Miscellanea Upon Life
some scribblings written over a two day period when I found the time for them
Day 1
Let not this foolish attempt be taken as genius, for it is anything but. The poet knows his place and cares not for the consistency of his steps. If the thoughts appear disjointed, cramped—odd even—then all the better. It is his truest self: maximus bonum pro omnia aetatis. That which demands his attention vanishes like a shadow—an allegory for life—only to be replaced by a greater truth his mind naturally discerns. To be unashamed in occupying your time with the noblest thoughts—this is the mark of those who seek truth. Not truth imposed, but truth that arrives unbidden, born of passion emanating from the heart, comprehended by the intellect, and revered by mankind for its honesty.
Perhaps I have been too eager to share my thoughts with the world, neglecting genuine reflection. A man does not choose to be a writer; rather, thoughts arrive in their most raw and childlike form, compelling his pen. The heart moves, the mind organizes, and the page preserves. O mighty page! Loyal scroll, ancient vellum, hardened clay, petrified bamboo—you are the keepers of our deeds, our lives, our culture. Has there ever been a greater freedom than this?
If I could let men see the world through my eyes for but a moment, I would show them the depths of my soul and teach them to cherish the simple acts of thinking and being present—to cast aside the trivialities that swarm the mind, stripping men of liberty and reducing them to debased mediocrity. They become like stone golems, automatons devoid of humanity, unaware of how to reclaim it.
Too often, a thinking mind paired with a loving heart leads to sorrow. I wish you could see the world as I do—yet to assume another’s perspective brings happiness is folly. This very delusion is what makes men weep.
We fancy ourselves alike, believing universal peace possible if only pettiness were abandoned. This is false. Man is not made for contentment; his path is strewn with obstacles and impossible choices he would rather avoid. He would forfeit life itself to evade decisions that ultimately signify nothing.
Hopes—heard or unheard—change nothing. Thrown into life without consent, we must play our hand, willing or not. It is not enough to sit content in armchairs while the world passes by. No! The time for action is now. The very air sings of it. All converges to let life’s vibrancy shine with unparalleled splendor.
Man arranges his life for serenity, not adventure. He would let years slip by without questioning his meaning or service. Worse, he fails to reflect deeply enough to even recognize the problem. Thus, thirty years pass—empty, barren, cold, confused. No words suffice to describe the anguish of this hollow purpose. The purpose was never his; therein lies the tragedy.
If man is to discover meaning, he must seek it within himself—and remember that the search itself is the purpose. The continual sifting of past experience may reveal that spark which so moves his heart that all prior time, spent on magna vanitas, becomes straw. The search—that is all.
That is the common thread linking the intellectual to the layman. The layman's advantage lies in not fully grasping the difficulty of the endeavor; the intellectual's, in finding contentment solely within himself. Yet there's mystery in the phrase "it really is"—what does this imply about the layman? It suggests he seeks meaning like a blind man, unaware of his own individuality, mistaking meaning-making for hedonism. Whatever brings pleasure is praised, and this pleasure is confused with meaning. Like a child who views immediate gratification as the summum bonum—and, like most childish notions, this is wrong—he fails to consider consequences. Herein lies the core problem: meaning cannot be rooted in endless cycles of euphoria. These peaks lose their luster over time, much like youth, becoming mere diversions rather than substance.
The layman must examine himself closely, taking stock of all that has transpired in his days. I've found only through willful contemplation—active thinking—can man comprehend his true aims. Earlier, I asserted that projecting one's personal good onto all humanity is folly, for the world is not dichotomous but multifarious. We inhabit a dynamic universe of perspectives, languages, cultures, experiences, and presuppositions. We are perspectival beings, independent in our subjectivity yet interdependent as a species. We are simultaneously limited and limitless.
The inner self rebels against conformity. The heart rings liberty's bell the moment oppression appears. Truth emerges only through constant struggle—with the world and with oneself—revealing identity in the most unassuming moments. What becomes instantly recognizable is ultimately truth itself. Suddenly, without shame or hesitation, you glimpse peace. What was vague or even nonexistent is at last grasped, and man is improved.
There are finite ways to reach the same fundamental truth, yet infinite paths to walk there—this multiplicity creates the illusion of difficulty. In reality, all existences, wretched or noble, converge at the same point; they merely wear different guises. If so, why fret over details? Since all roads lead home, why not seize life and begin your self-discovery? The most liberating existence is one free of conflict, both internal and external. Truth resides within—a fact known to all who dare think for themselves about life.
