Love and Deception, a Story and Essay

August 4, 2007

Here is a personal story about romantic love and deception whose key events took place in the Philippines, a place whose culture is full of, as my friend says, “desperation and intrigue”. This story will also include presumably instructive or axiomatic elements that could be thought of as a small essay within the story, somewhat like morals placed within a fable. Perhaps it could be called a “juicy essay”. The philosophical life should not be a dry, emotionless one, as wisdom is only attained through experiences of many kinds. Life is meant to be both lived and examined, and it appears as though our lives are just playgrounds for the soul to grow through experiences. As Zorba the Greek says, “Life is trouble. Only death is not. To be alive is to undo your belt and look for trouble”.

As a philosopher I have always valued the truth. Lately I have come to appreciate truth’s converse, the false, whose only real value is in serving to highlight what is true. Nevertheless, in order to reach a place of unruffled objectivity, one must embrace and investigate all things, including the false aspects of life. Thus do we become whole beings, afraid of nothing and not striving to oppose or shrink from any person or concept. As Lao Tzu relates, we are all each other’s teachers – the “good” teach the “bad” and vice versa.

Hindu philosophy teaches that falseness is the nature of the world, the obvious, the apparent; it is the outer husk of the truth that one must devote oneself self-sacrificially to find: Nature has buried truth at the bottom of the sea. (Democritus). Fools can never see their way past the false in life – they cannot “dive to the bottom of the sea of illusions” – such is the forbidding task of the wise.

As this piece is half essay, many entertaining gossipy bits of the story half have to be sacrificed. I married at thirty and never had any real girlfriend experience before that. My two marriages were of 18 and 5 years duration, both to filipinas. My second wife left me last year. Despite my marriages, my 56 years, and my passion for truth, I was still quite naive regarding the amount of deception in the world, and it is clear now that starting last April I had no choice but to learn all about it through my passion for women.

Online I met Jin, the first lady of two I went to see and will always love. Jin is a nineteen-year-old beauty queen from the Philippines whose only real interest in me was the money I sent her for her nursing school fees. Now I probably would not send a single peso to a lady there unless she was my wife. Jin plucked my heart strings with her story of having to go to bed sometimes as a girl with no dinner, just a drink of water, when her father had no job to support his large family. Jin is admirably determined to become a nurse with her fees obtained “the easy way” over the internet. She is one of the most beautiful girls I have ever met, with eyes that would cause any romantic man to start dreaming. A photo of Jin and I is linked below. Although I knew Jin was corrupt and saying “I love you” to me because of money, I found her and her family too fascinating to resist actually going to visit and observe first hand. I was a “perfect gentleman” with Jin. Nothing sexual happened between her and I, but there was plenty of respectful kissing of Jin from me, on her hands, shoulder and sometimes neck, mostly as wet sat in taxis together, and which she took no exception to. Jin was not a romantic type, but a true “material girl”. The only time she kissed me was when I asked her to kiss me on the cheek, to see if she could. On that same breakfast date I asked her if she would be willing to marry me – to see what she would say – and she said yes, quite affectedly. She would not go with me anywhere without a chaperone, at least her 8-year-old girl neighbor. She also would not travel anywhere with me. None of her behaviour bothered or surprised me; I was just too fascinated with this “beautiful creature”.

What a fantasy that probably few men like me actually experience: Walking out of a hotel with two stunning 19-year-old girls (they had their room; I had mine) to the swimming pool. And Jin’s cousin taking a movie of me carrying Jin from the pool to the hotel, me saying “I love you, Jin!” and she saying “I love you too!”. Ah, the joy of falseness.

Though I am now heavily in debt because of that trip, it was well worth it in terms of education and some experiences I will never forget. I’ve been a “sucker” and will likely not be used in the way I was again, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Jin still wants me to send her money; I probably would if I was rich. If I was stupid I would marry her too. I don’t have a trace of bitterness. I love Jin as I love everybody, and will always love her. To me she’s a perfect angel and always will be. “He who tries to forget a woman, never loved her.” (Anonymous) For the sake of equanimity and nonattachment, however one must realize we need to “love the love force, not the person”. (Clayne Conings) The human soul must grow and learn its lessons from people, and learn to let them go once it has done so. Once an impure soul is evinced, it is time to let it go.

