A Substacker's One Year Reflection

this was originally meant to be written on the 23rd of October, when I uploaded my first post (for that would make a year), but had other things going on, so I give it here, a month late... ENJOY!

this was me writing this.

I suppose my last Substack post will end very much like my first: in some haste, but with the sense and meaning well-written nonetheless. I still remember that day like it was yesterday, that cool, crisp autumn air blowing gently against the yellowing trees. On that day, a Wednesday, the 23rd of October, 2024, I decided it was time to make myself known to the world.

I was always ambitious in my passions, never feeling the need to relax what I loved so dearly—a love without which I would be lost. I had, prior to starting my Substack, undergone an intense, self-directed course of study—reading literature, both classical and philosophical, from all eras of history, and in nearly every genre. I had promised to my cousin at the start of 2024 that I would write a dialogue in the style of Dante’s Divine Comedy between us, not only for his enjoyment but for my own edification; not feeling myself qualified to take on such a daunting task, however, I gave myself eight months to prepare, and read as much as my body and spirit would permit me. Having felt I had taken literature as far as I could, I finally decided it was time for pen to be put to paper. I wrote the dialogue in fifteen days, 55,070 words total, and felt I had surpassed my own expectations in regard to what I thought I was capable of in the realm of writing.

I was extremely pleased with myself, but something within me told me that I was capable of far more. The prose wasn’t bad in the slightest—in retrospect, in fact, I think it was better than I initially thought—but the way in which I developed my ideas in it didn’t sit right with me. I felt I was still too stilted, too uptight, not free enough—not enough LIFE, POWER, LOVE, BEAUTY, in short, EXISTENCE. What I yearned for afterwards, ultimately, was the capacity to write not only with precision, but at the same time with grace and movement; I wanted my sentences to dance: not only should they, I thought, be enjoyable to read and easy to follow, but that my heart be reflected in each one—much like the moon upon the sea on a clear night. I struggled immensely with this at the start. I knew how to write, but to write with feeling and emotion? It was a skill, an art really, I hadn’t trained myself in: an old craft which I looked upon, but felt unable to replicate like the great masters—those paragons whom I looked up to. I suffered, and thought all was lost with me. That was until a voice called out to me, like with Augustine, and told me, “Pick up and read!” I cried out, “Wha-… what is there left for me to read! Had I not walked through the groves of humanity, and culled every pretty flower I saw, courting every fine specimen I could find, and lusting after every divine phrase?” The voice said, “The book of life. Follow your heart to the books that call out most to you, and you shall receive abundance.” Just like that, it vanished, and I was left awe-struck. I sat there, wondering whether what I had just heard was the voice of God or the Devil. “What is in me that I most desire,” I said with great reluctance, as if I was scared of the answer my heart would give me. I pondered deeply, and retraced every step that led me exactly to such a terrifying situation. I said to myself, “What authors are there to which I hadn’t paid sufficient attention? Who, among all those great masters to whom I owe so much, had the style and the approach which enchanted my heart, and caused me disquietude when I found I was yet to reach such a point? Who damn it, WHO!”

At this point, I was beginning to get dizzy, as if in a daze, and I gradually felt myself descending to the ground—a very fitting place considering the circumstances. In a sweat, confused, and worried I had wasted all that time just to discover I was a mediocre writer after all, I quickly fell into a deep sleep, channeling all the energy I had to the fulcrum of my soul—the mind. I began to dream, and felt my soul, almost imperceptibly, mingle with the surrounding universe, and become one with all that was around me. I had felt a similar elation before, but not quite like this—certainly not in this context. After what felt like hours, I had finally assimilated my soul with the whole of reality, and suddenly, there was no more worry, no more fear and trembling, no more trepidation with regard to my ability to write; everything was simple, unified, clear, direct, honest, lovely, and infinitely holy! I awoke from that dazed condition a rejuvenated man, as if I had stepped through the door of peace and found eternal repose in that joyous paradise. At once, the memory returned, “The book of life.” Look through the book of life and I shall receive abundance. But whose book? Surely not my own, for I hadn’t gone out into the world yet. Ah, but who has gone out into the world and seen it? Has any man ever truly seen the world? And has there ever been a person so honest with themselves that their style of writing only reflects what is in their heart, and endears the reader to them as a result; a writer so powerful, even those without an interest in their affairs cannot help but read their words, for they find themselves in every bit of it? Upon asking these questions, after coming out of that serene state of unity within multiplicity, I had my answer: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Of all the authors I had the fortune of acquainting myself with within those eight months, I found no one closer to my heart, nearer to my soul, so dear forever after, like these two men. These were men who did not write merely to be read, but to be felt, understood, and followed—not after their own way, but after your own way; to encourage the reader to forge their own path, destiny, experience, LIFE. They are the great sages of the human heart, and anyone looking for motivation may find in them an infinite well by which to take from, and always have more afterwards; in fact, the more you take, the more you receive in return, that is how great these men are. I do not know whether it was their style alone, or the subjects which they wrote upon, that captured me more, but either way, I was, from that point on, a firm adherent to the ways of Emerson and Nietzsche. On the one hand, I was discovering the Oversoul, the beauty of nature, the glory of God, the omnipotence of introspection, etc.; on the other, I was the embodiment of WILL-TO-POWER, in Dionysiac ecstasy, conquering gods and demons alike, rediscovering the glory of the body, and glorifying all things holy to me. I was, in one aspect, wholly spiritual, contemplative, reflective, and given to melancholy (reflecting on the injustices of existence, and wishing all was unified in harmony and everlasting peace); in the other, I was responsive only to those things which strengthened my POWER, my resolve, my reconsecration—things which made me like the divine poets, feeling compassion only towards the beautiful and the good.

I picked up and read: at first, Emerson’s journals—his Wide Worlds, as he called them—between the years of 1820 and 1842. I was amazed. I was empowered. At once, I understood what the voice meant when it referred to the book of life—it was rather the book of lives, like Plutarch’s, which were written not to exercise the writer’s power in exposition, but to make tangible ideas which are too powerful, too glorious, to merely be cogitated in the mind alone. It was to expose to the world the deeds and reflections of men far superior to the average. It was in those words that one such as myself—with insatiable ambition, and the desire to become something great—could lose for a moment the feelings of fear, doubt, envy, hatred, timidity, and rise far above them, even eclipse them, and never be subject to their dominion again. What the book of life represented was rather the book of a singular soul, whose feelings and ideas are congruent with the reader’s own, so much so that the reader feels themselves in those words—that is, as if the reader were the writer of them. That… that right there is the true source of all wisdom not begotten from your own experience. Of course, individual experience is far better than any word written by even the greatest master; but, when young and inexperienced, but still desirous of pleasant phrases and honest sentiments that relate to the soul—the core of human existence—one must make do with words; and those words should come from authors who grow and mature the reader up until the point that they feel their time has come, and cast the good authors aside like old baby shoes, and come into their own person, from which point forward we may say: you are now a true writer of the self, a real author of your own, formed by a good artist, and then broke the mold.

