Book Chapter Three

Part Three: Metaphysics and Epistemology

Unlike Bertrand Russell who turned to philosophy with hope of finding certainty, Wittgenstein  was drawn to it by a compulsive tendency to find answers to a question such as the following:

"Why should one tell a truth if it's to one's advantage to tell a lie?"

Wittgenstein was both admired and feared for his relentless pursuit of truthfulness. A sister of his once wrote to him, saying that he was a great philosopher, and his written reply was, "Call me a truth-seeker, and I will be satisfied."

In many, many ways and fundamentally speaking, I am a truth seeker. That does not mean I don't lie. I do, mostly in my fiction. Harriettte also lied consistently but her lies were white lies, while mine have been very dark. But that didn't mean she was immoral. She was the most moral woman I knew. The only person that does not lie is my friend Omar. He's very weird. He is made differently from us, having a heart as big as the sky. I told him I feel like a big brother to him, trying to protect him against the evils of the world. He is very innocent, thinking everybody is as sweet and trustworthy as he is. But he is not diplomatic nor eager to please. He just does not talk much and he trusts people. Now Harriette is dead, Omar is my anchor and connection to morality and sweetness. Harriette was my answer to the nature of Love and Wittgenstein is now being my connection to Truth and Reality. 

Take the issue of God. As I said earlier, it is my firm conviction that God is a concept made up by Man. He is conceived in the image of Man, not the other way around. And those who disagree with you are imbeciles and idiots, at least in metaphysics. 

I dwell on the absurdist; I confront the nonsensical of the convention-bound, rule-oriented society and its denizens; I go to the jugular of life: its true meanings, its challenges, and how I am going to embrace those meanings and meet those challenges. 

In the process/quest of fulfilling those aspirations and inchoate imperatives/values which are markedly different from most of others, I invent and reinvent myself through the pursuit of risks, physical sculpting of my body, and relentless improvement on my mind. The last five years of my life have taken a frenzied devotion to the spoken Word and its manifestations: daytime speech and nighttime writing of poems and short stories where occasionally there are flashes of epiphanies and transcendence that make me quietly cry of joys, and shudder in amazement of self-validation. In the end, if we have honesty, we will meet ourselves in the road to discovery prior to our rendezvous with Death. If during our journey we have a life companion who understands and loves us unconditionally, and children who love us and appreciate what we have done for them, then our life, no matter how undistinguished it may look to others, to us it has a private fulfillment of passing on our genes and quiet acceptance of what life actually is.  

(To be continued)