Those who accept abuse without complaint walk the noble path – it is the sign of the diminished ego that comes with spiritual attainment. Advanced souls take no breath or speak any words that are not related to love and acceptance – they have no ego left to defend – their self-delusion is gone – they cannot hurt a single soul any more.

On that trip, which was my ninth to the Philippines, I frequently took the bus to far-flung places or went around at night in the city by myself. Because I am white and a comparative giant there, I am considered a target, and most people worry about me. Most of their concern of course was because I was a source of cash. I was in Mindanao, the southernmost island, considered the most dangerous to be in for foreigners because of rebels who frequently kidnap them. I would carry my heavy luggage onto the bus. Soldiers with rifles would frequently come on the bus to check for rebels. They failed to spot me. Many unscrupulous characters go to the Philippines to take advantage of women. I met a few, and they give me the creeps. Some of the bolder ones go missing, taken care of by the locals. I generally blend in, speak whatever of the local language I can, and show respect at all times, to everyone. How wonderful it was to dance on the beach with Jin’s 70-year-old farmer grandfather, who had more zest for life than most teenagers. He dragged me down to the water with amazing speed and forced us both to dive in. Unforgettable, like being with Zorba the Greek himself.

My most educational experience regarding love and deception was with Jackie, the pretty 29-year-old daughter of one of the online contacts I had wanted to meet. Jackie lived in a sunny city by the sea which was famous for its “industry” of married women who, with their husbands’ consent and subject to the fear of poverty, entice foreigners to fall in love with them over the internet. Naive Luxin met Jackie (see her pic’s URL below) when she, her mother, her younger sister, and her mother’s friend all got into the back of a taxi. I am not psychic, but for the first time in my life I felt a short chill; I knew it meant trouble but I ignored it, engaging in humorous remarks to break the ice and calm myself. After returning to Canada I learned that the four of them had a plan to get as much money as they could out of me as possible. The mother (my online contact) and I turned out to be as incompatible as could be imagined. In-person contact with aura, etc. is essential; a webcam image means very little. I spent 2 weeks with them in different home towns, and resorts for a few days.

After revealing at one resort that I had a crush on Jackie, I eventually bussed to her home town. Jackie ostensibly accepted me as a suitor, and I had one of the most amazing experiences of love and oneness with all things lying lolling in shallow water beside her at a beautiful white sand beach. It was like something out of a great romantic movie. These days the subject of romance is a very dubious one with me; there is far too much passionate feeling in it to be safe unless you are advanced enough to dispassionately yet lovingly let the object of your romantic feeling go at a moment’s notice. When I asked Jackie to tell me something of her romantic past, she was completely silent, and maintained silence on that subject until I was safely back in Canada. The whole romantic scene, kissing her in a little beach hut, completely washed my reason away. I only wanted to believe what was happening was real. Every day Jackie’s mother would be our chaperone (usually taking a nap) at my hotel room while Jackie and I kissed and cuddled on the bed. I called her the world’s greatest chaperone, hehe. In the back of my mind I knew I was in for trouble, but it was all just too fascinating to stop. The last night before I flew Jackie and I spent all day and night together. She kept her jeans on the whole time, but I’m a lover who will do anything to please, and she didn’t complain. Not wishing to seem boastful, most women probably never meet a real lover, he said humbly.

Jackie’s feelings regarding her deception became clearer in restrospect, such as tears for some mysterious reason the night before that beautiful day at the beach. Someone had forced her to carry out a deception with me. I much later learned she loved her husband but was a slave to her mother because of fear of poverty, and here I was unknowingly furthering Jackie’s corruption, the selling of her soul. Jackie is religious and intelligent, and it turned out the mother of a little girl, but she was compelled by corrupting forces around her and her own love of romance and sexual passion to just give in for the sake of money. Later on I told her it was better to die than to do some things, something easy to say.

