Fragments

To The Reader, Again

This world can be suffocating, overwhelming, and nauseating at times.

If you're tired,

If you feel broken,

If you feel devastated and beyond repair,

Know this:

You have my undying support.

Yes, your pain is real. And it is consuming. Who wouldn't feel grounded down by life?

But I have faith that, somewhere deep within, there exists space that can survive affliction. The part of the human spirit that can't die.

Grace, Undone

Cassian: Take my hand, and let us walk to the edge of this world.

Valerius: Why should we go to the edge of the world?

Cassian: Reality exists at the edge of our existence.

Valerius: But what is at the edge of the world?

Cassian: The place where breath vanishes, where tears crystalize, where our hands tear away from another. Where affliction crushes our armor under infinite weight.

Valerius: What remains without our armor?

The Demands of Writing

What does writing demand of us?

I just read a technically excellent essay on the erosion of public education. The author is autistic, about to be pushed out of her job, and facing the brutal machinery of austerity. Her essay would be well received in most academic circles, I believe. I can describe it as very competent analysis.

But the writing felt dead. Polished, well-structured, deeply informed by Marxist analysis… but lifeless.

Tangentially Divine Love

At the essence of our being is a tangential connection to divinity.

Not some god, not some symbol, not something abstract.

That inexplicable space within the soul - the one that survives affliction.

The space where mere mortals are capable of withstanding the infinite pressure of life without dilution.

The extraordinary is within the ordinary.

All I wish for the world is love. Trembling, struggling love.

May each day I burn my self to the ground to make space for divine love.

Capability and Perception

One of the most enduring illusions created by The Machine is the idea that we must "earn" the ability to independently think. That to have an original stance requires sacrifice.

Status, degree, labor, suffering. The belief that you must pay to enter the realm of authenticity. Most crucially, the systematic illusion that others must recognize your payment as the requirement of radical self-trust.

The most insidious violence: The Machine does not say "You can't think independently"; rather, it says "You can't think independently yet"

Limitation and Reality

A common critique I've received on my moral philosophy is that it is unrealistic, that it is only possible in imagination rather than reality.

First, everything I have written is the product of my own life, just stating my thoughts and experiences.

Lastly, why is it that when moral philosophy leaves the realm of moral calculus it is suddenly divorced from plausible reality?

Do we live in a world where moral seriousness - treating individuals as humans - is discarded in favor of spreadsheets, line items, and abstractions?

Trust and Self

As an American, I was taught that personal freedom was a critical virtue. That I am the governor of my self.

I was taught that personal liberty was sacred. The core of my being is freedom.

Yet the moment I express myself outside of the given lines, the accepted American way of life, staunch opposition meets me.

When I speak of wishing to emigrate, the default assumption is that I am naive, that "this could be a grass is greener scenario."

Power and Futility

Something that bewilders me is, what seems like, the human desire to accumulate massive amounts of power.

I understand that the word "power" can mean many things (it didn't take me two books of analytical philosophy to say words mean different things in different contexts, and I certainly am not Austrian :D).

In this context, I believe power is the ability to influence your outside environment at differing scales. From the local, the regional, the national, the global, etc.

Progress and Collapse

Exile and nourishment.

Human ghost and human desire.

Deprivation and abundance.

Optional and required.

Genesis and precarity.

Exile requires the lack of nourishment.

What is a movement without a beginning and an end?

A line must start and end in two points, like movement.

What is exile to nourishment then?

Is exile both the start and end? No, deprivation is genesis. The absence of nourishment is the start of exile.

Experiences and Loss

A defining characteristic of my life to this point has been the lack of common modern experiences.

I did not grow up with two parents, and I certainly did not grow up with a parent who loved me.

I did not really get to experience homecoming, prom, etc., because I am gay (if you know, you understand).

I did not physically attend a four year university because of the pandemic & burnout. I actually went to an online program for my bachelor's while working as a data engineer.

Society and Abstraction

Doesn't this society we live in feel deeply wrong?

We live in a society that values abstraction over human dignity.

Publicly traded companies are legally required to act with fiduciary duty to its shareholders. The raising of stock prices to increase the return on their investments. This is stock primacy, which conflicts with providing fair, good, and quality services. Extraction becomes the driver of growth.

As someone once said, "The business of business is business."

Terror and Peace

Language is a poor companion: it merely outlines what I think and feel.

Events in my country terrify me right now. I see extreme division, the reduction of vulnerable people into abstractions. I see unfiltered suffering that is openly mocked and used as a political tool.

The usage of affliction to further political agendas is terrifying, and it is everywhere.

But even in this well of fear, even in my prison of personal influence, I feel peace.

Moral Philosophy and Living

Should a moral philosopher live his or her ideas?

The word "should" is troublesome: it invites faith arguments on what life demands.

Perhaps the easiest argument is that because someone's ideas may benefit humanity outside of their personal application, then they have value. If their unlived ideas have values, then it is fine to not live his or her ideas.

A more important question is, "What do your ideas require?"