Marcus Aurelius | Jake's Little Void

There’s no such thing as ‘bad people’.

Posted on Oct 22, 2019 by Jk Andrew

What does Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba tell us about good and bad people?

We were brought up to think that good and evil are constant forces against each other, taught to us by our parents, teachers, friends, or even some philosophers. They portray good and evil as black and white, no middle ground. On paper, it seems easy to project what our ideas of humans, heroes, and villains are. It was recently that the idea of a three-dimensional villain hit pop-culture in the form of MCU and DC Villains like The Vulture, Killmonger, Thanos, and recently, Joker. This roster of complex “bad guys” aren’t contained in the West. Kimetsu no Yaiba, an uprising anime with an already significant cult following, further blurs the lines between good and evil by portraying demons as humanly as possible, “forcing” us to sympathize with them.

These people, aliens, and demons were not written as evil-to-the-bones. They are not traditional in a sense that we struggle to hate them because we can relate to them, we understand or at least can empathize with what they went through. But by the end of the film, we surrender to the reality that they were good people forced to commit evil things for the sake of something they perceived as good.

No one was born evil.

I have abandoned practice of my religion, Catholicism, yet I still firmly believe in some of its core teachings one of which is that man was born good as he was “made in the image and likeness of God.” Even if the God part was cut off you can still believe that man is born good. Think of a child after it is born. Sooner or later, it will cry and seek its mother to feed and that act is good for both since the child is looking to sate its hunger, while the mother is doing her role as one. In the strictest sense, this demonstrates how we are born good not simply by moral choices, but simply by being.

Marcus Aurelius, in a way, supports this claim when he wrote:

“We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.”

He implies that humans are expected to work together, to do good to each other, and that to do differently would be unnatural, therefore not meant for us.

But if everyone was born good, how come evil exists? How come robbers rob, and at times, kill people? How come rapists violate their fellow people? How come drug lords, murderers are sometimes allowed to walk away as free men ordered by the courts, while the innocent ones are framed and sentenced to life imprisonment or even capital punishment? Why do these things happen if we were born “good”?

As a student of Stoicism, the reality of evil existing and humans as “innately” good beings were two things near irreconcilable for me. The whole Christian narrative of the God as the supreme good and the devil as an initially good creature turned into a being of pure malice, I admit, heavily influenced my understanding. Lately, however, I’m beginning to see palettes of colour beyond black and white thanks to the content that I consume, namely the aforementioned MCU movies and Demon Slayer, an anime and a manga.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba

The rest of my “analysis” rely heavily on one’s knowledge about the manga/anime. Read the following for context.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, thrusts us into a world where there are people, demons, and demon hunters. Humans transform to demons after ingesting the blood of the demon daddy, Kibutsuji Muzan or demon Michael Jackson, granting them insane physical prowess, a near-immortal “life”, and the ability to rapidly regenerate body parts so long as their heads remain in tact. And when one gets lucky, it also gains special powers called “Blood Demon Arts” alongside a vampiric weakness to sunlight. It’s also important to note that these demons gradually lose the memories of their past human lives. Demon slayers on the other hands, are who their title suggests. They are normal human beings who stand against demons to protect humanity. The odds might seem against their favor but these same humans are trained to modify their breaths in a particular style which allows them to reach the peak physical condition of humans. This allows them to stand toe-to-toe against demons…for a time. After going through horrendous training needed to fight demons, demon hunters are given special blades which are the only alternative method of killing said creatures apart from sunlight.

Unrelated but *does it have to?* It’s Nezukoooo

In both manga and anime, we get a glimpse of who some demons were when they were still human after Tanjiro, our main protagonist, slices their heads off. These key moments are what sets apart Japanese artwork from the rest as the demons portrayed post-execution were humans who were mistreated by their parents, by society, hell even by the world, to the point that you almost couldn’t blame them for succumbing to Muzan’s offer for a “better “life””.

Good and Evil? Black and White?

I cannot blame you for still thinking that good and bad are as contrasting as black and white. Because to do so would mean I exact the same judgement to you. If you’re still here, be ready.

Rui – Lower Moon 5

For those of you familiar with Kimetsu no Yaiba, you would have hated this guy at the beginning. After all, how could we forgive anyone who’d dare separate Nezuko from her brother, Tanjiro? But as we watch in awe on how majestic the artists recreate the scene in the anime, we get to peer deeper into who Rui was in his previous life.

