On Levinas' On Escape: Dunkin' Donuts
I would always look back to my days of youth at how happy I was as a child. I grew up with a silver spoon in hand and a stomach that seemingly never ran empty. If the happiness of a person could be measured by how much food he had and how much he could consume, I would have to say I was a very, very happy child.
That same happy child grew up in Ateneo, entered College and studied philosophy. At the same time he learned how to go about riding jeepneys, he became knowledgeable of the existence of a great childhood wonder: Dunkin’ Donuts. It was everywhere he went and seemed as if it was calling out to him. Soon after, the happiness faded; in time, he had himself entrapped in the donut craze.
Commuting to or from home, I would often stop by at Dunkin’ Donuts, obviously, to eat. For me, it was a temporary escape from hunger on days when I would purposely ‘forget’ to eat breakfast and other such important meals. It was a quick getaway from letting my stomach churn up acids. With as little as ten pesos, I freed myself from episodes of hyperacidity. It was a need, a necessary substitute for meals I often skipped because of the dizzying, fast pace of college life. Going into a Dunkin’ Donuts store was going out of a hungering appetite.
“I need to eat something.” This is the occasional line by which I spoil myself into stopping by and ordering a donut or two. It is an imperative, a necessity I have to satisfy. Sometimes though, it turns out to be a mere justification of the want to eat, to experience once again the pleasure of the sugary powder and creamy bread down my desiring throat. Eating donuts never fails to be a pleasurable experience that oftentimes I fool my weary body that I only need sugar to survive the rest of the day.
Psychologically, I can say it works; most of the time though, I realize that donuts are merely instruments that temporarily make the aching cease. Afterwards, walking out of Dunkin’ Donuts, it’s back to the tiring world, the tiring cycle of sleeping-waking-eating-studying-sleeping… life. C’est la vie! Yeah, right…
The experience of eating donuts, ice cream or any other pleasurable food, or by extension falling to the pangs of anything pleasurable is not that different from the brutish life of a riddle. In pondering that which is mystified by poetic phrasing, one raises it up to a higher level of consciousness. Upon realization of the mystified object, one is quick to blurt out, “Yun lang pala!” From the high level of consciousness, the object falls, suddenly downgraded to a subconscious state, that of being taken for granted once again. When I eat donuts, I philosophize; sometimes I relate myself to the riddle. In the pleasure of eating donuts, I feel this unexplainable, heavenly, pleasurable feeling of sweetness, as if everything else in this then-brutish world was downright sweet. For a moment in time, I can forget my tiredness from academics, organizations, responsibilities, the demands of society, ultimately an existential tiredness from being tired, limited, and finite. However, at the last bite bites the realization: the world must go on.
Yet I would always go back to these stores. Despite the existential foolery I experience from eating, I find myself wanting to re-live even for a while what it feels to be on a higher level as a riddle, what it feels to be happy in the temporal level. It is quite easy for me to take pleasure in donuts, not only having been trained to love all sorts of food, but also and primarily because of its sweetness. This is the same sweetness that makes me realize, because I am alive, I can experience pleasure. On the contrary, because I am alive, because I am tied, riveted to being, this is how life should be. Every donut, despite its sweetness, in the end fails to offer a real escape out. What a bitter aftertaste to every bite!
The experience of eating donuts is not altogether a delightful experience. Once, I was walking to a store when I walked past an old woman in tattered clothes, begging for alms and, maybe, food. I walked briskly, sensing an internal prick of guilt, in addition to the fact that I was badly hungry. Arriving at the store, I ordered two Strawberry Kremes, one of which I promised myself to give to the beggar woman. Sitting down, I ate one; not yet satisfied, I came to ‘thoughtfully’ think of the old woman. What if she had diabetes, what if too much sugar was bad for her? After some time, I convinced myself by legitimizing my ‘thoughtful’ decision, one based on ‘pure concern and morality.’ Walking out of the store, I felt ashamed, not because I walked past her and gave no donut, but because it was a foolish, deliberate choice out of blunt selfishness. She knew neither what I was thinking nor what I have done; I did not even get a glimpse of her face so much as to strike a stinging guilt in me. I was ashamed of myself for I knew what I thought, how I acted and how I stripped myself off of my values and principles. Nobody saw me in my nakedness but myself, and I would have to agree that it was not a very wonderful sight.
There was also this instance wherein I was enjoying a Choco Kreme after a tiring day at school. Toying with the cream on my tongue, I sensed a flat, solid texture. I pulled it out of my mouth and found a piece of scotch tape. At that time I remembered all the exposés on television, divulging the unsanitary manner by which certain food chains prepare their products. I was disgusted, yet I did not complain to the management. I was so caught up in the ensnaring delight of sweetness that it seemed too effortful to stand up from where I sat and raise my voice. If not for the sweetness, I would have not stayed contented and glued to my seat.
The underlying truth remains clear: Dunkin’ Donuts, the cure to everyday life, is also my inevitable curse; donuts are my sweet suffering, my pleasurable pain, an escape to a deeper entrapment into being. Until now, I face this moral dilemma, whether I should stop visiting Dunkin’ Donuts or not. Perhaps, it will forever remain a question - something to think about, to contemplate throughout my whole life.
