Faith & Philosophy

Demonology is the discipline that endeavors to catalog and explain the mischievous neighbor known as demons. In practice, it is a phantom field cloaked in arcane theory riddled with question marks. Since antiquity, scholars have hidden behind 'demons' to escape accountability for their own decisions. Collecting rumors, embellishing them, and using the residue of others' fears as material, it resembles a masterclass in horror literature. Ultimately, the essence of demonology lies in paradoxically treating the inability to define its subject as an axiom.

A denomination is a small-scale brawling club in the religious world, where adherents uphold the same creed while endlessly condemning minor differences. Believers claim to seek heavenly tranquility, but in reality cultivate a hotbed of organizational self-love to guarantee their own legitimacy. Debates over doctrinal minutiae are power struggles masquerading as philosophical dances. Internal holy wars serve as entertainment that distracts from outsiders, and sectarian conflicts enthrall people as if they were proof of faith’s very existence.

Destiny is the haughty playwright that glances at human choices and efforts only to ignore them, entrusting everything to a cosmic script. People find comfort in accepting suffering and shelving joys, using it as an excuse. Even though the ending is fixed, playing out the roles highlights the absurdity of human existence. Ironically, destiny serves as the grand disguise for advocates of free will.

Determinism is the doctrine that marches everything along a chain of causality, insisting that any notion of choice is but a fanciful illusion. It boldly dismisses free will as a luxury and refuses even to grant deliverance from the burden of existence. With glee it cuts away all randomness, neatly categorizing your every angst under the rubric of inevitability. It expels all chance, relegating life to a monotonous coloring book of causal relationships.

Deterritorialization is the nonviolent revolution that mocks orderly boundaries. Any territory, once caught in the web of ideas, can be unmoored with a flick. Nations and identities may be slid off the screen of a laptop into oblivion. In the end, it’s a graceful game where everyone simply loses their place.

Devotion is the act of shelving one’s own desires to endlessly till the barren fields of others’ ideals. It blurs the boundaries of self in pursuit of another’s expectations until one’s presence fades into a whisper. Behind the mask of a noble virtue lies a reverse self-defense mechanism, unable to sleep without external validation. Ultimately, it is a long journey to realize that offering without expecting a return is the sweetest reward of all.

A daruma is a peculiar talisman resembling an empty shell of papier-mâché, in which one is meant to embed their own will. You paint one eye to vow a goal and can only complete your self-worth by painting the other—an eternal reminder that achievement tastes like an afterparty with no refreshments. Its uncanny habit of tumbling down and righting itself embodies both perseverance and dark irony. Straddling faith and self-suggestion, the daruma mocks our feeble resolve even as it comforts us like a twisted spiritual companion.

Dhikr is the ritual repetition of divine names to pacify the restless mind, a spiritual exercise in looped self-comfort. While appearing as a quest for transcendence, it functions like a vending machine dispensing security tokens of faith and self-satisfaction. Hailed as meditation’s sacred cousin, at times it unveils the raw absurdity of whispered mantras echoing anxious solitude. The words swirl as both words of salvation and alluring narcotics, delivering believers a bittersweet duet of reassurance and self-indulgence.

Dhyana is the supreme technique of emptying the mind in meditation. Yet it often becomes an ordeal that cultivates a graveyard of distracting thoughts, severing one's connection to the world in pursuit of inner quiet. Intended as a path to egolessness, it frequently ends in a realm of listlessness. It is as if one sits in the spectator's seat of the very monster called thought, hoping to tame it.

Dialectic is the intellectual dance floor where contradictions are courted, conclusions are shattered in the name of progress, and every argument loops back on itself like a philosophical Ferris wheel. It stitches opposing theses together only to destroy the seams, offering a cheat code against closure. A thriller ride for reason and emotion, it lures its riders into the endless abyss of self-doubt. Those aboard may soon forget whether they ever had a destination.

Dialogue is the grand art of masquerading mutual exchange as genuine understanding, while in reality guiding your interlocutor down the path of your own convictions. It pretends to distill disagreement into clarity, yet often ends with both parties imposing their predetermined truths. True listening only occurs for a fleeting moment, when conceptual chasms become impossible to ignore. In principle, a ritual to foster shared insight, in practice it leaves behind a brief preamble of goodwill and a lengthy trail of misunderstandings. What lingers at the end is a mismatched sense of satisfaction neatly recorded in the minutes.

Diaspora is the ritual of an once-unified community scattering across the globe only to confirm its existence via online meetings in a haunting digital ghost town. Glorifying past bonds gains you respect, while in reality those memories lie buried under a mountain of unread notifications. The quest to find one another is thwarted by tourist visas and time zones, chaining participants with a leash called ‘distance’. Yet scattered souls manage to survive on little more than ‘likes’ in social media feeds, which have become their new homeland. In the end, diaspora is a collective of chosen solitude where everyone belongs to no one.