Rui was a Lower Moon demon. As you might expect, for one to possess a title for any kind of work meant he or she was someone of power. That applied to Rui, a young boy who turned to a demon. You’re probably wondering why he accepted Muzan’s offer, it’s because Rui suffered from a crippling disease which granted him such a frail body that walking and breathing were chores. As a result, and in a way, a “balance”, he was blessed with parents who loved him deeply and aided him in his short life. Put yourself in Rui’s place and imaging living 8 or more years in such condition. It’s only natural to feel some frustration over your body or even towards fate. This negative emotion, in my theory, is what attracted Muzan. He offered Rui the chance for a better “life”, and you might expect, he took it. Finally living his dream, Rui lived a “normal life” up until the hunger kicked in. His parents, after discovering Rui slew and ate someone in their home, decided to do what they thought was best: his father tried to kill him. Obviously failing, the young demon, in a fit of rage and of self-defense, killed both, thinking that his real parents wouldn’t do that. On her dying breath, Rui’s mother apologized to him for failing to give him a normal human body which would have prevented all of this from happening. From this point onward, Rui “lived” in denial and in desire to feel the love of a family, which explained why he did those things in the manga/anime.

*All he wanted was to apologize to his parents.*

Take all of that in. Now imagine once more that you are Rui. What would you have done? You were born with that disability, then one “man” offers a cure. You took it without being informed of the consequences. Will a loving God send you to hell for wanting to live a better life? If He did, was He loving to begin with at all?

Kokushibou – the shadow of the Sun

For those of you who have only watched the anime, Kokushibou is the samurai demon with six eyes and hanafuda earrings we see in the final episodes of season one. Yes, he is related to Tanjiro and to the breath of the Sun user. Skip to my third and final analogy if you don’t want spoilers about him.

Kokushibou and Yoriichi, the breath of the Sun user, were twins, the former being the older, and the latter, the younger. After being born, their father decided to execute Yoriichi after discovering he had marks on his face which were considered a bad omen. Their mother intervened and proposed that at the age of 10, Yoriichi would be sent to the temple for priesthood. This was the primary barrier which dictated the dynamics as siblings later on.

Kokushibou’s father raised him as a prodigy, the pride of his family. He set his child up for greatness which isn’t bad per se, but had definitely created a swollen ego in Kokushibou. But he was not a bad kid. In fact, he pitied his younger brother upon knowing the living circumstances he was in. Regardless if his pity was misplaced due to his ego, he showed concern for Yoriichi and gave him a bamboo flute, which the younger twin held onto for the rest of his life.

Thwarted by Fate.

During one of his sword training practices, Kokushibou saw Yoriichi watching them behind a tree. His trainer humoured and asked the younger twin if he wanted to train with them. After the trainer signalled him to attack, Yoriichi immediately overpowered him, something that Kokushibou had only dreamed of doing. His younger brother knocked the trainer unconscious while he couldn’t even land a hit on him. This was the beginning of Kokushibou’s fall. Despite being eclipsed, Kokushibou believed that with enough training and hardwork, he could reach Yoriichi’s level. However, one night, Yoriichi visited him to bid farewell before setting off to the temple but not before informing him that their mother had died from sickness. Kokushibou went to her room and discovered a journal which revealed his twin knew their lives would change the moment their father heard new of Yoriichi’s feat; he didn’t want to overshadow his older brother, so he headed into the temple even before reaching 10. Kokushibou saw this as a slap in the face. Not only was his brother physically superior to him, he had the heart to humble himself to not get in Kokushibou’s way!

Just to give you a taste of how kind Yoriichi was (he’s holding the flute)

Kokushibou is a real something. The complexities of his life are all too relatable to dismiss as mere fiction. It’s difficult to blame someone for the way they are once we get a glimpse of how he or she was raised as a child, because as we know, childhood years are the most formative for us. How we were raised determines the kind of person we turn out, given we are fortunate enough to live until that day. Try to other-ize and put yourself in Kokushibou’s geta and imagine your life’s entire foundation suddenly undermined. And despite training to his limits as as samurai and later on, as a demon, just to be on the same ground as his brother, it seemed that even Fate herself barred Kokushibou from reaching his dreams. There was nothing left for him to surpass as the universe prevented him to do so. Surely with minds to think, we can empathize and see where the man was coming from.

Akaza – the man whom the world turned into a demon

It’s hard to sympathize with the demon who killed Rengoku…oops.