For me, Emerson was everything and then some. In his words, I found salvation, hope, life, more life, greater existence, and a style of writing that perfectly captured what I felt was sorely lacking in my own at the time. He wrote, seemingly, without hesitation, but always with deep regard and consideration; the language was beautiful, the words well chosen, but the construction of the ideas disjointed, not always consistent in sentiment—or even with the preceding sentence, for that matter—and at times too purple. But it was precisely in that disjointedness, in that fearlessness, that supreme bravery in expression, that I felt most enamored; I wanted freedom to give all the love and existence I could in every sentence without halting the flow for the sake of considering whether the sentence I write now directly related to the previous one. No one is aided by a writer who feels his mind is shackled by his own thoughts. The scariest thing in writing is always the first sentence; and the hardest thing is always overcoming the initial hesitations and slow developments in ideas as one begins to write. However, the moment those obstacles are passed, and one enters a flow state—which I think is synonymous with nothing else but a consistency in listening to your own heart—the writer is unstoppable, and if they’re good, able to write from that point forward without any break in the pace.

Again, Emerson taught me how to listen to myself, by showing me a way past my own follies and false habits in writing; he was a great dissuader in everything bad, and an astounding encourager in everything good—which in this context means free. Emerson’s prose was like a bird mid-flight, completely and utterly free, like nature herself, without the slightest doubt in any action or movement. It is in Emerson that all is unified, and no worry is signaled by appearing inconsistent or, at times, totally incomprehensible. What I love about Emerson is his way of always relating the subject back to the individual; he views everything from his own perspective, never feeling the need to quote another, or reference some study or wretched source. Always self-reliant, always steadfast in his convictions, always the supporter of the individual, and of spreading goodness and love to all who would read him. Like Montaigne, Emerson writes not to display his erudition, but to investigate his existence, and to bring the reader along on that tremendous journey. Nothing is more sacred than a man’s own capacity to listen to the trees, and to look out for beauty in every facet of existence. It is in experiencing the good that one develops roots to the heart, and the more one experiences, the more goodness he is bound to receive; and from this continual goodness, one avoids all evil, and comes into one’s own soul, thinking, pondering, considering, and then writing whatever insight is gleaned from those feelings. That is what Emerson has been to me: an invaluable source of inspiration, and a well of freedom and life from which I always take and drink, so as to be continuously refreshed from the source of life itself, and so as to write my own life, and become a source of good in the world as well.

And then there’s the Übermensch himself. The greatest writer in the history of philosophy, possibly in German prose, and without question the most thorough investigator of life and critic of values. What is to be said that hasn’t already been said regarding this most romantic of individuals? Friedrich Nietzsche changed my very perspective on existence itself. I would not be me if I hadn’t read Nietzsche, and what a harrowing thought that is; to go the rest of my days ignorant of der deutsche Prophet: “Gott ist tot,” and on my merry way I went, from that point on, forever a Nietzschean. One does not simply read Nietzsche and remain the same afterwards. Nietzsche, I like to think, is the antipode of Emerson. Both glorify life, beauty, art, poetry, etc., but for different reasons. Where Emerson finds God, Nietzsche finds himself—the individual, the man—within the sea of his own potentiality. At times I prefer Nietzsche over Emerson, not only because he’s an atheist like me, but because he has no metaphysical entity by which to lavish praise for the sake of his own enjoyment; where Emerson sings the praises of God’s design seen throughout all of nature, Nietzsche only finds that which is within himself, that which he enjoys only because he enjoys it. Nothing spiritual in it aside from the similar-sounding praises, but where one man sees God, another sees nature—not through the lens of a materialist, but through the pupil of man, a singular individual, attempting to create joy out of mere existence, as if existence itself could be a kind of jubilation. God is dead, and we have killed him… but that does not mean our heart cannot pulse at the thought of him, or that our ears cannot hear him, or that our eyes are blind to him. You see, while I make no statement of faith, no testimony of my conviction, no testament to my eternal love towards one who does not exist, I view the world as if he does exist—not believing, but always feeling, seeking, wondering. God is man’s childhood eternally lived. It is the numinous forever breathing. Where one relies on the Word—the eternal truth spoken of in the Gospels—another must turn inward, must sacrifice elsewhere, must build his own house of worship; indeed, must become a being that is worth worship, must see the world in a way that is worthy of worship. Everything that is good in life is so only in proportion to how much good we ourselves see into it. I affirm the conviction of the Stoics, that life is not to be ignored—as the Cyrenaics more or less did—but rather endured, that pain is only temporary, and that a man can live with his head held high, even in the most disheartening of situations, so long as he has an awareness of himself and does not lose himself in the misfortune of his situation.

Rightly is the reply of Anaxagoras admired, for, like a prudent and wise father, when he heard that his son had died, he spoke with as patient and rational a spirit as he could. He said that he knew that he had begotten a mortal. It did not appear intolerable to him that one who was born to die should have died already. —Leon Battista Alberti, The Family in Renaissance Florence, p. 54.

All we Godless anti-metaphysicians must always have a bit of the rational spirit in us. It is not that we are cold towards the world in the face of misfortune, but rather that the world offers us no warmth in moments of misfortune, and so we must endure them nonetheless, in the most honorable way we can. God is not to be mocked, for he is a very powerful idea, independent of his existence or not. Nietzsche shows us life is to be conquered through irrational joy in spite of everything to the contrary saying that only misfortune and despair are to be had. It should be remarked, Nietzsche himself was a perfect example of his own philosophy: a sickly man his whole life, who turned his greatest weakness into his greatest strength through nothing else but force of will alone. It is remarkable that a philosopher like Nietzsche could have existed at all, considering that most philosophers prior to him were either professors or highly cultured men from rich families. Nietzsche was really the first philosopher to be neither of those things—he taught Classical Philology at university, not philosophy proper. Inspired primarily by Schopenhauer in his younger years, one would have thought that the philosophy of resignation, the escape from this world into the realm of Śūnyatā (nothingness), would have been perfect for Nietzsche, especially considering his physical debilities, but he was not of that temperament; Nietzsche’s psychology was one of a man wanting to conquer, to overcome, to overcome greater what he previously overcame. Never in the history of philosophy—with the exception of maybe Kierkegaard—has one philosophized not for the sake of creating a foundation or system of thought, but for the sake of life itself. I cannot, myself, think of a greater project than one that is ever interested in the question of existence. In truth, I studied Nietzsche exactly with that end in view: I wanted to know how to overcome, how to become greater every day, how to actually live in an authentic manner—not after the will of the herd or my own caprice and prejudice, but rather after the manner of my mind and heart.

