Restarting my blog (again)

I have been gone for a while now. I recently graduated with a master’s degree in philosophy and my time was mainly occupied with writing my Master’s thesis. During my vacation, I wanted to resurrect this blog to at least do something with my studies. I do feel that a new direction needs to be taken. I will outline what I want to try to do with this blog. This is more a post for myself to hold myself accountable, but it may be interesting for readers who want to follow me in my escapade.

            The main focus of my blog is and always will be philosophy. The positive (and sometimes negative) aspect of philosophy, however, is that it can take unlimited shapes and forms. I do want to try my hand at writing series of blog posts that each have their themes. Essays that are part of a theme can be categorized as a bigger whole, building upon one another. That way I can refer to older essays I wrote, and I don’t always have to start from scratch. This allows me to write about bigger subjects and see the interconnectedness between everything that I write. First and foremost, this blog is a way to structure my thinking.

The first theme I want to delve into is philosophy as a way of life, building upon the work of Pierre Hadot. I have written about this topic a bit before, but it has recently gripped my attention again. Not only do I want to delve deeper into the ancient philosophers who conceptualized this concept of philosophy, but I also want to explore modern philosophers who are trying to achieve the same thing. Philosophy, nowadays, is seen as an abstract subject with no practical implications; it just functions as a fridge for the questions science has yet to answer or as a way of defining things. Both of these definitions do not take into account the immense practical use of philosophy and how important the practice is for the theory.

Another theme I want to explore, connected with the first one, is the theme of how a thinking structure determines a kind of practice. There is a lot of overlap here with philosophy as a way of life because philosophy is a systematization and justification of a certain practice, in my opinion. The ways we think about certain things will influence the way we act in the world. The most prominent example in contemporary philosophical literature is the debate around free will. This debate is mostly a theoretical debate about the fact that free will is possible or not, but it does not go into the practical sphere: is it possible to live your life with or without free will, and what would it mean to live such a life? Another example would be nihilism, which will be my focus, I think.

One thing that has always fascinated me is where evil comes from. Because of this, I also want to focus a lot more on political philosophy and how a certain way of thinking influences the political realm. It would be interesting to investigate case studies like Hitler, Stalin, the Columbine High School Shooters, etc. It would give a deeper understanding of where evil comes from. I would like to study how and why people perform evil actions and what it means to be evil. I believe that these themes are worth investigating and it would be quite helpful and interesting to hear many opinions on this.

            Another focus that I want to resurrect is that of becoming a polymath. I have focused my time and energy on my thesis a lot and it did make me want to explore other intellectual regions again more. Every year I take a subject I want to learn more about and during that year, if my time allows it, I would like to delve deeper into that subject. I want to report on the tools I use to learn a skill or a subject and how I utilize those tools. For example, what are the important things to look out for when learning a new skill or delving deeper into a certain topic? What tools and books have helped me to understand the topic better? When I want to learn more about the economy, how do I approach this? It would be unwise to just buy every economy book I can find. Or if I want to learn German, it would be unwise to just open a book by Hegel and start reading it. Learning from my mistakes and reporting them could help other people with learning a new subject or skill. It is also a challenge for me to do this. If I am not learning anything new, I don’t feel happy. I need the feeling that I am growing and learning a bit more about a particular subject is actually quite an easy way to have that feeling.

            I also want to do book reviews again. I read quite a lot of books on diverse topics, both fiction and non-fiction, but I always struggle with what to write about a book. Summarizing a book (which I did before) seems rather redundant, so I want to focus on writing why I believe the books I have read, are worth reading as well. I have also added a recommendations page to my website (although not yet finished; I will add more in time), where you can check out which books I would recommend reading for certain intellectual areas. Book reviews are a good way for me to summarize a book and to pinpoint what the most important points of the book are. It helps me to remember the book better. It is one of those techniques that make you actually remember a book.

            I hope I stay consistent in my writing. It has not yet become a habit of mine. Reading I have established but writing not so much. I do have a fear of writing. I mainly think it is never good enough to publish, or I don’t feel my opinion matters a lot. This blog functions as a way of breaking that barrier. Here I don’t have any formal conditions to which I need to hold myself accountable. I can write about anything I wish here. Also, I’m lazy most of the time. But at least I’m happy that I just keep coming back. This blog has become quite important to me. It helped me through COVID-19 and has motivated me to read and write more. And that is the only thing I can ask for.