Philosophy
“As If”
Sam Dresser writes for Aeon: Two puny words shoulder a substantial, if diffuse, philosophical outlook: as if. Epicurus was perhaps the first to put this unexceptional construction to good use. He felt that life was about attaining whatever passing happiness we might find, while avoiding as much pain and suffering as we can. In neither … Read more“As If”
“You, author of life, let hope be your final loss. Anything can be.”
Poetic graffiti found on a bridge railing in Chicago’s Humboldt Park.
“If I die young”, by Fernando Pessoa
If I die young, Without having been able to publish a book, Without having seen how my verses look in print, I ask those who would protest on my account That they not protest. If so it will have happened, then so it should be. Even if my verses are never published, They will have … Read more“If I die young”, by Fernando Pessoa
“We can live well, even though we don’t have a higher purpose”
Alexis Shotwell writes for Psyche on Ursula K. LeGuin’s practical philosophy:
“Tuesday” (2024)
Recommended viewing. There hasn’t been a new addition to the canon for quite a while; this movie qualifies.
“No-one Gets Out of Here Alive” (The Emerald)
Josh Schrei offers a beautiful spoken word meditation on the meanings of death and life.
“Metamodernism and Poetic Faiths”
In connection with the launch of Poetic Faiths: New Religions and Rituals as Works of Living Art, here’s my recent conversation with Metamodern Meaning luminary Brendan Graham Dempsey. We discuss the Poetic Faith ethos from a variety of perspectives, the structure and aims of the anthology, my own practice of the Mysterium as an example … Read more“Metamodernism and Poetic Faiths”
“Poetic Faiths: New Religions and Ritual as Works of Living Art” Vol. 1 now available
The first volume of the Poetic Faiths interview anthology is now available! Poetic Faiths: New Religions and Rituals as Works of Living Art is an anthology of illustrated interviews with an emergent counterculture of artists and activists who take secular humanism as a given, then ask, “Now what?” and find their answers in artistic creation. Poetic … Read more“Poetic Faiths: New Religions and Ritual as Works of Living Art” Vol. 1 now available
“The bookends of time”
Thomas Moynihan writes for Aeon: Just under 500 years ago, Nicolaus Copernicus initiated a string of discoveries eventually proving our planet is not the centre of a tidy, manageable cosmos. Instead, Earth pirouettes around a mediocre star within an ungraspably vast Universe. It took generations for people to start noticing – and giving names to … Read more“The bookends of time”