You see, we Godless ones are subject to every fear and doubt that those with God suffer, but unlike them, we have no being to propitiate; we only have ourselves. Within ourselves, there is a source of immeasurable power—WILL-TO-POWER!—from which our lives may be improved so long as we always view existence with that singular end in mind: our power; God, holy power, inborn in man, a priori in the spirit. For the atheist, God is himself, his own person, but without the sense of the divine; the only divine is that which is earthly, sensual, and great. Where I say great, you must think power; power on top of power, oozing from every crevice is the will of existence, of striving and misery, all of which is kept in check by the power of ourselves, within ourselves, from ourselves—in every aspect human, in every way wholly our own; our Gods are our own, and from ourselves is our will to self-preservation, and beyond that—beyond mere survival, drawn from the crucial rudiments of necessity—is our greater life, our higher selves, again born from within, never from without, and always pushed forward from behind. Nietzsche was the kind of man to never be satisfied with mere survival, a paltry subsistence; he wanted life to be not a means to a degrading end, but the end to a tremendous saga, as if his own life were a kind of grand event, epoch-changing, and otherworldly in its implications for all mankind afterwards.

I had already read and absorbed all of Nietzsche prior to my need to “pick up and read,” and so, his whole philosophy was brewing in the background of my mind, merely waiting—patient, unwaveringly—as if the concepts themselves knew it was only a matter of time before I would return to them. I cannot even begin to put into words the utter immensity of spirit I felt upon rereading two books in particular: Human, All Too Human and Ecce Homo. Just look at what Nietzsche says in the preface to Human, All Too Human and tell me he wasn’t, from the very beginning, a man writing for an audience of one (himself)—in truth, an audience that didn’t exist in his lifetime:

My writings have been termed a school of distrust, still more of disdain: also, and more happily, of courage, audacity even. And in fact, I myself do not believe that anybody ever looked into the world with a distrust as deep as mine, seeming, as I do, not simply the timely advocate of the devil, but, to employ theological terms, an enemy and challenger of God; and whosoever has experienced any of the consequences of such deep distrust, anything of the chills and the agonies of isolation to which such an unqualified difference of standpoint condemns him endowed with it, will also understand how often I must have sought relief and self-forgetfulness from any source—through any object of veneration or enmity, of scientific seriousness or wanton lightness; also why I, when I could not find what I was in need of, had to fashion it for myself, counterfeiting it or imagining it (and what poet or writer has ever done anything else, and what other purpose can all the art in the world possibly have?) That which I always stood most in need of in order to effect my cure and self-recovery was faith, faith enough not to be thus isolated, not to look at life from so singular a point of view—a magic apprehension (in eye and mind) of relationship and equality, a calm confidence in friendship, a blindness, free from suspicion and questioning, to two sidedness; a pleasure in externals, superficialities, the near, the accessible, in all things possessed of color, skin and seeming. Perhaps I could be fairly reproached with much “art” in this regard, many fine counterfeitings; for example, that, wisely or wilfully, I had shut my eyes to Schopenhauer’s blind will towards ethic, at a time when I was already clear sighted enough on the subject of ethic; likewise that I had deceived myself concerning Richard Wagner’s incurable romanticism, as if it were a beginning and not an end; likewise concerning the Greeks, likewise concerning the Germans and their future—and there may be, perhaps, a long list of such likewises. Granted, however, that all this were true, and with justice urged against me, what does it signify, what can it signify in regard to how much of the self-sustaining capacity, how much of reason and higher protection are embraced in such self-deception?—and how much more falsity is still necessary to me that I may therewith always reassure myself regarding the luxury of my truth. Enough, I still live; and life is not considered now apart from ethic; it will [have] deception; it thrives (lebt) on deception... but am I not beginning to do all over again what I have always done, I, the old immoralist, and bird snarer—talk unmorally, ultramorally, “beyond good and evil”?

Thus, then, have I evolved for myself the “free spirits” to whom this discouraging-encouraging work, under the general title “Human, All Too Human,” is dedicated. Such “free spirits” do not really exist and never did exist. But I stood in need of them, as I have pointed out, in order that some good might be mixed with my evils (illness, loneliness, strangeness, acedia, incapacity): to serve as gay spirits and comrades, with whom one may talk and laugh when one is disposed to talk and laugh, and whom one may send to the devil when they grow wearisome.

Ah, does one not hear it already, the sounding of the bell from coming cavalry? I am in utter disbelief, even now, at how profound such a man had to be in order to will for himself his own existence. To will an existence for ourselves, not mere continuation, but an unstoppable charge forward, like a tsunami of unimaginable magnitude; that, in a sense, is the end for which my mind is always bent. How glorious it is to revel in the words of men who suffer what we suffer, and how fantastic, almost divine, is it to become vivified at the sight of words—their meanings and implications—to which we ourselves understand on an intuitive level, a spiritual level only understood by few, or who we assume to be few. How trivial do all my past miseries seem in the face of my present ones; and yet, how thankful I am for those past ones, for they allow me to endure the present ones; and where would any pleasure in life derive if not from an understanding in the different experiences of life—both pleasurable and miserable! Suffering is perennial, but the methods adopted by man to overcome it are not. Man is transitory, and his material conditions affect him greater than he would like to admit. What meaning do any of our experiences have if not related back to ourselves, for our own edification and upliftment? Everything comes and goes in waves. The present time, no matter how miserable, always moves on nonetheless; and time is the greatest of all teachers, for through it we come nearer and nearer to death, but also grow dearer and dearer to life. Yes! Life is made more comprehensible through time, and our worries fall away the more familiar we are with them. I believe humanity has always misunderstood the meaning of suffering in existence. They think it is something to be dreaded, avoided, worried about, and mulled over. I say no, and no again!

I say, with Schopenhauer, that to exist is to be in misery—not that misery is a metaphysical necessity of existence, but that (in the common experience of mankind throughout our history) no one has ever lived free from misery at one point or another in life; and so, existence is a sort of vanity, or folly, which we always put up with out of sheer habit, out of a sort of inner inertia that we are compelled to follow for no other reason than that we have been moving along in this manner for as long as we have known thus far. It behooves every man—specifically those individuals who seek answers to the questions of existence—to take Schopenhauer very seriously, but to discard him in exactly the same manner Nietzsche did once maturity has developed enough in us to see that mere resignation is not enough to survive off of. People do everything in their power to avoid pain and misery, but nobody until Nietzsche thought it was a good idea to turn that idea on its head and to say—why not more misery? why not more suffering? why should life always be lived for the sake of our comfort rather than our discomfort? It was there, near the end of the nineteenth century, that a single man—the first in human history—decided that he would change the entire edifice of humanity merely on a whim. This perspectival approach to our values, and our actions in relation to them, is what constitutes modern man’s approach to existential questions. All must return from their source, and misery is no different.