Yes, yes, I know it is impossible to turn a human into a demon without Muzan’s blood or Tamayo’s assistance. But for those who read the manga, you know exactly what I mean with my header.

Akaza spent his childhood taking care of his sickly father, 24/7. He didn’t even desire to play outside. He lived for his father. Selfless. But given their pitiful financial status, Akaza resorted to the only means available for him: crime. He pickpocketed people in order to buy medicine for his bedridden father, and on multiple occasions he had been beaten and reprimanded by the authorities. Eventually he was banished by the government as a criminal and tattooed his wrists as a symbol that people should stay away from him. Despite such, his spirit remained resilient and affirmed that he will continue what he does just to provide the medicine his father needed. Selfless.

He and his father lived in a small town. Given this and the multiple crimes he committed, it was only a matter of time before his old man knew what his child had been doing. He hung himself. Akaza’s father committed suicide not because of depression, but because of poverty and of willingness to free his son from further obligations to him. His last will for Akaza was:

“Live an honest life. You can still turn over a new leaf. I don’t want to live off of money that has been stolen from others. I’m sorry for being a nuisance.”

This would crush anyone’s spirit, and could even be the reason someone snaps and turns insane. Akaza almost did before he met Keizo.

Turning a new leaf

Keizo was like Tanjiro in that they both had warm smiles and a genuine personalities. Keizo offered Akaza the one thing he had been desperately seeking: a friend who saw his worth. He was such a genuinely kind man that he offered Akaza, a branded criminal, a new chance in life by working for his dojo and by taking care of his sick daughter, Koyuki. This was his opportunity to turn a new leaf and Akaza did not let it slip away. It was his chance to relive his past life in a decent manner by becoming Keizo’s only student working an honest job at his dojo, and taking care of yet another bedridden person, Koyuki. It is worth noting that Koyuki’s mother, committed drowned herself from the stress of taking care of her, something that never did once cross Akaza’s mind even before when taking care of his father, more so with Koyuki. That’s how resilient and wholesome an individual Akaza was.

A sick sense of humor

Becoming Keizo’s sole student, taking care of Koyuki, and being given the privilege to witness the day she finally recovered and live a normal life, fortune smiled on Akaza. She smiled more warmly and gave Akaza something he had never even dreamed of: to be loved by someone for who he is. Keizo sat down with him and asked if he could take over the dojo and take Koyuki as his wife. It was at that point that Akaza wanted to become stronger to protect his new family.

“Under peaceful conditions a warlike man sets upon himself.”
– Friedrich Nietzche

Fortune’s smile suddenly became perverse as it surpassed her ears. While Akaza visited his father’s grave to pay respects and to tell him of his new life, members of Keizo’s rival dojo poisoned his own dojo’s well, killing both father and daughter. Upon arriving and being informed of what happened, Akaza finally snapped. He murdered the 67 swordsmen of the rival dojo with his bare hands. His feat was so inhuman that the surviving maid from the dojo lost her mind and that historians thought it was mere fiction! The news of a “demon” spread like wildfire and eventually reached Muzan, who finally sealed Akaza’s transformation from a human reaching almost-demonic level to an actual demon.

As a demon, Akaza made it a rule to never consume women, something that is highly unusual since demons lose their memories after their transformation. He held a remnant of his humanity despite becoming a demon.

Are you bold enough?

A child plagued with crippling sickness. A man who’s life’s foundation crumbled. A boy trampled by fate. Are you bold enough to look at your reflection straight in the eye and say: “They could have done differently. They had a choice…”

Are you a slave?

Posted on Oct 9, 2019 by Jk Andrew

I am not shying away from dicey topics. If you’re a sensitive person who doesn’t have the heart to talk about issues that plague society to this day, I’m afraid this entry is not meant for you. But if you think you have tough enough skin to handle said conversations, feel free to stay and even critique how I critique this issue. I must warn you, although I will touch on slavery as how pop culture sees it, it’s other, often unspoken of side will take on the spotlight. Here goes.

How does pop culture or mainstream media or even woke people define slavery? Oftentimes they unapologetically use the term to pertain to the slavery of black people. We can’t blame them. Mainstream media portrays their slavery most common. Encyclopedia Brittanica’s definition fits well with this:

“There is no consensus on what a slave was or on how the institution of slavery should be defined. Nevertheless, there is general agreement among historians, anthropologists, economists, sociologists, and others who study slavery that most of the following characteristics should be present in order to term a person a slave. The slave was a species of property; thus, he belonged to someone else. In some societies slaves were considered movable property, in others immovable property, like real estate. They were objects of the law, not its subjects.”