That same happy child grew up in Ateneo, entered College and studied philosophy. At the same time he learned how to go about riding jeepneys, he became knowledgeable of the existence of a great childhood wonder: Dunkin’ Donuts. It was everywhere he went and seemed as if it was calling out to him. Soon after, the happiness faded; in time, he had himself entrapped in the donut craze.
Commuting to or from home, I would often stop by at Dunkin’ Donuts, obviously, to eat. For me, it was a temporary escape from hunger on days when I would purposely ‘forget’ to eat breakfast and other such important meals. It was a quick getaway from letting my stomach churn up acids. With as little as ten pesos, I freed myself from episodes of hyperacidity. It was a need, a necessary substitute for meals I often skipped because of the dizzying, fast pace of college life. Going into a Dunkin’ Donuts store was going out of a hungering appetite.
“I need to eat something.” This is the occasional line by which I spoil myself into stopping by and ordering a donut or two. It is an imperative, a necessity I have to satisfy. Sometimes though, it turns out to be a mere justification of the want to eat, to experience once again the pleasure of the sugary powder and creamy bread down my desiring throat. Eating donuts never fails to be a pleasurable experience that oftentimes I fool my weary body that I only need sugar to survive the rest of the day.
Psychologically, I can say it works; most of the time though, I realize that donuts are merely instruments that temporarily make the aching cease. Afterwards, walking out of Dunkin’ Donuts, it’s back to the tiring world, the tiring cycle of sleeping-waking-eating-studying-sleeping… life. C’est la vie! Yeah, right…
The experience of eating donuts, ice cream or any other pleasurable food, or by extension falling to the pangs of anything pleasurable is not that different from the brutish life of a riddle. In pondering that which is mystified by poetic phrasing, one raises it up to a higher level of consciousness. Upon realization of the mystified object, one is quick to blurt out, “Yun lang pala!” From the high level of consciousness, the object falls, suddenly downgraded to a subconscious state, that of being taken for granted once again. When I eat donuts, I philosophize; sometimes I relate myself to the riddle. In the pleasure of eating donuts, I feel this unexplainable, heavenly, pleasurable feeling of sweetness, as if everything else in this then-brutish world was downright sweet. For a moment in time, I can forget my tiredness from academics, organizations, responsibilities, the demands of society, ultimately an existential tiredness from being tired, limited, and finite. However, at the last bite bites the realization: the world must go on.
Yet I would always go back to these stores. Despite the existential foolery I experience from eating, I find myself wanting to re-live even for a while what it feels to be on a higher level as a riddle, what it feels to be happy in the temporal level. It is quite easy for me to take pleasure in donuts, not only having been trained to love all sorts of food, but also and primarily because of its sweetness. This is the same sweetness that makes me realize, because I am alive, I can experience pleasure. On the contrary, because I am alive, because I am tied, riveted to being, this is how life should be. Every donut, despite its sweetness, in the end fails to offer a real escape out. What a bitter aftertaste to every bite!
The experience of eating donuts is not altogether a delightful experience. Once, I was walking to a store when I walked past an old woman in tattered clothes, begging for alms and, maybe, food. I walked briskly, sensing an internal prick of guilt, in addition to the fact that I was badly hungry. Arriving at the store, I ordered two Strawberry Kremes, one of which I promised myself to give to the beggar woman. Sitting down, I ate one; not yet satisfied, I came to ‘thoughtfully’ think of the old woman. What if she had diabetes, what if too much sugar was bad for her? After some time, I convinced myself by legitimizing my ‘thoughtful’ decision, one based on ‘pure concern and morality.’ Walking out of the store, I felt ashamed, not because I walked past her and gave no donut, but because it was a foolish, deliberate choice out of blunt selfishness. She knew neither what I was thinking nor what I have done; I did not even get a glimpse of her face so much as to strike a stinging guilt in me. I was ashamed of myself for I knew what I thought, how I acted and how I stripped myself off of my values and principles. Nobody saw me in my nakedness but myself, and I would have to agree that it was not a very wonderful sight.
There was also this instance wherein I was enjoying a Choco Kreme after a tiring day at school. Toying with the cream on my tongue, I sensed a flat, solid texture. I pulled it out of my mouth and found a piece of scotch tape. At that time I remembered all the exposés on television, divulging the unsanitary manner by which certain food chains prepare their products. I was disgusted, yet I did not complain to the management. I was so caught up in the ensnaring delight of sweetness that it seemed too effortful to stand up from where I sat and raise my voice. If not for the sweetness, I would have not stayed contented and glued to my seat.
The underlying truth remains clear: Dunkin’ Donuts, the cure to everyday life, is also my inevitable curse; donuts are my sweet suffering, my pleasurable pain, an escape to a deeper entrapment into being. Until now, I face this moral dilemma, whether I should stop visiting Dunkin’ Donuts or not. Perhaps, it will forever remain a question - something to think about, to contemplate throughout my whole life.