To think for yourself is to be comfortable with the truth of your own conclusions. Too often, the question of the good life becomes entangled in analytical thinking, nonsensical syllogisms, and pompous thought experiments. The crisis of the modern world is man's inability to justify his own existence. Since Kierkegaard's time, nihilism has advanced relentlessly across the world—so successfully that entire generations now adopt positions on life and culture that scream of NOTHING! There is nothing, and all attempts at purpose are vain—one might as well embrace Mainländer's conclusions and remove oneself from the world. But I digress too hastily.
It is not that there is nothing in the world, but rather that everything represents this emptiness—blurry images obscuring what might be seen, making the unappealing plausible through the fog. The rigorous, scientific approach to life is not entirely unreasonable; its success, after all, enabled its global dominance. Yet I must point out why such an approach to meaning inevitably ends in tears and wasted time. To state the obvious feels almost obligatory in modern life, given how many wander blindered—vainly ignoring the abyss at their core.
The problem is our conceit in attempting to justify life analytically. Life is a proposition that justifies its own conclusion. There is no non-circular justification. Recall: it all comes down to perspective. Perspective and value form existence's foundation. Life hangs by an invisible thread, upon which all existence depends. This demure, stoic description of vanity manifests so plainly that its obviousness borders on audacity. I hereby resign from pointing out the obvious, leaving that task to more analytical minds who enjoy debunking what any perceptive person can discern.
Through becoming and unbecoming, opposition and freedom, ease and labor, one gathers enough rare experiences to distinguish what is useful. Yet, as so often in life, exceptions prove the rule. Life glides past serenely—until it doesn't. One might conclude that doing nothing is best, and I'm tempted to endorse the life of a stone—Schopenhauer's ideal of resignation and asceticism. But I've indulged my contemporaries enough; besides, the page runs short.
Viewed objectively, life is a transient performance whose final act earns not even crickets' applause. Yet it suffices to affirm it anyway—to seek the truly good for its own sake. One needs only eyes to see what lies hidden in experience's well.
My urge has been restrained too long. I can no longer watch my thoughts pass unexamined. Yesterday I declared my pen silent too long; today, something within me has shifted. The desire to share my feelings now seems pointless. I don't write for future eyes—these words are air, sea foam. Let them be born but die neglected. I write now only to discern my own feelings, to understand what stirs this soul, and what my future self might admire.
How much longer it takes for words to achieve beauty when written by hand! I begin to suspect I'm not prolific but lucky—fortune-born of past suffering. Approach your work without shame, and the results will seldom disappoint. Writing demands only consistency and diligence. If a man must spill a thousand words before striking gold, so be it—his labor yields magnificence. Not every pen stroke need be beautiful; it depends on subject and audience. Every author suffers some audience capture, but the best write as if alone. True art springs only from souls thinking noble thoughts—and from authors who've yet to discover why they write.
I write this hoping one day to be read without the fanfare of "a man of letters." What meaning has that title in our confused, backward age—so illiterate and tasteless? I don't despise modernity; I simply find few who care for what I care about, fewer still who write without falsehood. Today's ideas in writing come either from apes or their apprentices. Rare are those who can captivate a reader; rarer, those who enlighten.
Every noble idea is first born in shameless sensation. The images that dance through the mind at the mere description of an everyday object contain enough potential to birth ten thousand words. My goal is to be both aesthetically flawless and profoundly simple. Diction becomes the devil when its demons are not proportioned to the power of the sentiment expressed. Some words are never meant to be read. A writer must accept this truth: that months may be wasted in vain searches for perfect experiences or readymade expressions.
Yet being the creature I am—a foolish misanthrope with a penchant for desultory writing—I find the perspectival nature of existence makes advice-giving exceedingly difficult. Shouldn't advice be like algebra? The key to great writing should be as simple as "two plus two makes four." But this cannot be! Man responds to reason only when his immediate circumstances are addressed. Grand systems and universal explanations lie on their deathbeds. Modern man is fundamentally a subjectivist—not a relativist, but a thinking being hurled into existence as if shot from a cannon. We encounter new vistas daily, shaped by perspectives we never dreamed possible, to the point where we've reverted to our most primitive modes of thought.