The general idea behind slavery is having little to no freedom or having someone else dictate what you can and can’t do, simply on the basis of class, of birth, and of race. If I were to ask you whether or not this is right, I am sure you’d unanimously answer no. If class, birth, and race are not factors that define what freedom we have, then what should?

Step back.

One of the most sensible answers to this is our humanity and how freedom is a consequence of it. I completely agree. Our ‘selves’ belong only to us. Who we are, what we want, what we aspire to be, these things are only determined by us simply because our ‘selves’, that is, our bodies and our minds are only ours. Let me take this opportunity to segue into the often unspoken, often unknown kind of slavery: the slavery of ourselves by ourselves, or “moral” slavery. This is imprisonment by our excessive desires such as lust, gluttony, greed, and every other vice; and anxiety over things beyond our control. Both hinder us in becoming better persons with the former trapping us in a vicious cycle of repetitive, unproductive actions, while the latter slowing or completely halting us from doing what we want out of fear of the unknown.

What does the Emperor say?

If you are familiar with Marcus Aurelius, then you have to understand why I refuse to tackle this at length. He was a Roman Emperor, plain and simple. Given the power at his disposal, he could have abolished slavery or at the very least have the people question the need for it. There are other persons who can discuss the complex structure of the Roman empire better than I, so I choose to leave it at that.

Shift the focus away from the person to the philosophy. What does stoicism say about slavery? Marcus Aurelius’ private journal-turned-stoic-literature provides insight. He shared the similar stoic view of cosmopolitanism or the mindset that likens humans to animals that work together for the common good. Think of ants, bees, wolves. He wrote:

“We were born to work together like hands, feet, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatrual. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are obstructions.”

This gives us a more nuanced understanding of what the stoics or at least he, had on the rest of mankind. Aurelius narrows down and upholds this when he wrote:

“…treat them as the law that binds us – the law of nature – requires. With kindness and with justice.”

By removing the man from the equation, stoicism tells us to treat each other compassionately, as if we everyone was our kin or an indispensable part of the whole. But what of that greater slavery? The one Seneca says is more disgraceful than anything else? What do the stoics say about self-imposed slavery?

Becoming your own slave

What does it mean to be a self-imposed slave? It’s to be dragged everywhere our desires lead us to, effectively putting the body above the mind. As rational beings, it is in our nature to to think and to act in a way that is proper to humans. Stoicism teaches that this proper way of being is done by being virtuous or acting with self-control so that we never do too little nor too much of one thing. It is by being virtuous that we act in accordance to our human nature and thus, free. In simpler words, to be human (which also means to be free) is to be in equilibrium or at balance with all things.

We become slaves to ourselves when we stop being human, when we disrupt the equilibrium, when we let go of our control over our desires, when we don’t think before doing. We become slaves by abandoning our human nature and start behaving like animals or creatures significantly less free than humans (or how we’re ought to be).

How will I know if I’m a slave?

We all have our daily schedules either as students or as working adults. Take a step back and observe how your typical weekday goes. Say you’re an adult like me, what do you do the moment your alarm wakes you up? Do you hit the snooze button and squeeze in more sleep or do you resist the urge and rise up instead? When you walk or commute to the office, do you grab a cup of coffee and some breakfast? Do you scroll through social media while you work or do you focus on work alone? Write down your daily routines and judge your own habits. Take me for example. I am fond of drinking coffee. As I took a step back to observe myself I noticed that I drink it everyday, twice minimum. Now while drinking the beverage itself is not a bad thing, I discovered that there are occasions when I drank not for the sake of waking up, but for drinking for the sake of drinking. And that, I believe, is being a slave to something. Caffeine was my master and I was its slave. What I did to regain control was to limit my consumption into 2 cups per day, only exceeding when I absolutely need the boost to finish work.

*You are the problem, but also the solution.*

Although regaining control from established habits sounds easy on paper, it may not always be the case. I struggled to set the limit to my coffee intake, but with the help of stoicism, I overcame and broke my habit. If you, too, are struggling with bad habits, keep in mind the words of Marcus Aurelius:

“Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future.”

Take whatever you’re experiencing as something that you need to experience. If you are a student of stoicism or wonder what the philosophy has to say about it, remember that life happens for us, not to us. We decide how to play the cards we are given.

