New to the blog? The organizational features (e.g. tags) aren’t the best on substack, so it can be a bit hard to navigate all the content on here. This post serves as an archive and guide.
Chronological/Thematic Guide
The foundational animating force of this blog is the ever-elusive question, “…what I must do?” and exploring how to answer that in a measured way that accounts for the complexities and realities of the modern world. I want to know how to combine the analytical with the felt, the dispassionate with the passionate, the physical with the humanistic, the real with the ideal. If you’re short on time I’ve bolded and starred the most pertinent sequences.
The How to…? sequence explored some of the underlying tensions that guide and animated this blog. Written in a personal style, to give voice to felt tensions.
The Happiness sequence probed the complexities of that pervasive but ever elusive eponymous word. The approach is philosophical, exploring intuitions, with a smattering of empiricism towards the end.
*** The Forces of the Soul sequence probe the unconscious forces that move us. I use “soul” in a literary sense. The approach is phenomenlogical, i.e. via personal reflection.
The Comparative Studies sequence contextualizes “Forces of the soul” by exploring other accounts of human flourishing.
The Constraints of Reality sequence explores aligning the forces of the soul with realities. The presentation uses the medium of apocryphal/fan-fiction suttas.
*** The Towards an Ethics sequence gives a thin outline of a provisional metaethics I’m exploring. This series has the least epistemic certainty, and is meant to be a work in progress.
The Comparative Ethics sequence contextualizes my provisional ethics in light of other approaches.
After the above foundations are established, I’m not sure where I will turn yet! I don’t have any more core sequences planned and at that point the blog will likely turn towards exploring contemporary issues, new readings and questions that I come by, etc. I might also add to the the previous sequences. Still, an underlying current will be pragmatic concerns with effectively realizing a more flourishing and ethical world, as envisioned in the foundational series above.
In addition, I write random fun posts about whatever strike me in the moment and aren’t as easy to categorize. If you’re just interested in my life and not in the philosophizing, you’ll want to read those instead.