Rather than adopting or ignoring positions we deem bizarre, we take pride in having our existing views affirmed by like-minded individuals. Thus every man's judgment is predicated on finding support for his own reasoning. Thus we lament this wretched state—confused by our willful misunderstanding of others. "Man today cannot be himself without criticism," I often hear. So be it. Let posterity judge our actions. Why should strangers dictate our happiness? The death of self-reflection has caused this misery. Were modern man to truly examine his psyche, to see himself as he is rather than as he's told to be—I suspect he'd agree his previous notions were wrong. The only way to navigate our progressive, rich, and life-affirming age is to embrace all experience, to entertain strange ideas (if only briefly), and to tolerate whatever eases one's passage through life.
Too often we fixate on what contradicts our reason rather than accepting life's ultimate truth: that all is uncertain, that every thought contains unreason, and that a time comes when reason must be discarded and feeling embraced fully—as history has always shown.
Our anguish springs from trying to rationalize the irrational. We seek to name our feelings but lack the vocabulary—for their essence remains elusive, their influence inexplicable. Reductionism is DEAD! This is the 21st century, and old frameworks crumble—or so they claim. Traditional wisdom has lost its savor. New eras demand new approaches, fresh ways of revealing the inner self. The human psyche is boundless, as is its capacity for love. Like flowers blooming after nature's oppression, our love blossoms and transforms our perception.
The writer concerned with ideas must become a philosopher—for we are all philosophers, but only writers consciously examine those fleeting moments that form experience's building blocks. These moments shape us, become us, manifest through us, overwhelm us, absorb us, and ultimately are transformed by us.
Modern man is condemned to individualism amid competing interests. His survival depends on tolerating alien values, placating false personas that care nothing for him—all amidst the drudgery of our sterilized, systematized world. The sole cultural universal is our shared confusion about life—precisely what drives him mad. The self craves unfettered expression, yet society dictates "do this, not that." There's no escaping this contradiction: that our subjective existence, bound to inexplicable values, must endure the zeitgeist's lash.
I would never systematize this—no! That very impulse is a modern falsehood alien to my heart. To passively accept our system's life-denying aspects is a sin against individuality. The conservative rejection of new values that offer hope to an exploited generation is perfidious. The solution lies within, but some cannot face their own being, stranded on wretched shores in violent storms.
I suffer because my subjectivity disallows others theirs. Happiness dwells both in the self and in the joy we give others.
It is not in subjectivity alone that man finds fulfillment, but the desire to find fulfillment can only arise in the recognition of one's own individual subjectivity. Man is condemned to know himself and restrain himself if he is to coexist with the rest of the world. The positive aspect of life is that it can be lived in enjoyment at all. I do not understand why misery cannot be fundamental while still allowing man to experience moments of joy within it. Joy need not be eternal for meaning to be found in the fleeting moment of forgetful bliss. We dance with the specter of death every second, yet this does not weary us while we live, nor does it prevent us from living altogether. Man must always live in contradiction to the principles he affirms. I do not believe in nationality alone. One shall not subsist on reasoning indefinitely. In fact, I sometimes think we confuse the propositions of eudaimonology with scientific claims—as if the questions pertaining to living and believing are the same as empirical hypotheses. They are not. We must embrace concepts that transcend us if we are to gain deeper insight into the mysteries upon which rationality alone cannot shine a light.
Life is forever a process of becoming—an eternal recurrence and activity for the sake of the self and the culture at large. There is no truly independent individual. There is only a continuous caring and uncaring for innocuous events; exposures to the common sentiments and fragilities of mankind from which our own understanding of the world arises. From whence did our lingua patria come? Surely not from our own minds, but rather from what we have encountered in living—from those we have conversed with, loved, heard, sung with, laughed, cried, eaten with, played, and slept beside. These are the aspects of life that shape us, and we cannot appeal to reason alone in analyzing them. In such analysis, we lose the very part that compelled us to think such thoughts in the first place; and in that moment, we forfeit a magnificent power, a great grandeur, the beauty of life that arises only in the spontaneous recognition of the poetic impetus.
