1.8.11

“Perfection is not just about control. It’s also about letting go.”
- Tomas Leroy played by Vincent Cassel, Black Swan

Natalie Portman is mesmerizing in “Black Swan”. (True to my wish-list-come-true, this is the second weekly film that I have seen this year.) But hers is a character only few people can relate to. (cf. Annette Bening’s lesbian mom role in “The Kids are Alright.”)

Nina Sayers, Natalie’s character, in true artistic fashion, killed herself to give life to the role required of her as the Swan Queen, all in the name of perfection.

Art mirroring life, I took a turn to look at my sometimes too obsessive-compulsive behavior. Even if there is a modicum of truth in the cliché that “nobody is perfect” (ergo, practice not necessary?) I try as much as I can to epitomize perfection even if it concerns only the minute details of organizing my daily life.

But that part of self, obsessing with perfection, is only a fragment of a whole. That part of self is the only fragment that role-plays. That part is self is not completely alienated from the Partial Me but not the Entire Me. I am a combination of imbalanced perfection and imperfection, broken yet whole, fallen but redeemed.



My BS at HP resumes today.
The best reward aside from the envelope from Ate Letty and leche flan from Ate Lee is a text message from Abet: “Thank you, Bro. Joey. We now have something to look forward to again every Saturday. Ingat po. God bless.”


REFLECTIONS
Genesis 23-26

If we allow God to make the choices for us, we will always get the best.
Does this include people we are going to spend the rest of our lives with?
Isaac and Rebekah never met, but their “arranged” marriage seemed to work.
How is it that we are too obsessed with feelings to finding Mr. or Ms. Right?

The mortality of man: Abraham, having served his purpose in life, died, too. I wonder what enveloped his life altogether. Was it simply a one-dimensional spiritual life all the way? What was his humanity like? What went on in his head every time he had to deal with God? Was there really no resistance at all? No reasoning – he being a man of rhetoric?

Isaac, the “weakened” son – who wouldn’t be traumatized by the fact that you were a thread away from being slaughtered by your own father? – is now a father himself. Jacob, the Sly and Esau, the Sloth, who would later, by wrong choice of partner grieve his parents.

Isaac “inherited” Abraham’s lying. Is sinning hereditary too?
Who is worthy of a ticket to heaven, then? None.
But praise God – his grace claims those who have no claim to his grace!