Turn misery upside down and what do you see? A helpless babe, in need of company, for without that she perishes. Misery loves company, but this is servile—to enjoy the presence of another hurt heart for the sake of lessening your own pain. It is a very strange psychology we humans operate on. If man finds pleasure in sharing his feelings, would it not strike him equally as strongly to do just the opposite: to turn away from all humanity so that he may become more familiar to himself? So that he may make something out of himself, create something from the chaos within? Nothing is without its cause, and man’s capacity to extend his life forward through a counterintuitive method—indeed, a very frightening contradiction, in fact—may be necessary in our own age. This is precisely the Nietzschean method of overcoming! A kind of reverse psychology in which all that gives us pain may be looked on as that which gives us pleasure; again, like the Stoics, nothing in life is to be dreaded, only endured rationally. In the face of so much unending strife and difficulties, one must become irrational for the sake of maintaining their rationality. This is nothing new either; it was already known by Kierkegaard, and after Nietzsche fully systematized by Freud. We humans will do anything to maintain our narratives of consistency, what allows our life rhythm to be kept in sync. Nietzsche was only, evidently, the first man to turn our conceptions of existence on their head: to be deliberately irrational, to not fear contradiction, and to live dangerously if it meant our power (life-force) should be increased.

There is nothing to fear in life once its opposite is embraced. If one is exposed to something new it is undoubtedly very scary, but if it is viewed with the end in mind—our existence, which is mutable and fated to end—it will become something not to fear or avoid, but rather to experience for its own sake; existence kept up for its own sake is the best kind of existence, for it makes the end goal life itself, experience qua experience. Where Nietzsche broke from Schopenhauer was exactly on this point: that the life of man is to be lived in spite of misery—in fact, it is to be actively sought out—whereas Schopenhauer thought the best existence is that which is least lived, so as to avoid the vanity and crude realization that everything is ultimately meaningless in the face of death. In my own life, I alternate between both of these titans’ shoulders regularly. In times of complete peace and tranquility, I turn towards Schopenhauer for memento mori’s sake—I will die, and all my life is but a dream, an unequivocal misery, that will fade like a shadow in the night (for all is dark where there is no light), and not worth remembering or enjoying in the slightest; whereas, when my life is in utter ruin and complete disarray (as it is somewhat as I write this), I turn to Nietzsche, and hope to say as he did, “I do not point to the evil and pain of existence with the finger of reproach, but rather entertain the hope that life may one day become more evil and more full of suffering than it has ever been.”

I say this not to shock but only to reiterate my entire point regarding Nietzsche, that life is nothing without our misery, and no amount of pain and suffering should ever change our will to live, because life is will, and so much more, I like to think, than merely living for the sake of avoiding pain. All wise men (Homo Philosophicus) throughout history have used their brains when analyzing existence, and creating rational foundations and 15-premise syllogisms to prove to other supposedly wise men that life should be lived mechanically, because that’s the wise, or better yet rational, thing to do; but existence is not rational, and no man is truly wise at all times, and no man is truly free from external factors that will inevitably prick his brain and agitate him to the point of anger; to think about life rationally when it comes to existential misery is like trying to move forwards by walking backwards—it is the completely wrong approach. Life, in general, is built on customs and habits, and most everyday occurrences are so simple and utterly innocuous and trivial that it causes us no pause or deep reflection; we merely relate this situation to a previous one, relying on our past experience, and go about our day as normal, trivializing the complexities and complexifying the trivial; this nonchalant, impersonal approach to existence is precisely where misery results from in the first place. Misery can only occur in a soul whose idea of what existence is is completely divorced from the facts of the body, the surrounding culture, the prejudices of the mind, the upbringing of the individual, and the material conditions of the nation he is born in. Any analysis that either ignores these factors or lessens their importance is still acting rational, all too rational, and is, in truth, a falsification of reality.

Man must be irrational, but within reason. His passions must be his guide, but his mind must do the steering. These sound antithetical to each other, and that’s because they are, but attempting to live as if you were an automaton is, as stated earlier, precisely the mistake. Rationality only works in scenarios that have been simplified for the sake of making them rational in the first place. It removes all complexity and nuance so as to make the thing in question have an answer, even if it be a malformed and ill-fitted one. This is the intellectual malaise of modernity—the modern world is precisely as Nietzsche predicted it would be, as he says in the preface to his book, The Will to Power:

Of what is great one must either be silent or speak with greatness. With greatness—that means cynically and with innocence.

What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no longer come differently: the advent of nihilism. This history can be related even now; for necessity itself is at work here. This future speaks even now in a hundred signs, this destiny announces itself everywhere; for this music of the future all ears are cocked even now. For some time now, our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe, with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that wants to reach the end, that no longer reflects, that is afraid to reflect.

What he prophesied has now, more or less, come to pass. Nietzsche even saw, like Heidegger after him, the degenerating effects that technology would have on modern man. Isolated, angry, hopeless, miserable, ostracized from the world, all without an outlet—some place to channel all this potential into something tremendous! What distinguishes the man of God from the man of man (Emerson from Nietzsche) most is their approach to the question of existence. One proclaims, “We do not know, therefore let us seek help from God,” while the other, rightly with sarcasm, says, “We do not know, therefore let us seek help from within, for that is where God ultimately comes from.” In essence, they are not too different after all, but what makes them appear as such is that one believes his faith will get him through in times of despair, while the other deliberately cultivates his despair for the sake of turning it into something great, something enjoyable, not only for himself but for the world at large.

A belief in the self can arise in many peculiar ways, but the form it ultimately takes resembles that of the Nietzschean. It is to say Credo in saltum absurdum (I believe in the unreasonable leap). That is what one must ultimately say, and grapple with, every second of existence; for existence is so absurd, because of its complexity and foundational misery, that it would drive a weaker mind insane if they were actually forced to wrestle with the true implications of it. This is why every attempt to categorize and simplify existence has failed to actually bring about joy. It takes the life out of life, and paints it with broad strokes when light ones are really needed. You cannot take a situation that causes you misery, break it down to the point of atoms, and expect to be happy afterwards merely because you were able to reach the smallest point by which your misery occurs—you merely analyzed misery, but did not address it fully, properly, with any serious consideration as to, not the cause of it, but the cause within you that made it. Life is poetry, and man is the clairvoyant poet who makes himself miserable, not because he sees what his misery will be, but that he ultimately makes it for himself.