In this context, the beauty of life becomes my justification—the poetic impulse brings order to the chaotic nature of my thoughts, which at first are disjointed and irrational. The need to feel rational at all times is the greatest mistake modernity has bestowed upon humanity. I want it no longer! I do not want rationality. I seek a meaning that brings comfort, peace, and inspiration to both the thinking mind and the feeling heart. I believe the only way to achieve this in the present age is to become perennial—to be encyclopedic and all-encompassing. To know all things is to experience every great thought ever conceived. Yet it is not enough to experience; one must embody! Every idea must become intuitive to the mind, finding its place within the soul and standing organized and unashamed before the world. Our justification is the beauty of life itself. I desire an aesthetic theory! My life now yearns for nothing but the truest style of literary beauty possible—one that encompasses all human experience: theology, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.
The man who attempts to unify reason with the undesirable, the ineffable, is bound to drive himself insane. In modern thought, it seems impossible for man to think something without feeling a sense of emptiness within it. It appears dead to him if, for some unsettling reason, he lacks justification for his beliefs, as though that were what truly mattered. We must cease justifying on all conceivable grounds everything we hold dear. Love is not contrary to reason. In fact, the compulsion to rationalize is a cultural prejudice stemming from the Enlightenment, the success of science, and the relentless validation of the scientific method. We impose it upon all facets of life, even where it does not belong, conflating its success in one domain with another. It is a shame I must even approach this topic in a rational, systematic manner. You see, even here my freedom is constrained, for the modern mind cannot think in allegory, imagery, or metaphor—only in reason, fact, evidence, and wretched syllogism.
Like King Lear, I am determined to resist the present in whatever way I can. This world cannot continue on its current path unless a profound change—spiritual and intellectual—occurs. It would be my greatest honor to be considered a lone voice in the void, striving with every fiber of my being to awaken those who cry, "Gone are the days of rationality alone!" Instead, let this be our guiding thought: "How are we to improve the world around us without sacrificing freedom or self-respect?" The thoughts and understandings of man are too disparate to permit any hope of universal self-respect. There are too many competing interests to assume that a single, dominant cultural hegemony will endure beyond a century. At best, we may enjoy a quarter-century of splendor and culture—only to see it shattered by war, revolution, misfortune, or some combination of the three. Life, like history, knows no consistency. The only consistency they exhibit is their inconsistency.
It is difficult enough to organize masses of people to uphold civilization. How can we expect them to reflect critically on their lives when their capacity for thought is eroded by constant worry and toil? Not everyone can become a poet, and merely extolling self-reliance and hard work will doom them to perpetual mediocrity, confusion, and misery. It is not their struggle that renders them hopeless, but their lack of means to change their mindset. They have no alternative lens through which to view the world—and so they wander a hall of mirrors, seeking a new perspective but always returning to their own lost selves. They know no other way, and so they resign themselves to the status quo, trudging miserably down life’s path, forever adrift. So it is—but let this not be eternal.
Man must change. Man was born to change, and so it happens that he acquires a kind of confidence not seen within him in a long time. This is the hope of aesthetic reflection. It is to desire a change in the mind of the individual for the better—for his upliftment, and for his future peace and hope. We cannot allow ourselves to be beholden to the present circumstance of our life.
It becomes necessary at every point in man’s life to adopt a set of facts that relate precisely to his condition, and which ameliorate whatever suffering is caused thereof. The individuality of man—his individual nature and power of activity (both in mind and body)—must be given free rein to acquire whatever it is he desires at the moment he conceives of the design. Now, obviously, there are limits to man’s will, whether by law, nature, or custom—but it is enough to allow the faculty of the mind to actively reason about various potential states of being for the sake of planning and organizing toward their eventual fulfillment.
It is in this fulfillment that his power desires. This power, in turn, brings about his greater potential and future thought. From here, it is only a matter of time before the thought consumes him completely—and all the rest of his days are spent desiring to inspire the same sentiment in others. “What is this thought?” you say. The thought of a better future, born out of the desire to overcome your present self.
For the sake of humanity, it is necessary for man to adopt a mode of thought that allows him to see what is beautiful in the mundane, and what allows him to become sympathetic with all the rest of mankind. The division between man’s self and the world at large is his greatest tragedy. To become yourself in the world, you must move out of your own way; this, however, is asking much of the world—and so, you must find a way that allows you to move through the world as if you were the cause of its meaning.
It matters not if by will or luck you actually acquired the Archimedean lever. The important thing is to act as if you had grasped the lever, as if you were the initial cause. Pragmaticism goes hand in hand with the presuppositions of modern man. What is the norm is accepted as good by no other reason than it being contemporary. What we consider good is that which time has bestowed upon our era—and we, like children, merely accept it on the force of authority, or on the fear of punishment that not accepting it would bring upon us.