5 Keys for a Tranquil Mind

Posted on Jul 13, 2019 by Jk Andrew

If you belong to my centavo-sized circle of friends, chances are you know or are at least familiar to my character; I am not the most tethered person out there. Rambunctious, weird, sometimes a pain-in-the-ass, but most often anxious. These traits have long since defined me, but lately, I’ve been having a slow-paced metanoia birthed from past deeds I now deem uncharacteristic. It all stemmed from my third encounter with stoicism, a philosophy I failed to live up to. Currently on my third and most successful run, this philosophy has helped me unlock certain traits I once thought were impossible for me to possess. The journey in becoming the person I aspire to be is still long, but allow me to share the richest fruit I picked from the tree of this ancient philosophy: tranquility.

Identify your anxiety.

The Daily Stoic beautifully portrays what anxiety is:

“Anxiety is a silent destroyer of lives. A demolishing internal wrecking ball that can leave even the best of us incapacitated.”

Terrifying as it may sound, anxiety almost always has a trigger. It could be anything like the obnoxious chewing sound your workmate omits while eating, a fork scratching a glass plate, or your love interest not replying to your message despite being online. Identifying the trigger is key to overcoming your anxieties, which sheds light on what remedy is useful for you. You need to know where the wound is to place a bandage.

Hobbies.

Is there something you’re good at? Practice it. Is there something you’ve been wanting to do but are too anxious to start? Do it. The only remedy to this anxiety is to act. Develop and perfect your hobbies because not only will these occupy your mind, leaving no room for anxiety, doing them grants us a sense of accomplishment that is oh so fulfilling. This article you currently read is the fruit of a hobby, one that helps give purpose to my life. Practicing a hobby may not be as world-changing as I make it seem, it will nevertheless fulfill you in one way or another. To each, his own.

Socialize.

Johnn Donne’s universally known prose “No Man Is an Island” still holds water today as it did during the 1600s, although with slight changes in context. Viewing it in the frame of tranquility, the phrase may offer us a remedy through socializing. Get out of the house. Hangout with friends. Catch up with old ones. Reignite an old flame. Go on a date with your lover. Spend time with your family. It is through socializing that we gain one of the most indispensable treasures in the world: friendship. Aristotle, the philosopher himself, recognized the value of friendship and whom I quote:

“In poverty as well as in other misfortunes, people suppose that friends are their only refuge. And friendship is a help to the young, in saving them from error, just as it is also to the old, with a view to the care they require and their diminished capacity for action stemming from their weakness; it is a help also to those in their prime in performing noble actions, for ‘two going together’ are better able to think and to act.”

The more we tend to the seeds of friendship we’ve sown and have been sown on by our friends, the greater will they bloom in time. And it is through socializing that we tend such seeds.

Similar to hobbies, socializing frees us from anxiety by occupying not just our minds this time, but with our entire being. We get to live beyondourselves.

Indifference.

It’s all right if the word gives off a negative vibe but indifference is a powerful tool ancient stoics such as Seneca the Younger, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius advocated and practiced. Being indifferent doesn’t mean being uncaring, rather, it emphasizes caring for people or things that truly matter like health, work, family, life, etc., and to pay no mind to trivial ones like fads, the newest gadgets, the latest celebrity divorcees, and the list goes on.

We become indifferent by understanding two things: what is in our control and what isn’t. Those outside our control make up most things like the people you ride with in the train, your workmates, the entire world, and even the universe itself. What remains in our grasp is our attitude or our way of approaching things and judging their worth in respect to ourselves. By understanding the value of indifference, we learn to worry less about the things we can’t control and cultivate those that are.

Amor Fati.

In a recent piece, I mentioned Amor Fati, or the love of fate, as a way of dealing with anxiety. And now I mention it again but this time as a way to attain a tranquil mind. Whether or not you agree with the idea of an almighty Deity Who weaves our fates, our attitude towards everything that happens in our lives remains the same: to treat such as opportunities for growth. And while it all may sound like lofty words coming from a place of privilege, wherever and whatever circumstances you face, in the end we face one truth alone: we must pay no mind, waste any time hoping (and later on, anguishing) we be spared from misfortunes that we forget the rain falls on everyone.

“A setback has often cleared the way for greater prosperity. Many things have fallen only to rise to more exalted heights.”
– Seneca, Letters from a Stoic