was tempted to talk about sex with the Grade VI pupils when I arrived. Ironically, I was to talk about modesty and sexual reservation. What a life! I even forgot somebody asked about inguinal hernia.

CUT OR UNCUT...THIS IS NOT THE QUESTION, SADLY

The Birds and the Bees and the Stinger

After my last class today, with the seniors, our conversation has veered to something taboo to most people. We talked about the biology of human sexuality. With my medical background, conversations about the birds and the bees and how they sting are so ordinary. The topic is but factual and should be treated as such - a fact - without any hint of malice or prudish modesty. The conversation was met with hilarious uproar, obviously trying to mask the uneasiness that always comes with topics like sex and sexuality. I just pity these students who are already sixteen or seventeen year olds and still with no healthy concept of sex and sexuality. When S-E-X makes one uncomfortable, then clearly it is both psychologically and socially unhealthy.

We are not prudish by birth but by influence from our religion and the elderly who profess that sex is evil. Sexuality, sex and all that come with it are one of God's greater gifts to humankind. Sex and sexuality are not supposed to be equated to the mere organs of copulation and the act consonant to them but to the deeper and more complex relationship inherent to it which goes beyond physical contact. Sex and the sexual act is the ultimate expression of one's undying profession of faith and trust to somebody one loves. However, it must be done within the grace of marriage.

But humans are culpable to sin. In as much as we try not to venture into the unknown, man has no power over his frailties. The more sex has been viewed lewdly by many, the more it has become enticing to all. Nothing sells today without a hint of sex. Nothing we read interesting today has no innocent streak of sex. We see sex in the morning, live with sex the whole day, retire with sex in our minds and dream of sex in the deepest of our slumbers. Sex and sexuality permeate man's being. And this is by default, by design of the Supreme Architecture. It is not accidental nor chance encounter with the unknown. We are so programmed to it and re-circuiting algorithms just won't do us any good.

Because sex has not been openly discussed within the family nor in school with professionals, a lot is left to one's imagination regarding the birds and the bees. When I jokingly told my class today that I am uncut, the class bellowed their hearts out that I told them my prepuce had just regenerated. Two more students - both serious guys - added that they were also uncircumcised and the whole class fell silent. They just cannot believe that indeed there are uncut men. How sadly naive! When a girl asked how was it for us to pee, I nearly peed in my pants, I though I would die with my schlong out of my throat. Can uncut men get girls pregnant? I was bitterly disappointed of how little these students knew of real life.

Can uncut men get girls pregnant? This rhetorical question which seemingly is very innocent must have been one of the reasons of so many teenage pregnancies. This ignorantly came from a girl who is supposed to have known this long before she had her first menstruation, otherwise her bubble could have been burst and nine months later a new life would have been born out of utter guilelessness. When we view sex lewdly as something only married people have the right to talk about, then we are putting the younger unmarried generation in the most compromised situation. We have withheld from them the beauty of sex and sexuality which the Supreme Architect has so designed for all of us to marvel, to appreciate with awe and thus for people of all ages to give the respect due it.

I am uncut, jokingly. Two of my students are uncut, seriously. However, much of humanity is ignorant, sadly!