Here lies our greatest burden. We live in a world which does not want us to become our own person, because to do so brings about an empowerment of self which has the tendency to inspire others to do the same. Take existence on first principles, and quickly discover the truth: the system man currently finds himself in is not conducive to his own expression, his own power, his own self-improvement.
The only solution to the problem of individuality is to structure yourself—or the society you inhabit—towards the critical reflection of your miseries so that they may gain no foothold on your life, and to provide every individual the means by which to live a fulfilled life. When labor alone does not afford the common man his bread and property, to say nothing of his family, he must either live without the world (as Thoreau did), or bring about change within it (as Marx did). The decision you make will determine whether you're an intellectual or a revolutionary—and some, like myself, happen to be both.
Perhaps it is better to become a poet and prophet of your own existence than a mere cog within the grand machine of modernity. If I am to find myself, it is necessary I do whatever is in my power: to cling to the Earth, hold myself closer to the grass, become more loving and understanding toward my fellow man, appreciate the beauty of the mundane around me, breathe the crisp air with a bit more appreciation, value my friendships more, and continue to thank fortune for all the good health I have.
I should hug my parents a bit more, and be grateful for every misfortune—for they are the greatest builders of character. One must welcome all that comes to them in life with a kind of openness only found in the hearts of living people. The duty is hard, the commandments brutal—nearly impossible, in fact—but I must not fail.
My meaning is just as dependent on the Turk, Chinaman, and Jap as on myself. My neighbor deserves as much love as I give myself, and my failure is no road back to my future actions. My poetic muse demands me to sing to all the people of Earth, in all modes of speech and language, so that they too may become people of the Earth, and together work a greater sphere of influence that transcends national boundaries—and rather hopes to make everyone a deep appreciator of nature, themselves, and their fellow men.
Individuality is the ultimate double-edged sword, because while it is the primary idea most people are exposed to (that isn’t nihilistic economic materialism or pure pessimism), when it’s too readily adopted without its deeper significance understood, it can lead to a narrow-minded view of cooperation that tends to serve only the self, rather than the whole. In this manner, it’s also the ultimate paradox.
Individuality is powerful for the same reason any noble idea is: its adoption has visible effects upon the world that are positive in their outcome. The trouble is that one can only develop it from within—and therefore, any hope to further it by means of inspiring others with it is nigh impossible. Everyone must desire it at the same time; otherwise, you may as well read poetry to a deaf man. Religions are successful for exactly that reason: they proselytize only to the most vulnerable.
I say we should do something similar, but instead of inspiring others with the hope of an afterlife, we inspire them with the hope of a better tomorrow, in the real world we are all forced to share—so that we may leave this life knowing that our time was spent building something better for the future ages.
We need not be selfless while at the same time being selfish. This is the ultimate dialectic of our time. Our best life is spent pursuing those things we most value, but those things have no justification beyond the pleasure the pursuit of them gives us. Is this a reason? No! But it doesn't matter, for the proposition is not one that concerns itself with logic alone.
The sooner we realize that life is not a syllogism that requires us to hold to certain logical propositions for the sake of consistency, the better.
Life is but a value judgment played upon the representations of our mental sensations. To me, it is good enough to pursue logic only to the ends that it is useful. When one takes reason to realms that are by their nature subjective, or have no possibility of being advanced in the use of it, it is incumbent upon the individual to approach it with a new frame of mind.
I disavow reason not because it is useless or doesn't have its place, but rather because it feels the need to prostitute itself in front of everyone as the only game in town when it comes to existential questions. True philosophy is bound up in the question of existence. Emerson, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Cioran, and Schopenhauer have all proved this to me beyond reasonable doubt. I feel it is the only question that matters in philosophy. God, universals, ethics, love, aesthetics, and poetry are nothing compared to it—because they are all contained in it.
It has been the fundamental question since the instant man lost his assurance in the divine. The second it was concluded that the propositions of religion were counter to reason, man was faced with two dreadful decisions: reject reason or reject God. The philosophy of Nietzsche was what happens when you reject God; and Kierkegaard, when you reject reason. It's no wonder, then, why both had extraordinary prose styles—they had transcended the sterile university approach of lecturing and speaking. Rather, like ancient bards singing of the rising sun, they had hopes of awakening within their readers something tremendous, something that equaled love in its power and overcame it in its influence—that of self-realization, that of affirmation, that of empowerment.