Yes, homo formatio eo ipso miserabilis! (man, by the very fact of his coming into being, is wretched!) Everything he does is, he hopes earnestly, to bring him pleasure, or at least no pain, but he never considers what is to happen to his soul should he do everything right and fall prey to misery anyway. This is modern man’s predicament: he is socialized by society, and so lives after society—after all its wretched dictates and influences—rather than after his own self, his own person, doing the things he wants, rather than what he believes the world wants from him. It is this inner contradiction that confuses him to no end, and is ultimately the cause of his every worry. Man feels the world owes him a justification, or at least an explanation, for his inner suffering, but in truth, the world is an inert mass of matter and energy only given meaning by the cogitations of the mind, and all hopes for ultimate, or absolute (objective and eternal), meaning are bound to end in tears. Until man accepts this fact of reality, he will continuously reach out to grasp what is not there, and develop false narratives for life, because they are counter to what he feels in his heart. To iterate, merely knowing the cause of your misery is not enough, you must wish to change it from within; a change in attitude must be adopted if you are to effectively treat the inner dread implicit within your life. And, in my case, believing in God (to return to the distinction between Emerson and Nietzsche for a moment)—so as to receive His grace and forgiveness and mercy and protection and everlasting life—has, in my view, never been a consolation for me.

I always preferred to think about life as an ascetic in times of joy, and a Nietzschean in times of sorrow (as like now). Joy is momentary, while sorrow is eternal; and so, I like to train myself for a loss, even if it should never come, because loss is the center of every heartache, and every aspect of life that is great is only so because we have overcome so much in order to experience it in the first place. Always keeping your mind on the potential disaster is what ultimately saves you from it. As Schopenhauer says, “There is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of Hell, and in confining one’s efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire.” This little room, I like to think, is our inner citadel, our own mind, through which everything passes, but through which nothing going through it shall convince us of the hopelessness of existence. I refuse outright, perhaps on principle, that life should be negated in order to avoid the inevitable suffering that every action in the world is destined to end in. In such moments, I truly look upon Nietzsche as the greatest man who ever lived, and adopt his life-view over Emerson’s transcendentalism and universality: Amor fati—love your fate, become who you were meant to be, and always love life in spite of its continuous misery and ultimate end. You must adopt the view that is most harmonious with your own soul; that is the only criterion that really matters.

There is no system, strategy, method, approach, or algorithm that one can provide so as to work every time in regards to questions of life. As I said earlier, life cannot be broken down and economized for the sake of fulfillment. It is a malicious disease of the mind, particularly the Western mind, to assume that analysis without synthesis is wise; that the greatest sign of intelligence is a man’s ability to simplify something, and then on making it simpler, solve it and cry victory—completely forgetting that in simplifying he effectively solved a completely different problem. That kind of approach may be effective in mathematics or physics, but life cares very little for your axioms, your boundary conditions, your spherical cows (only a physicist will understand that one). A “solution” to life found on the basis of simplifying its complexities, and then labeling that newfound approach the most certain way to “achieve happiness,” is an all too common way of approaching life; and it’s a shame really, because these people don’t know the kind of damage that thinking really does to their outlook or perspective overall. I have always thought it better for the individual to reflect on life endlessly for the sake of their own edification, rather than robbing themselves of that great reflection by merely accepting a quick fix, a fast solution, that in truth does more harm than good, for it is very situational and leads to no greater understanding. Take the chance to think for yourself, and come to your own conclusions about life only after you have thoroughly considered what your heart demands and what life philosophy is most in line with your soul. That is what I have taken from Nietzsche anyway.

As one could see, my admiration and study of these two men really knows no bounds. That picking up and reading was, without question, the most informative and transformational experience I’ve ever had in my life. Again, for a whole month after writing my dialogue, I practically lived day and night on Nietzsche and Emerson. It was all I did. I felt, at the time, in fact, that it was all I ever wanted to do. But, like all good things, they tend to sour the more and more you do them. And so, around the middle of October—I believe the 20th to be exact—after nonstop reading of Emerson and Nietzsche (since the 4th of September—I remember that because that’s when I finished the dialogue), I decided it was time to look for places where I could publish my writing. By this time—I should have mentioned earlier—I had already written many journal entries (extremely introspective and depressive in tone, but from the heart—which I took as a sign of their authenticity, and reason enough to release them to the world), as well as many aphorisms on life in the style of Nietzsche. I was extremely pleased with my writings at the time, maybe even a bit vain about them. I saw firsthand the effects my immersion in Emerson and Nietzsche had done for me, and I was overwhelmed! I didn’t think it was possible for me to write like that, but after a month of serious dedication, built, of course, on the foundation of all my previous readings and writings, I was able to come into my own, as they say, and really find the voice for which my soul yearned. My style was effectively a beautiful harmony of Emerson’s transcendental glory—poetic allusions, learned quotations, and various techniques on transitions between ideas while keeping the sentiment and main idea intact—and Nietzsche’s stupendous fire—a gesamtkunstwerk of feeling: throwing all caution to the wind and writing down the first idea that popped into my mind and rolling with it from that point forward. That was, I thought, the truest form of literary art imaginable; and, I think, in retrospect, my intuition was very correct. I learned not how to think, but how to write what I think in a manner more beautiful than the original thought itself; not only because I felt it was more honest to my heart, which it was, but because I thought that kind of writing was what people would like to read—purple prose all the way down! Where I went wrong, however, was to assume that I was to adopt that style of writing from that point forever after. All things in life change, and preferences in style, as well as influences overall, are no different. What one man likes one day he detests the next.

But back to the main point. On that fateful 20th of October, I was searching vigorously for the platform I thought was most suitable for my kind of writing. At first I considered Everything2, not only because I was familiar with it but because it had a large audience; I then considered Twitter, followed by 4chan, LinkedIn, and even YouTube (my thought process was to write essays and have a text-to-speech robot read it aloud and upload it—utterly ridiculous). At last, I found a website called Substack almost by accident. I’d never heard of it before, and thought it was just another no-name website for people to write on who were too lazy to make and market their own blog. Oh how wrong I was. Substack was, to my eyes when first looking at it, completely perfect. It had everything I thought a writer could want: a large enough user base, a simple interface, customizability, and reasonable policies. I was in heaven. I decided it was perfect and made my account the very next day—on the 21st of October. I was scared at first, considering I never wrote for an audience besides myself. What would people think? Would they like what I write? Would anyone appreciate what I have to say on any topic of my choosing; was there even an audience for the kind of writing I liked? So many doubts filled my mind in that moment, and I was petrified to the point of incapacity. “I don’t deserve to be read,” I thought to myself. But the very next thought said, “No, no… Joe, you’re alright. You’ve already done the work. You’ve proven yourself a writer of some skill. Naturally your audience will be small, but that’s okay: nobody read Schopenhauer for nearly 30 years while he was alive, very few read Emerson, and almost no one read Nietzsche. If these writers, who you already think far superior to yourself, found little attraction by the literati of their own time, why should you desire an audience at all? Worry not about this at all. Your audience will find you. You shouldn’t make demands on the public that you know full well they will never keep, and even if they could, would prefer authors who write about trivialities and nonsense rather than your serious, grave, almost melancholic reflections on life. Philosophers have never been widely read, except among themselves, and even then, that number was very inconsiderable. Simply write something from the heart. That is all you can do, and from there, hope that a few would be attracted either by your style or subject, and go from there.”