Fear or self-concern is the motivating force for most of us, and whatever relationship or enterprise is based on fear cannot succeed. My fear of not being loved, which I am doing noble battle with now, and Jackie’s personal and family fears of poverty brought us together. The most instructive thing to mention here, my friends, is that lying behind much that is negative is the eternal power of love, just waiting to show itself. I know love when I see it, and I saw it in Jackie for me. Love is what the lover is looking for, and if there is a deception involved, the love that does show will make the deception perfect and inescapable. Where there is any desire (in this case, for money) we fear not obtaining the object of our desire, and that fear compels us to hide whatever truth is thought to interfere with the attainment of our desire:

Hypocrisy begins when one is covetous. (Sivananda)

In other words, the general rule for the average person in this generally corrupt sphere is “Lie to get what you want”. Right out of the mouth of Satan.

The amount of money I gave Jackie and her mother was very little by first world standards, but means something in a third world country like the Philippines. When I gave it I actually had no idea I was “paying for love”. Jackie was the first to warn me “never send money to anyone in the Philippines”, and she never did ask me for any (this is how the “best operators” convince their contacts they are legitimate now) – she left that to her mother, who did ask me when I let Jackie go and she undoubtedly feared the disappearance of a money source. The mother claimed to be a widow, had 3 daughters and very little income from a small store; actually her first husband was sick somewhere and her second husband was in prison. Her 3 daughters appeared to be the basis of a sideline “milking foreigners”.

To test a lady in the Philippines, one must be able to reach them day or night if they have a cell phone. Never being able to reach Jackie at night suggested a problem. I sunk into the most incredibly destructive suspicion as a result and had a nervous breakdown, a kind of self-humiliation that was the absolutely necessary lesson and consequence of placing my heart in the hands of the wrong lady. Yet I know Jackie actually loved me. I will spare you the details of how I know this, and many would scoff anyway. Yet we should all love everyone equally, as an ideal. We are better off without the huge disappointment we set ourselves up for in the romantic delusion that one special person with us or somewhere out there will “complete” us. There are actually a hundred million partners out there who we could have an inspiring love relationship with, including elements beyond mere sexuality for those whose love can encompass both lust and soul.

With deception or truthfulness, the false and the true are mixed up together, and only the philosopher has the best chance of determining the truth. To love someone is never wrong, but to take that personal love too seriously, indulging in the romantic delusion of a special and exclusive relationship on which your happiness depends is dangerous and there is a price to be paid for such.

But rejecting the false or deceptive, or reacting to the experience of being deceived with hatred or bitterness is merely Self-destructive egoism, confirming one as someone with nothing to learn and nothing to share with others. In other words, loveless. My current experiment is giving my heart to a lady knowing full well that there virtually has to be some form of deception based on desire, perhaps including her boyfriend. I am a solitary character who meets few women in my own country, and knowing that we as human beings are implicitly false to some degree and, despite our sacred essence, compelled by fear to become masters of deception, and knowing that I cannot live without expressing and experiencing the love force – which arises from my connection with the loved one regardless of their ethical state – I have no choice but to engage in love in whatever way it presents itself, if any woman ostensibly opens to me. To turn one’s back on love is to turn one’s back on life. The key is to use the love force that arises to further one’s soul development: to learn that love is not an end, but a means to Self-realization.

Chuang Tzu wrote:

The only way to gain from deception is to embrace it. Only thus is one able to teach the deceiver, and learn something from them. Also, the humble should also be capable of examining themselves for the tendency to deceive others; if they fear anything, they should suspect themselves thus capable. Of course, we must be sensitive enough to sense what level of deception or corruption we are able to deal with without risk to our soul. If the “good” does not engage the “bad”, there is no evolution. Socrates engaged his sophist “opponents”, exposing their pathetic vanity or self-delusion, ostensibly respectful to them in all their egocentricity, yet ironically disparaging regarding everything they stood for. Does the spirit/soul reject the body, which is implicitly false by comparison? No. All things work together for a common purpose: the birth or evolution of the soul, the only eternal or true aspect of humanity.

Wow.
The story itself is full of information exposing the author, but what exposes him, most of all, was his need - perhaps naive or egotistical - to actually do so on the internet.
Such a lonely, lonely man.