In essence, it was a way to acquaint modern man with the new situation he finds himself in. This paradigm shift is precisely what brought about the crisis of the modern world. Man today is just as hopeless as he was two hundred years ago on this question, and I have felt it my duty to bring the full collection of human wisdom to bear upon it, for the sake of investigating what methods and approaches work best.
I understand full well that every meaning crisis is necessarily first-person, and therefore impossible to provide a formula for its solution. But, if Hegel is any example—for I truly consider him the last encyclopedic scholar, that is to say, a man who hoped to encompass all of human knowledge in a single framework—it is necessary for modern man to develop a framework that is encyclopedic, that encapsulates all that the individual cares about.
Life is a task of continuous commitment. It is a process of becoming. It is an adventure that calls upon all those who live. And it demands the requisite attention to its needs, and at all times requires you to be present and aware of your circumstances.
Often is such common wisdom heard, agreed upon, and immediately ignored the next second—which is precisely why it must be repeated until the end of time. For it is within man’s nature to focus on the immediate circumstances of his existence rather than the future of the species to which he belongs. Thus, history and its fruits belong to all people equally—and the wisdom of philosophy is perhaps in no better time than now to serve as a light to illuminate the world at large. May it guide us through this crisis of the modern world.
Energy requires its release in whatever manner it can manage to come upon. Let it not pass away or die in sloth, but make good of every opportunity it gives. The world demands it of you. You are more powerful than you think. Live on, and you shall live forever. The pen dances, and the page is glad you made the sacrifice. Every idea is the birth of a new world, and you are like a god in the act of so great a creation.
Listen to yourself. Don't think—but feel! The world, and the whole subjective experience of this accidental being, yearns to be used and made great in the use of it. “The used key is always bright,” says Franklin, and so too is the mind that thinks. The more one thinks, and struggles with his inner self, the more we can expect to hit upon a few useful ideas.
The scale of thought is made in proportion to how complex or confusing the initial idea is. Often, the more complex, the more is required for its explication—thus, more writing. Endless writings, forever writing, never ending, and always without contentment in what was previously written. The heart rebels against this and feels it cannot be true. O, it is, and always will be. I say no—and no again. But this does nothing to hide the vanity of the attempt.
We attempt many things, all for them to end in success or failure. But why do anything at all if, in the end—whether successful or not—it all returns to the miserable reality of this whole phantom? The world is my phantom, my illusion, my... representation.
The idealists have always known the true essence of existence—that it all leads us to that troubling affirmation: all is but mental, and never truly physical; what we see is but a faculty working every second to make comprehensible what, at heart, is a mirage, a meaningless nothing at the bottom of it. All this is very grim, but the reaper cares not for our facts or reasons.
Justifications never seemed so far, yet we tell ourselves stories that make what is unreachable appear at hand. Isn't this whole business, at bottom, just reasons we tell ourselves? I fear it is. But fear is unreasonable if all is mental, right? Wrong! Nightmares are illusions, yet they are still felt—and wake us from slumber as if they were occurring to us in the representational world of consciousness.
The whole idea of rejecting experience merely on the grounds that it is a product of the mind completely ignores the reality of phenomenology—what it is like to be an experiencing being. One confuses ontology with lived experience when they do that. One can be an idealist and still affirm material reality. It only needs to be done knowing that the world at large (the phenomenal world) is only an interpretation—a subjective one that is different for all people—and that the world as it really is (the noumenal world, the world that materialists believe is actually before them) is but a product of my interpretative faculties.
Now granted, this begs the question, as it's not justified on any other grounds aside from the experience of it, along with the continuous validation it has from others agreeing about what we collectively see. But, like Nietzsche, I think it nonsensical to demand a reason for something that is at its core subjective—that is, by its very nature dependent on an interpretation from a subject.
The pragmatist will say, “Why bother with this noumenal nonsense—if it can't be investigated, why logic-hop to its existence?” I will say: so long as we are beholden to our interpretations of the world, all remains illusory. And at that point we begin to logic-chop and split hairs on which definitions and concessions we are to make for the sake of furthering the investigation. But in truth, those are all value judgments themselves, which limit and restrict what can and cannot be assumed.