I thought this self-advice very prudent, and I was calmed by it. I knew very well what I was getting myself into, and I knew very well what had to be done if I was to be successful at it. This realization was a wake-up call for me. It really shattered my own conceit and humbled me before the world I was to enter. It seems, no matter how well-trained and prepared you are, you can never truly feel at home in your own mind until you realize what your mind is capable of; and this you can only know after you have stumbled many times when thinking. A writer is merely a thinker who puts his thoughts in ink. Without thoughts, there could be no reflection, and without that, no literature, history, philosophy, or humanity as a whole. The humanities themselves—as a discipline—are the entire collection of man’s past endeavors to express what was first sensed by the heart or mind. What would we as a species be without the Epic of Gilgamesh, Rigveda, Torah, or Analects? Humans are the ultimate creators, and it is our creations that give life its flavor. Without them, that is, art, life would be a mistake. It is art that sustains us and is ultimately what will save us all. Humans may die, but our hearts will live on. The messenger dies, but the message lives. That is why art is the most powerful idea man has: for with it in mind, he creates whole universes of his own and sustains his own life through them. With it, we become immortal.

Now that I was puffed up with confidence and compelled by the power of truth to write, I had to first give myself a name: what was I to name my very own Substack? This was actually the easiest part. My display name was to be my actual name in real life. I did so, if I may be honest, out of vanity: “If I was to become a famous writer on Substack,” I thought to myself, “I should like the public to know me by the name I would give publishers—my legal name—should I ever feel emboldened to publish a book.”

The name I was to give my publication, however, was another story. I had to seriously think about this one. I said to myself, “What writer did I most admire, not as a stylist or genius, but as a genuine writer and lover of good letters? Who wrote not for their own aggrandizement but for the public at large?” That was my number one priority: to be a writer on Substack who, with the full force of his mind, desired for his readers, and the public at large, to receive edification and enjoyment out of what he thought. My ideal writer was one who didn’t necessarily write the best, but who had the greatest tendency to improve the minds, attitudes, and morals of his readers. I was effectively evoking the spirit of a long-dead tradition among writers of the present—the moralist of old, specifically in the French vein. La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, Vauvenargues, Joubert, Chamfort, etc., were who I had in mind. Unfortunately, not knowing French—one of the most alluring and sweet-sounding languages ever—I was forced to read in translation which, for myself, always felt like cheating. The original, nine times out of ten, is always superior, for translations are only as good as the translators are themselves; and with every translation being a false interpretation, one can never truly feel the impact of the words when reading through a lens that is not your own: this is why I stress to anyone interested in becoming a powerful writer that they must be, first and foremost, an avid reader of the classics produced in their native language; and only after they have tasted all the fruits of their mother tongue can they with good conscience take up the challenge of learning a new language, and thus, a new culture.

Who, in the English language, wrote like that of the famous moralistes (French moralists)? I immediately called to mind one of my favorite writers in English, Samuel Johnson. He wrote perhaps the most famous dictionary of all time, certainly in English; and was a tremendous writer, known for his clarity and wit. His wit is actually the aspect of his writing that I admired most, for it was biting, but also extremely concise and profoundly erudite. But everything up until now has been a prelude, for Johnson was more than a good writer to me; he worked primarily as an essayist throughout his life, and I took a strong liking to all his essays, for they were moral in tone, almost self-help, and had a brevity that was unbeatable for its wit. Now—and here’s the good part—I particularly enjoyed the names of the periodicals he wrote under, three in all: The Rambler, The Idler, and The Adventurer. My brilliant idea was to combine two of them—The Rambler, The Idler. I had read every essay Johnson ever wrote, and found in the end that I wanted my Substack to be almost exactly like Johnson’s periodical essays: in a sense, and I admit it here, what I wanted to do with my Substack was effectively write weekly essays in the style of Samuel Johnson—now you know why he was more than just another writer to me. I wanted, in short, to be an essayist; someone people read with pleasure, and who could find not only a lot to agree with, but a lot to discuss and disagree with. And so, my initial conception was formed: I would be an essayist (primarily—for, of course, I would write other things) on Substack—and my name would be: The Idle Rambler. And so it was, my start as a writer was born. I really liked the name despite its lack of creativity, for it was the most honest one to my intentions, and I intend to keep it as long as I write.

It is now the 22nd of October. I have my name, I know my intentions, and now, I only need a path by which to direct my course. What was to be my first essay? This was actually easier than one would think for someone like myself, but I still somehow managed to make it an all-day affair. I had already formed what I thought to be a good strategy by which to get my name out there: I had a wealth of material lying idle in my Obsidian knowledge base, and I wanted it to go out into the world with the hope that people would be ensnared by my style, and stay for my wisdom: such a vain thing to think, but I thought I was good enough as a writer—I still do to an extent. What I did, before even writing my first essay, was to upload, as individual notes, all my aphorisms and journal entries. I thought for sure this would be enough to win my fame and glory: who could be so blind as not to see the genius on display in all my writings? If I recall correctly, all that material totaled to roughly 300 separate notes. For my efforts I received two likes. TWO! Only two… I was distraught immediately. There I was, hunched over like some naked mole-rat for three hours copying and pasting what I thought was written gold (and which took literal days to write out, for at that time I was writing by hand primarily), only to receive two likes. “Is that it. Does all my worth and effort, all my time and labor, only amount to two likes…” It’s funny in retrospect, but at the time my pride was badly hurt. I really thought I was the greatest writer of my age—I still do! lets not get it twisted—but to only receive two likes was mortifying. “If this is how I’m received by the public, then my essays shall surely suffer the same oblivion,” I thought to myself. After about an hour of serious doubt, for I was considering giving up right there and then, I soothed my misery by recalling all the past authors whom I loved, but who, like me now, were little read despite their own genius—the example of Nietzsche in particular came to me in full force. I resolved, afterwards, to continue with it all anyway, for it was still too early to make such a drastic decision.

Speaking of Nietzsche, it was he who I actually drew from when formulating my first essay series. I wanted to finish what Nietzsche never did: his initial series of thirteen essays (of which only four were complete) which he titled Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen (Untimely Meditations). Nietzsche ordered them as such: 1. The Cultural Philistine, 2. History, 3. The Philosopher, 4. The Scholar, 5. Art, 6. The Teacher, 7. Religion, 8. State War Nation, 9. The Press, 10. Natural Science, 11. Folk Society, 12. Commerce, and 13. Language.

I took these thirteen essays and renamed them as follows: 1. The Cultural Deprecator (finished 6:58 PM, 10/24), 2. On History (finished 11:59 PM, 10/25), 3. On Philosophy and Philosophers (finished 11:55 PM, 10/26), 4. On Scholars (finished 11:56 PM, 10/27), 5. On Art (finished 8:43 PM, 10/28), 6. On Teaching and Teachers (finished 9:05 PM, 10/29), 7. On Religion (finished 11:59 PM, 10/30), 8. On War and State (finished 11:56 PM, 10/31), 9. On the Press (finished 11:34 PM, 11/1), 10. On Science (finished 11:52 PM, 11/2), 11. On the Common Folk (finished 7:11 AM, 11/3), 12. On Economy (finished 11:58 PM, 11/4), and 13. On Language (finished 11:54 PM, 11/5).

