Philosophy, Literature, Essays, and Thoughts
(Some strange reflections stemming out of a pun that I found today) The eye of the tornado is the point of zero. In Psycho, the circular drain of the bathtub merges into the eye of the murdered Marion. The eye is the center of the X—the strange attractor, the virtual point, the object, the “I”, … Continue reading “I” Am Who “Eye” Am.
Boredom, for Heidegger, is the withdrawl of all beings, the amorphous mixing of past, present, and future, and a subsequent opening up of Dasein towards the world. It ranks with anxiety as another fundamental attunement towards being. Of course, there is all the usual movement from ontic boredom to ontological boredom (from being bored by … Continue reading Boredom on Heidegger
Courage is to understand all that is horrible in the world and still love it. Courage is to experience all the evils in men but still embrace them. Courage is to be hurt again and again, but still keep on trying. It is different from naivety. The naive and the courageous act the same. But … Continue reading Courage or Naivity?
There are 3 types of sadness. Grief (mourning). Melancholy. Depression (in the non-clinical sense). Each signifying a relationship to the loss of an object. Grief is sadness over the loss of an object that I once had. It is when something is taken away from me. When someone dies. When some situation changes. It is … Continue reading Grief. Melancholy. Depression
(A short reflection. Not too interesting. But it is depressing that so many philosophers have not married. Makes me worry about my own prospects, a lot) Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kant, Voltaire, Hume, Adam Smith, Leibniz, Newton, Spinoza, Locke, Descartes, Bentham, Hobbes, Aquinas, Plato. Yes. None of them married. One can argue that the history … Continue reading Unmarried Philosophers
The loss of desire is the loss of the human. It is desire that makes us human. To not desire is to cease to be. What is desire? Desire is always a desiring. It is constant. It is a wanting of something that you cannot get, a longing for what is always already out of … Continue reading No Desire
That title, from Pascal's Pensées, summarizes the modern experience. All significance seems to be drowned out in all that we know and discover. The greater our power to explore, the more efficient our technology to build, the more insignificant all these operations seem. We have lost paradise. And here, the paradise lost a second time … Continue reading “The Eternal Silence of These Infinite Spaces Terrifies Me”
(A series of ethical reflections after realizing how incredibly unlikely I am to be where I am) I am fortunate to not have been in the Chinese educational system, designed to produce mandarins. The more I think about it, the more it horrifies me. You are just your score. And your score at a single … Continue reading (Chinese Education)U(Ethical Reflections)
(I was to do some research on Berkeley. But, as usual, I ended up procrastinating. This time I found some old writing for UChicago Uncommon App that I've abandoned—because I was rambling too much and for too long. But I do really like it. I've added the last half from jouissance onwards. Hope you find … Continue reading Movement
As usual, a message from my friend provoked a long, unnecessarily obtuse response from me. But perhaps that is interesting, and perhaps relevant, to read. So here it is. [NOTE: This is not word for word. I have edited for literary effect.] Friend: Hi/I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO/my mom told me today "dont get … Continue reading The Freedom Under Predestination (Taken from Žižek)