I think it's important to remember also that all philosophical discussions hang upon intelligibility, language, and mutual understanding of the concepts discussed if they are to be productive. But again, everything is a value judgment, and its validity rests upon that alone.
We are all perspectivists whether we like it or not. Not relativists, as we are so consistently misrepresented as, but perspectival beings—who do not say that all positions are equal, but rather that all synthetic propositions (claims about phenomenal reality) are true insofar as they have been interpreted by us and have been considered conducive to our well-being.
In a sense, truth becomes pragmatics—but it's given a more rigorous definition by its inclusion of the concept of interpretation. Thus, idealism and pragmaticism merge into one when epistemology is considered. And this is really the most powerful aspect of idealism: that it allows one to affirm aspects of nature that a strict correspondence theorist or foundationalist will forever be unable to attain—because their systems are too rigid and cannot account for the strange nature of perspective. They treat it as irrelevant, and that is a big problem in a world bound in subjective interpretation.
One must recall that the validity of a claim is dependent upon the system you use to analyze it. Notice, again, how we always return to the nature of philosophical discourse itself—which presuppositions do we hold onto or discard for the sake of framing our philosophical investigations? It all returns to perspective!
I suspect the reason materialism (or, more accurately today, physicalism) remains the dominant ontology within the zeitgeist is because its initial expounders were among the worst writers in the history of philosophy. Berkeley hardly warrants a mention, for while he is the father of modern idealism, he is little read—overshadowed as he was by Locke—and though his writing was clear, it can be suspected that he didn’t truly have a full grasp of his own ideas.
Next came, unfortunately for mankind, Kant—the all-destroyer, as Moses Mendelssohn dubbed him—who sought to overcome the skepticism of Hume by affirming the concept of synthetic a priori categories. That is to say, more or less, that the perceptual apparatus (the mind) has, prior to experience, the capacity to perceive experience at all. This is a concept initially propounded by Leibniz in his theory of apperception—what we today call meta-consciousness, or the self-awareness of one’s own cognition.
Sadly, despite Kant having more or less settled the nature of experience as an eternal dichotomy between subjective perception and the external world, he did so in a manner so confounding and dense—every idea pieced together atom by atom without the slightest consideration for style—that even his friends, who were professional philosophers, had almost no real understanding of what he was saying.
Thus, the world is doomed to forever understand Kant either through summaries by professional philosophers—who get paid to read him—or by laypeople who only know of his ideas via Philosophy 101 courses or from textbooks that hardly illuminate. All is not lost, however, since YouTube does contain a surprising amount of high-quality content on Kant. Unsurprisingly, I would say—considering that he, alongside Marx, Hegel, and Nietzsche, is one of the most misunderstood philosophers in history.
Kant’s reputation is probably assured in the history of philosophy for the rest of time on account of his flabbergastingly detailed expositions. He thought he was turning metaphysics into a science; in reality, he turned it into a circus.
Despite the contempt I hold for Kant’s prosaic and prolix style, one would be a fool to deny that he was a mind of amazing subtlety—seeing problems where most didn’t even know they existed, and showing the consistency of one truly in command of himself.
May transcendental idealism soon overtake the minds of all thinking people, for it is nearest to truth.
Day 2
I had no idea I was so well known in the world: to forever live in the minds of people who know nothing about me, yet feel the need to opine on my motives and character based on a single instance—so short and innocuous in nature—that they could be considered prophets. This single instance seems proof enough to me that the lives of the average person are so bankrupt and empty that what inspires their hearts is a minor offense (not even criminal) against their property.
It would seem they have associated their identity and self-worth with a mere abstraction—that of ownership. Marx was right: entitlement will always be the first thing to feel under assault when a person’s labor affords them an object of perceived value that, in their view, was disgraced by another’s actions.
This is destructive but regrettably understandable reasoning. Our system bankrupts our minds and then replaces all the lost assets with a new kind of asset—one that is itself meaningless. It’s pointless consumerism all the way down.
I really wonder, with deep heart and open mind, what level of atrocity and misery must be dealt upon the Earth before humanity at large wakes up to the fact that dogmatic convictions of religious faith will only drag us into deeper misery and degradation. It is the stupidest aspect of humanity to mistake belief for goodness, and sincerity for virtue. All lies have some aspect of truth in them that makes their defense palatable—but it is wicked and evil to subject yourself to the opinions of others merely to break bread with them, just to maintain their favor.
