Sunday, September 07, 2008 Estremera: Philosophizing By Stella A. Estremera Spider's web
When an airplane, with the belief that it has the spirit of the bird since it's supposed to be up there flying, decides to seek the depths of the sea where fishes reside, it has to give up its essence of being a bird and become a fish.
MY DIVE buddy and I love to philosophize for fun. It's just to poke fun on what's going on around us as we don the serious demeanor of intellectuals, those who love ivory towers and are serious about analyzing the essence of life. Thus when his fish finder sonar detected a big group of fishes under what appears to be silt underwater while we were helping locate the missing Philippine Air Force C-130 plane before the more high-tech USNS John MacDonnell oceanographic survey ship arrived, we had one of our best philosophizing exchange.
As a backgrounder, the fish finder sonar is a relatively high-tech device that detects the depth of an ocean up to more than 1,000 feet, marks the sea bottom as a red line, and then marks any suspended matter as a fish or schools of fishes. And it's not just any fish, but a cartoon image of smiling fishes. Cute.
But use that for a serious outing like a search for a crashed military cargo plane, then it gets to be a little complicated.
On that Sunday outing on Davao Gulf, the sonar detected two bottoms -- one lower than the other. And since we were off Bucana, where the river mouth is -- the mouth of the great mighty Davao River that spews out mountain soil by the tons, we theorized that the lowest red line is the hard sea bottom, while the higher red line is the surface of the silt.
The problem is, between the two bottoms were a school of fishes.
From the fact that the sonar sends out smiling fishes as the legend for anything suspended above the real bottom, we suspected that there is a big object (symbolized by the big group of fishes) in between the sea bottom and the silt surface. Since it's big, we further theorized that it can even be the object we were looking for: the downed plane. Makes sense, right?
But how do you explain that?
Simple, we philosophize and dabble with the essence of beings, their reason for existence and their desire to be where they are not supposed to be.
Ergo...
When an airplane, with the belief that it has the spirit of the bird since it's supposed to be up there flying, decides to seek the depths of the sea where fishes reside, it has to give up its essence of being a bird and become a fish. And when a fish decides to be underground, where it's not supposed to be, then it should give up its essence as a fish and become a plane.
In sum, a plane that goes underwater becomes a fish, and a fish that goes underground becomes a plane. Perfect. Just perfect.
Of course, that's a conversation we reserve for equally off-centered friends and Ally, the off-centered offspring of my off-centered buddy, otherwise, it's to the loony bin we all go. Although I believe this kind of conversation is but a lampoon of what is really happening around us.
Like, in the past week, among debris that have been gathered from what was believed to be once a plane was one small yellow-painted airplane tire. How cute. The Philippine Air Force painting their airplane tires, yellow. Someone out there must have a sense of humor, after all. Or else, that airplane tire isn't from that plane. But then, who goes around throwing away airplane tires?
And then, there were the coffins; nine of them lined up for relatives of the airplane passengers and pilots that the television and newspaper outfits said were the remains of the military personnel on board that plane. Hmm... Have they decided to distribute the bits and pieces equally? That would be cruel. And so the best reason that will take into consideration the sensitivity of the situation and the grief of the families will be that the coffins are just symbolic, and were just brought in to symbolize the dead. But... would the authorities take back those coffins after the ceremonies? Or would the coffins be given to the relatives, for them to weep over during the wake, and then bury afterwards. We wonder.
One thing I'm sure of, if (and I say IF) I do lose a relative, I wouldn't like burying an empty coffin or receiving one as a token. I also wouldn't appreciate it if what is presented to me is taken back. But what would I do with an empty coffin? Keep it for future use? I definitely don't want to find myself in that dilemma.
Still, stranger things have happened in this world, like a yellow-painted front tire of a military green colored giant plane.
"Being alive is one thing, and being dead's another, but being half-killed is worse than either. They just can't die, and living is altogether beyond 'em." -- Tony Costa in "The Golden Compass."