As one could see, I was very ambitious, writing all of these consecutively without the slightest hesitation. If you want a picture of what my state of mind was during this time, allow me to quote myself:

I will finish what Nietzsche started! Remember, Joe, pages and word counts are just numbers; ideas may continue on as long as you have something to say! Length matters not. Shorter may be preferable. Don’t feel beholden to write 50-page essays as Wagner, Nietzsche, or Macaulay did. Only keep this in mind whenever writing: express the idea till you are satisfied with it, worry not about ornamentation or pomp, only ensure the style is engaging, inspiring, and great!

This was written to myself right before starting that first essay. I took it to heart.

This is a routine I came up with after finishing my first essay (The Cultural Deprecator), which I was very proud of:

I have sought greatness and have exalted myself among my idols; now I seek to inspire others in the same way. But to do this, I must set a consistent schedule to be followed, as I did over the previous four years. Set it down in stone—as if it were some Decalogue—as follows: Wake up, wash up, read for an hour, write an essay, think, be idle with thoughts, read for an hour, write another essay, if you cannot write the essay, read for an hour, attempt the essay again, if you still cannot write then read for an hour, exercise, shower, attempt the essay again, if you still cannot write then read for an hour, go to sleep while reading whatever rests on your nightstand. What a splendid little system I have concocted! Blessed are the laborers, idle thinkers, writers, artists, poets, essayists, and most of all the free spirits! How good life seems when labor brought to fruition has yielded what was expected! Amen.

This is more idyllic on the surface than at its core, for I quickly found out that life would not permit this sort of productive leisure forever. I wish I could hold to a routine such as this, but, try as I might, nothing ever comes out as planned. It’s a fact of life that, once swallowed, makes you better off in the end—there are fewer headaches and disappointments to deal with.

I should have also mentioned that my first essay written wasn’t The Cultural Deprecator (technically, even though it was the first in my series) but rather On Writing Introductions—an essay I wrote by accident; I was so scared to write on the theme in question that I decided, instead, to write a stream-of-consciousness essay to calm my nerves about writing: you must remember that I was still coming to grips with writing to a wider audience. I’m extremely happy to say, too, that that extemporal essay was first read by a woman who would go on to become not only my biggest fan, but my greatest friend. After writing my untimely meditations—which I went on to call An Idler’s Untimely Meditations, and which was two hours and thirty-three minutes of reading—I decided to upload, one after another, a series of quotations from all the authors I had read up until that point—it took four days. After that, I set my sights on honing my skills as a writer even further. I know not what demon entered into me and told me to write a commentary on Shakespeare’s first play—Henry VI, Part 1—but that’s more or less what I did. From the 19th of November to the 23rd of December, with a few miscellaneous writings in between, I wrote a 69,000-word commentary on Shakespeare, more or less giving my thoughts on every quote I found important. It was, without question, the most ambitious and longest work I’ve ever worked on continuously. After finishing it, I felt as if a heavy chain had been lifted off me. I could suddenly move again, and life was restored to me. I learned a lot about myself in doing something that difficult. My main takeaway was that I could in fact hang with the best and write very well over long time spans. However, as happy with it as I was, it wasn’t a week until I started chastising myself, once again, and demanding that I pick up the pen to write something, anything… it didn’t matter, I just felt I had to write. This turned into a rather serious self-torture mentally. I have never been able to rest on my laurels. I have always felt that I have to prove to myself that I can in fact remain consistent, and do good work even after a long (it was only a week) hiatus from writing. All this mental torture occurred on the 30th of December, which is quite fitting considering it was the end of the year.

I walked into 2025 quite confidently, but also much more humbly. I still hadn’t decided what I wanted to do with myself, and there were many things which I felt had to be done before I entered into any new phase of life, but which I feared would swallow me whole before ever getting to them. That fear of running out of time is always present in one who hasn’t achieved much material success in life, but who knows themselves to be far above the herd intellectually. There is a constant antagonism between the intellectual and the laborer. There is nothing but contempt in the intellectual for the laborer, simply because the laborer spends his time working for another, rather than for himself, after his own image, cultivating his real genius, as the intellectual does. It’s quite a tragic state—to think yourself superior to another man in order to soothe your hurt vanity—but that cannot be helped when one pursues an activity that is spiritually rewarding but materially destitute. Every writer and lover of culture must know what I refer to, but that is for another time.

I started this year by reading Plato. I took him up because I’d grown tired of my flamboyant, quixotic, utterly debilitating purple prose; I felt it was starting to become an insult to me—to write in such an uncouth manner. It was, in my view, the epitome of Jouissance—enjoyment for the sake of enjoyment. Le plaisir pour le plaisir. Oh, comme c’est merveilleux. [Pleasure for pleasure’s sake. Oh, how wonderful.] My model of style at this time was Schopenhauer, for I found in him the complete opposite of the rash Nietzsche or the highfalutin Emerson. He was brevity embodied. His style was closer to Goethe or Plato, which meant concise without being prolix or boring. After I had discovered that he studied Plato as a youth, I thought it best I read Plato to see if there was any influence or not, and there absolutely was. In my view, Schopenhauer’s charm and wit derive completely from Plato, and his depth and insight come strictly from Kant; everything else is his own, and this everything else is nearly infinite in magnitude, for he is an intellect of incalculable genius. I’m still in awe at how much knowledge and culture he had at his disposal. I view him as the last universal genius—the last man to know everything. He’s a hard idol to look up to, but one definitely worth aspiring to. If nothing else, Schopenhauer is funny, for he had such an easy command of everything that he was able to sprinkle a ton of humor into the deeply esoteric subjects he so thoroughly investigated, and advanced further than anyone before or since him. In many ways, I’m still under his spell, for while my love for him grew stronger, so too did the preciseness of my prose, which is exactly what I wanted.

I wrote a tremendous amount within a small period of time. From the start of January to the first week of March, I wrote long, philosophical, deeply self-critical journal entries practically every other day—some of my best compositions for sure. It was in that interregnum period (especially in February) that I truly found my voice as an author. In fact, the style I write in now is still very much after that concise, albeit sometimes prosaic, manner. I love what I’ve been able to achieve in my prose since the start of this year, and I feel it could never degrade unless I was to somehow lose my head in an accident; it’s so ingrained in my psyche, in fact, that I can produce it at will, causing me no more difficulty than walking or breathing; even if I was to suffer dementia, which is a very large possibility considering how little sleep I get, I feel I would still be able to perform it diligently—like an old codger who can barely walk, but who, upon listening to a tune from his childhood, suddenly ditches the cane and starts dancing, as if he never broke his hip.

