Trot Watcher Anyone who has read my post on Janja Lalich and her concept of bounded choice in a cult will appreciate this piercing observation by Nietzsche: 301. “STRENGTH OF CHARACTER.”-“What I have said once I will do.” – This manner of thinking is believed to indicate great strength of character. How many actions are accomplished, not … Read more
And though I hope not unscathed to go, Who conquers me shall find a stubborn foe. The time hath been, when no harsh sound would fall From lips that now may seem imbued with gall; Nor fools nor follies tempt me to despise The meanest thing that crawl’d beneath my eyes: But now, so callous … Read more
how little, to him, does the changing of an opinion seem contemptible per se! On the contrary, how highly he prizes the ability to change an opinion as a rare and valuable distinction, especially if he can retain it far into old age! And his pride (not his pusillanimity) even reaches so high as to be able to pluck the … Read more
Over the past several days I have felt an incredible lightness of spirit. Perhaps I am finally learning, as Nietzsche taught, to love my fate, and to accept all that has happened to me, awful as it has been. Whilst I am not entirely free of anger at the IMT and its monstrous oppression, I … Read more
…and-I have escaped. Think not that I will urge you to run the same perilous risk! or that I will urge you on even to the same solitude! For whoever proceeds on his own path meets nobody: this is the feature of one’s “own path.” No one comes to help him in his task: he … Read more
Being in the IMT was a miserable experience. But there is much I have learned from it. If there is anything I have learned from reading philosophy, it is amor fati – the love of fate, a concept taught by the Ancient Stoics and also by modern philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche. It is hard to … Read more
“What if I were to die! What if I could go back to life – what eternity! And it would all be mine! I would turn every minute into an age; I would lose nothing, I would count every minute as it passed, I would not waste one!”-Prince Myshkin in The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky … Read more
I’ve just finished reading Notes from Underground, and I must confess to reading few books that have touched the core of my being in such a way. The Underground Man makes the following denunciation of all theories based on man as a rational animal, and demonstrates why, even if ‘Marxist science’ was true, and the … Read more
In Alan Woods’ recent article from last month on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, he has adopted a markedly more pessimistic tone about the Russian invasion: It is difficult to say how the war is progressing. The information of the military situation in the media is so sparse as to be almost non-existent. And the constant predictions … Read more
*SPOILERS INCLUDED* I have just finished reading Dostoevsky’s Demons for the second time. A conviction that has been drummed into me from my time doing A-Level English Literature is that you can never truly ‘get’ a novel until you have read it more than once. It took several re-readings for me to appreciate the poetic … Read more