I despise all lies equally, and I find every hope, or tear shed in anger from lack of meaning, to be vain and destitute of any real purpose. I no longer wish to live, to struggle, to endure the stupidity of humanity and everything else so clearly wrong with my species. But I must anyway.
If I truly didn’t care, I would have hanged myself long ago. Or perhaps I wouldn’t have written at all—and instead spent my days like most people, ignoring whatever misery comes my way because I could forget about life so long as my attention was focused on whatever my phone could show me.
People forget that their comfort and peace of mind are largely dependent on the labor of others. The individualist mindset is a fable that, like religion, maintains the hope and morale of an already dead people. I say people rather than person because this mindset has overtaken the world—it is no longer merely an American phenomenon. All people now feel its harsh effects, and the empty chill that once was warmth is now replaced with an utter confusion of all continual sensations.
The mind doesn’t know what to do, and the body reflects this: in its weak constitution, its disturbing appearance, and its utter lack of grace. Such is the state of modern man—lost, and without a clue regarding anything that pertains to his happiness or fulfillment.
I don’t feel safe living in the world at present, because I don’t think the direction humanity is heading—what we value, what we celebrate, what we emulate—will lead to a greater species. I do not see an outcome in which the pursuit of personal drives and ambitions alone results in a better life for all. It’s quite troubling, actually.
Poem:
Dearest sign of future praise,
Leave not this world too soon for eyes.
In passions bright that command the heart,
And grant man hope of days to start.
This joy lasts not when you refrain—
Sing! Breathe new life through this soul's pain.
Where bloom those flowers in sunlight's gaze?
Everywhere—awaiting but one glance.
In the heart springs all things holy,
Look where you must to live fully.
Move through the world with wonder's art,
Create memories vivid as the poet's heart.
Let joy be found within the mind,
As if bestowed from heights divine.
To be alive—a task so grand—
Strive to fulfill it, sublime and unplanned.
These little words breathe their own fire,
Must you now heed their mute desire?
Who bears the labor genius demands?
What sage, with wisdom-filled hands?
The heart knows duty, sings its part,
Finds its place as if by chart.
Yet none truly know—we play
As movers on this grand stage.
The stage, vast theater with creaking floors,
Lit by heaven's radiant doors,
Where words and passions intertwine,
And tears fall from the crowd's bright eyes—
The crowd, a mass, a human race:
We find ourselves in every face.
O human form in genius dressed!
These flowers stay young when loved with zest.
Such confidence, such worthy power,
Comes only to those who scorn the hour.
The willful artist forges might—
Thoughts must flow like day to night,
Trimmed here and there, yet rarely caught
Mid-act, mid-flight, mid-passion's thought.
Be strange. Don't try. Don't think to dust.
Destroying sense betrays your trust.
An open mind, keen eyes suffice—
Your world takes shape through your own device.
Cling to Earth, be one, be true,
Life will thank this care in you.
Let new modes greet the active mind—
Each great feeling leaves behind
A trace unnoticed, days gone by,
Yet must be felt to sanctify.
These are life's pearls—like you, they shine
With beauty no craft can define.
Yes, beauty—that's the sacred art.
Seek the pleasant, guard your heart.
There calls the lad of wonder's birth,
The only life I prize on Earth.
I cherish sights that youth prolong—
Our fleeting days demand a song.
To love this life, we must pretend
Time is ours to rule and spend.
These favors does the mind impart
While most ignore—the seeing heart
Alone observes. Such is its nature:
Though senses grant no ripe fruit,
Memory brings tears—he sees, in truth,
The lost sensation of his youth.
This loss cuts deep when, lost in strife,
Age looks back on lived-through life,
Mining gold from deadened things,
Ghosts of joy that memory brings.
Speak not of futures yet unseen—
Happiness blooms when youth grows keen
In the steadfast mind of age,
Where past and present share one stage.
Revived, renewed, the mind takes flight—
Each mundane moment shines with light,
Each thought (both old and fresh) conspires
To serve but one true end: life's fires.
This is the poet's sacred task—
Not mastery, but, humbly asked,
To resurrect dead memories' glow,
To gild the new with golden flow.
A cycle: each thought, deeply sown,
Inspires all—the wise, the prone.
Auf Wiedersehen!