I started studying Latin seriously on the 6th of March, for no other reason than I felt I had taken writing as far as I could, truly mastering my prose—or my own voice, rather—and getting it to a point of perfection that I felt was unsurpassable. That was the folly of youth speaking, however, for there is always more to improve upon, as I found later on; and even if there isn’t, there is always a refinement to be had, a method to be optimized, a quirk to fix, that could allow you to produce it more efficiently. At this point in time, I practically wrote nothing aside from my extemporaneous Latin exercises—my experimenta scripta (trivial little things that were refined and concise, but very difficult to write, for I didn’t have a command of the vocabulary or grammar; in fact, writing in Latin reminded me very much of my writing exercises back in kindergarten—I felt like a kid again, which was very nice). From March to the end of June, I was studying Latin and occasionally reading whatever book I happened to take a liking to on that day. On my birthday (the 29th), however, the friend I mentioned earlier—my first and dearest fan—asked me what my thoughts were on being a year older. I went into a long, rambling monologue about my life, my education, and what my hopes were for the future. That writing made me realize that my future was certainly to fall flat should I not use whatever culture and learning I had gathered these past five years to write a work that essentially incorporated every facet of human existence, told through my perspective. I effectively told her, before I exit the intellectual sphere of life and enter the active (“real world”) sphere of life, I want to put in a single tome all that I have gathered from my foray into the intellectual sphere, in a manner not unlike Schopenhauer’s Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung.

It was on the 4th of July, funnily enough, that I decided to write an outline of the contents that would be this tome—this magnificent, strictly existential system. It was nearly two weeks later (on the 17th at 3:45 PM) that I decided on what the title would be (which I give here for the first time publicly): The World as Becoming and Perception. I wanted the influence of Schopenhauer to be very obvious, and I hope it will shine throughout in the work itself. In preparation for this work, I first had to familiarize myself with how systematic philosophical structures were created. I decided, after long deliberation, that three men in particular had to be read and studied by me meticulously if I was to understand how one approaches the construction of a system as if an architect: Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Hegel—I also thought it best to reread some of Nietzsche’s more philosophical works (Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morality in particular), because he too was extremely influential on my thought. My reasoning was thus: Schopenhauer will teach me metaphysics; that is, how to think about the questions of existence after Kant. Kierkegaard will teach me how the Hegelian dialectic is used when discussing existential concepts. Hegel will teach me the dialectical method; that is, how to affirm and negate what it is I think about existence—or more rightly put, how to structure experience. And Nietzsche (in rereading him) will teach me the evaluative method; that is, how to affirm the structures or narratives of existence that provide me with a ground for meaning and willing. As one could see, I had thought about all this very well in advance of actually reading the great men.

I started with Schopenhauer’s Die Welt on the 6th of July, but stopped midway on the 26th to read Kierkegaard’s Either/Or—for I found Schopenhauer too demanding to read cover to cover in one fell swoop. I did, however, manage to read all of Either/Or cover to cover in exactly three weeks (for Kierkegaard was a more enjoyable writer, albeit less technical), finishing on the 16th of August. Between the 17th and 24th, I wrote out in a Word doc all the notes I took by pencil in the margin of Either/Or, while at the same time listening to Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morality as audiobooks on times-two speed. From the 25th of August to the 5th of September, I read and finished Schopenhauer’s Die Welt, and then two days later wrote out the notes for them. I ordered Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit from Amazon on the 3rd of September, and it arrived on the 10th—which was actually quite unfortunate, because that happened to be, unironically, one of the craziest days in the history of the world, especially in America; I felt palpable signs of providence, as if the zeitgeist itself was made manifest as a result of me buying and receiving the very book that set out to show, through undeniable reason, that the spirit continuously moves forward, as reason and the conscious subject interact and sublate one another as they move towards the absolute, the supreme understanding of all things: God. But that is neither here nor there. I fell into a slight depression by all the news, tethered with an indomitable demotivation and utter exhaustion from all the reading and writing I had been doing for two months at that point. I didn’t read Hegel until the 20th of September, and ultimately finished the Phenomenology of Spirit on the 5th of October, as well as writing out all the notes I took on it the same day—which was significantly less than the others, for by that time I was already well acquainted with Hegel’s entire project, and thus found little to comment on. All the notes I wrote out were then edited, compiled, and uploaded to Substack on the 24th of October, under the title A Prelude to a Future Philosophy, which was a variation on the subtitle to Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, that is: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future.

At this point, one would think I was finished. But I always have a tendency to overprepare for things I’m deeply invested in. After absorbing as much philosophy as I could, I still felt there was one area that was important for me to study, but which I found nothing in the books I had read thus far, that being Economics. As a result, I decided on the 1st of November to read the first volume of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. I finished it on the 13th, taking no notes, for I found Marx’s writing so clear, and his thoughts on economics so similar to my own, that every concept found its place instantly in my mind and little had to be wrestled with.

I also thought, quite prudently, that it would benefit me if I read the foundational text of all existential literature (as well as the first autobiography in the Western canon), Confessions by Saint Augustine. I started it on the 14th and finished ten days later, on the 24th of November, at 7:18 AM. This text, I found as I was reading it, would become dear to me, for the subject matter spoke its own importance, and the issues treated in it spoke to my soul personally; all of it resounded with true humanity, and was so elegantly written I was moved almost to tears at some of the passages. It truly is one of the greatest pieces of literature I’ve had the fortune to read.

Again, everything in it was spoken through the perspective of a single man, a single existence, and every trial and tribulation was seen through the eyes of one person and felt by one soul. It was actually in finishing the Confessions that I had a revelation of sorts when it came to my own existence, which I decided, in the end, to make the central point of my life philosophy going forward: that everything in reality has to be treated from the perspective of a single individual only. It’s not exactly new, for Kierkegaard already discovered this 200 years ago, and Schopenhauer treated his concept of the Will as this metaphysical, monistic substance that pervades all things—which ultimately became the essence of his whole system; that is, what every explanation had to be subordinate to. But I decided, as an existentialist philosopher par excellence, that what all things bow down to in the end is not will but me—the subject. Everything perceived is as it appears to the subject—albeit not as defined under Idealism—and this is the only objective reality there is for man to know. Man can only claim to be knowledgeable of his existence the moment he recognizes this fact. But all this must come later, when I actually begin work on my system of philosophy.

This has been, to the best of my ability, a general overview of everything that has happened to me since starting my Substack. Overall, it has been a great first year—filled with many ups and downs and everything in between—and I look forward to many more in the future, for I want nothing more than to write about life for the rest of my life, and hopefully gather a little audience to please and share my thoughts with throughout it all. It has been my pleasure to relate all this to you, and I hoped you enjoyed it.

Here’s to another year! Cheers, everyone!