Bitch I'm morose and lugubrious—I'mma let the uzi spit, turn his face into gooey shit.
You wanna kill me? Try and prove it but I bet you can't maneuver it.
I couldn't resist the urge to begin a blog post during a leap year day, who knows if I'll get this rare chance again. Your temperamental flower returns—a moonflower, I might be called. For the last few days, and maybe even for the last month I've been wondering about the direction of this website and how it's shifting with the direction of my life itself. To briefly explain, I quit my job. Or rather, I stopped showing up entirely and I'm currently coasting along with my savings. Very early in the month I got an infection of the mouth and my doctor was able to write a note that got me 5 days off, and it only took me 3 to realize that I would do anything to not go back to that place, so I didn't. I spent time finally relaxing, beginning with a rewatch of Office Space, which I periodically return to when I'm in limbo between jobs. My reading of this film was more cynical this time around as now I'm concerned with how long construction workers will be able to carry on the way they do alongside the encroaching effects of climate change. The following day, I listened to one of my favorite albums while I played the sounds of a beach in the Maldives as ambience, it's Hawaiian
music from the wonderful, and little known, Eddie Kekaula. I first came across this record by chance at a thrift store in the form of a grungy cassette tape. It's my quintessential relaxation
music.
So, what have I been up to? Other than a series of unfortunate matters of the heart which I'd prefer to not discuss, quite a bit. I live in a college town, I've been going to college. Just not as a student. When I first moved here I never spent any time up at the university, merely a single bar that I'd go to every Friday to chat with strangers, but lately, I've been feeling more motivated to continue my personal education in a more structured, disciplined manner rather than the free wheeling theorizing
that I'm known for. This semester, I've been able to regularly attend meetings with the Philosophy Club where I gave my presentation on the history and theory of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Although not a student, I've also had a number of suggestions on how to improve or at least expand the overall direction of the club. The first order of business, increased liason between our club and the Writer's Club, since anyone who's read a paragraph or two of Hegel can warn you of the dangers of philosophers not giving a single metric shit about the quality of their prose. Likewise, not all writers are particularly clear thinkers, although they may be excellent stylists. I've also been pestering a number of different professors, let's call them Dr. E, Dr. B, Dr. Z, and Dr. C respectively. All of them have been from either the Philosophy department or the Sociology department. Sadly, I've yet to meet the Sociology Club, but increased liason with them is on my agenda as well.
You see, at the Philosophy Club a member and I came up with an idea for a self-published student publication that I'll ambiguously refer to as, The Journal.
It started off as an idea for a publication simply for the members of the Philosophy Club, but since I have a little thing called ambition, I envision that we can use it as a platform for more interdisciplinary communication between all of the different humanities and social sciences students. Simply, I want as many different departments involved as I can manage with my own two legs going up and down the campus looking for people and ideas. As Robert Park remarked, the only sure way to be a sociologist is to wear out the leather of one's shoes.
So, to bring it back to my website, I'm likely to continue blogging and uploading notes from my readings to help keep my studies organized, but it doesn't feel like my whole life anymore, and ultimately I think that's for the best. God, if only I could show you the library on campus. The German Idealism section is fucking immaculate.
Another update, I am in fact trying to enroll. I want to get my BS in Sociology. All of the professors I've been talking to have been very encouraging while also warning me of the realities of modern academic life that I'll be forced to navigate including: student loans. Unsurprisingly for someone of my political bent, I do not come from money. But hey, I finally got my passport. I am an American citizen, so it's time to take on some good old American debt. Dr. B has been the most encouraging, he said I might even be able to make it to grad school. As an aside, all of this has been taking place while I have a Dungeons and Dragons campaign to write. For now, I'm quite motivated, quite energetic, gassed up you could say. But, I do worry about stretching myself out too thin so it's been a bit of a challenge to make sense experientially of how much I can manage all on my own while keeping up with my own research. It's easy now while I'm unemployed, but the Fall Semester is a long way off and as much as I'll hate to, I'll have to get another job between now and then. It's mostly a challenge because I have a small set of books that I'd like to read before I start school so I have some kind of embryonic research methodology worked out for my paper writing.
To share these, I'll list off the few. First, I am in the process of rereading Metamodernism: The Future of Theory by Dr. Josephson Storm because I'm quite curious about the methods he uses to invert the caustic suspicion of postmodernism
or post-structuralism
and how you can use them to build up more firm knowledge. But, I'm also rereading Demarcation and Demystification: Philosophy and its Limits by J. Moufawad-Paul, a shorter methodological text not of metamodernism, but the use of philosophy through the mediation of historical materialism for the 21st century. Interestingly, it was the result of an aborted attempt to write a short book on the subject of dialectical materialism
but we ended up with this book instead. I'll be using each book to pick the other apart since I think both authors have important and interesting things to say about how to approach research in the human sciences and philosophy itself more broadly. I want these texts to fight it out inside my head like raging panthers sinking tooth and claw into each others flesh, going for blood. Lastly, I also recently received Crisis and Change Today: Basic Questions of Marxist Sociology that I'll be using as my own textbook and field guide to my major before classes actually begin, but I'd like to read that after I've already done some methodological soul searching and come out the other end alchemically transfigured so to speak. If possible, it'd be nice to make time for The Development of Capitalism in Russia by Lenin, which Althusser called the only first-rate work of sociology. If I can somehow squeeze it in, I'd also like to finally finish the Pinkard translation of the Phenomenology. Maybe Being and Time, Dr. E is my favorite professor and a big fan of Heidegger.
As far as unofficially assigned readings, Dr. E loaned me a copy of a fat book on Nietzsche after I loaned out Methods Devour Themselves to them, which feels like an asymmetrical trade but the book at least looks fairly interesting, if riddled with a writing style I'm not personally fond of. Dr. Z forewarned me that due to being a sociology major I'll have to put Foucault on my radar even though I'm not particularly excited to engage with his works. I've never really been a fan of Nietzsche either. My entire conceit behind reading those other books to work out the basis of my own research methodology is specifically because I know that once I'm having to write papers, I'll more than likely have to write about a couple things I normally have next to no interest in, and I need a way to make even that just a little exciting. My biggest problem with writing papers back when I actually was in school is that although I had to write about books, I didn't really feel like I had anything substantial to say about them. So, my approach now is to develop something that I want to express through my own efforts, and then see how that interacts with the subject material they put in front of my face. All I can do is try.