Maybe, just maybe, the biggest deceit, is the one we perpetrate against ourselves, using such words as ‘love’, and the biggest lies we accept is from our own self, hiding them behind self-serving generosity and hypocritical verbosity.

The romantic idealization of a relatively affluent foreigner taking advantage of another’s poverty, in both wealth and spirit, is sickening, even if the taking advantage of is not in itself.
It’s how we pretend we are innocent or how little men give value to their miserable existences, by creating beautiful, pure, storyline.

The admission that you were addicted to porn, was the first hint that there’s soemthing definitely not right with you.

The bullshit reaches its height when describing this fatherly character as “meeting Zorba himself”.
He was nothing like Zorba, if you actually understood the story. The absence of pride and dignity speaks of a child-like man enjoying existence because he knows nothing else and allowing the debasement of his family to do it.

It’s unfortunate when life warps the spirit and sex becomes a means of finding what one lacks peronally.
But it is fascinating.

August 5, 2007

Thank you, Satyr. It’s a rare event to meet a true philosopher with real humility. Your admonitions remind me that I truly have a long way to go on my path. I salute you!

August 6, 2007

Satyr, here is your criticism now. With your clear sense of perfection and imperfection you belong to an elite comprised of those who wish to raise themselves into their rightful roles as leaders on a spiritual or other exalted path. Beware of isolation, however, as the perfect are generally not loved but only admired as examples of perfection for others to aspire to.

You are absolutely correct in saying:

When we lack a “normal” means of expressing our love and sexuality, all that is left to us are perverted channels for these great powers. Many “spiritual types” who lack the ability to express their affection openly – in anything from kind words to giving someone a hug – nevertheless long for affection themselves and can be very lonely as a result of their inhibition and seeming aloofness. These people, who share the sense of moral perfection you have, often rise to positions of authority in religion etc. If they are egocentric, they find themselves isolated and unapproachable in their roles as spiritual leaders, treated as a god by fawning followers who really believe they are perfection itself. In their authoritative roles they present their view of the perfection we should aspire to, and all the dummies who look up to them set them up for a fall because the fact is no one is perfect. Almost invariably the flawed and egotistical leader is compelled by the power of their sexuality and the unbearable pretense of their spiritual role into deception and a perverted channel of self-expression. The more perfection is expected – such as in religions where celibacy is demanded – the less perfect is the leader.

Your fascination with what you condemn suggests your desire is for love, affection and sexuality, but your high moral standard suggests a greater desire for the truer intimacy of spirit and soul-to-soul connection. You hide behind your mask, the anonymous judge of all imperfection. But all self-righteous judgment made from an egoistic standpoint is only fanatical self-judgment and ultimately self-destruction. There will always be an Inquisition with the world’s chief hypocrites ready to place all moral and spiritual defectives on the torture rack, then abuse them in every way afterwards.

I claim to be able to point out the way of healing and balance to anyone – “normal” or perverted – who has suffered enough to have an incentive for self-transformation, and who has the courage to come out of hiding and honestly face themselves and others. But most unbalanced people, including so-called “philosophers”, are unconscious of their state and prefer to remain in it, living the lie, because the pleasure of their ego-satisfaction and their addictive self-deception is too great. The death of their essence while alive is assured by their self-desire, fear and dishonesty.

Because I understand you and your suffering, you have my love and compassion. I will not have yours, it does not matter. You need love and understanding, but most of all you need to actually follow your own maxim and motto from Pythagoras, “Know thyself”. Clearly, however, you already know everything and are fit to be the judge of all.

The fact that I’m still here at ILP just proves I’m not ready to leave yet. My love of people demands that I understand them, and there is nothing more fascinating than people. People are both God and His absence, god. I am solitary, I need intellectual exercise, and I won’t pretend that it’s not all about me, my self-transformation. Let the perfect crucify themselves with their every utterance. I am an imperfect fool, and upon that I place all my aspirations.

Anyway, thank you for responding and allowing me to learn a bit more. The courage you find in your masked role at least allows us to learn something about you and your type.

Moved from Essay & Theses