Fight Club

How much do you know about yourself if you’ve not been to a fight? Well, Mr. Tyler Durden, soapman-pugilist, I’ve been to a lot and, man, I’ve been mauled and mangled in some I pretty should have enough Freudian understanding of my broken jaw and bruised ribs. As it has been imparted and repeated to banal heights, the fights you’ve been define your character and puissance, that is if you come out of it still breathing and not mortally maimed. But, man, if I may violently object, today’s not a good time to babble about fights and fighting still. As we speak, this country and that could be trading blistering missiles already and GATT-WTO has nothing to do with the trade, mind you, and, oh my, their neighboring countries want to join the fray in no friendly terms. More, the politicos, our politicos, God bless their filth, are already gearing to a fight—closed fist, rock-solid Aikido stance, intense pa-cute a la Hon. Cong. Villanueva—Signora Presidente should tremble in fear of having her Senate slate beaten to a pulp. Pity. Petty. All right then, back to broken jaws and bruised ribs.

As campily suggested, there are multifaceted ways of looking at good old-fashion bare-knuckled slugfest in the same manner that there are multifold means of dealing with our quotidian lives. Seemingly, the choices are mapped out between roughing it up and running away from a fight—between getting black eyes and losing face. After a quarter century of shameless brawls, beaten ego and all, and yes, after reading Sun Tzu in jail and watching the Gracies and the Shamrocks from the hospital bed, the sophistical choices seemed as they are: naïve and simplistic. It’s more convoluted than that though. Once, I practically ran a century meter away only to spot and pick the perfect craggy rock and there staggered right back to broken jaws and bruised ribs. In another, I was in deep—throwing punches right on the flesh and in the air and at the same time clumsily ducking and huffing from brick fists—when I ungracefully wiggled to exit only to be clubbed some more with sticks and elbows hardened by what not. Stitches and wounds. Broken jaws and bruised ribs. Ah, the sweet simple joy of physical violence.

If it’s anything to come by, the way one handled his fights pretty much describes the manner he will handle his problems in life. Saccharine. Quite certainly. A slugfest is cathartic but it’s no chicken soup stuff. Grit and bloody fistfights are not chicken soup for the soul, they are by the soul, parboiled by the gentle shadow at the back of one’s head violently wrenching to throw a punch before death does. Saccharine still. Well, somehow, a good brawl makes one cleanse himself of all the fury and violent tendencies teetering to fulminate from within. But that begs the question, a brawl, good or bad, is violence in action. At the very least, it’s therapeutic and spares one from committing murder and staging carnage even if for some it is a prelude if not a downright justification for the commission of the fatal assaults. Since starting a fistfight for the heck of it is not easily defensible, let us look the other way but let us try not to sound an adherent of the S and M variety. O the sweet simple joy of physical violence.

Often, noble and no less virtuous impulses animate a prototypical bare-fisted assault. In one of my childhood fisticuffs in Surigao del Sur, the other boy egged by some others touched my earlobe so I balled my fist so tightly and threw it straight to his left eye. I regained my self-respect but the members of his entourage took turn in beating me just as badly. In yet another, a classmate pushed me off the stage so I grabbed his head, pinned him to the ground and bloodied his nose. I felt invincible and I was suspended from school for a week. Professional boxers brawl for money, advertising spots, political leverage, home country’s legacy and, yes, para sa yo, yeah, right. UFC’s MMA warriors maim and risk to be maimed not so much for money as it is for vainglory and good old testosterone charge. If I come-a-charging to a slugfest it better be for a worthwhile and civilized consideration like, well, a poked earlobe, and it better be good.

What good then does a good fistfight entail? It should be working well with the Taiwenese legislators; a madhouse rough and tumble brawl seems to be a crucial part in the passage of their laws. A Filipino Congressman once threw a wayward palm to a Security Officer of Congress yet it hastened the impeachment of the President for whose graces the fist was for. I have this firm belief that a good mano a mano saves us from killing sprees and maniacal bloodbaths, well, at least, I have not been put to the brig for the said felonies, ugly fights notwithstanding. From some twisted vantage-point, it restores order; it’s the more civilized alternative to killing an adversary or a person whose presence you cannot tolerate. In some culture, fistfights are not even viewed as violent confrontations as they are in fact deeply regarded as a major form of communication. A fist talking to another, boom, whack, thud, what a lovely point you have.

In this mall and automaton generation, the benefit of good old slugfest cannot be under-emphasized. We have been so charmed with comfort and easy living that we lost track of our selves when faced with adversity. Grit is totally eschewed and so are determination, perseverance and resiliency. Gender roles are reversed when it should just be counterbalanced. The ultra-sensitive male chiseled by generational castration cannot and will not throw a punch anymore because there are better things to do like applying the scented body lotion and surfing the net in Starbucks. Next to a courtroom brawl, a free-for-all in a Starbucks outlet tops my to-be-in list. For all we know, the world’s a parking lot for us to slug it out.

We have now a softened world, we just have to harden up. A tad toughened up. Everything is easy anyway. Let’s get it on. The world’s our parking lot. Broken jaws and bruised ribs. Perfect.