A fallowing time…

Here is an update for those who follow my work, and possibly wonder what I’ve been up to since I finished my novel manuscript, especially if they haven’t read my posts from earlier this year under the category of Philosophy.

In terms of writing, this autumn has been less productive than I tend to expect from my favorite season. So for me, November is all about getting back on track with the dual books of philosophy which were my focus for the first half of 2012 (and sporadically in 2010–2011).

Call them Gnosis and Praxeology for those who are familiar with those terms, and because I’m not going to go into their actual titles, back stories, or present aims right now. I will offer more information in time, and actually, I already have in previous posts you can find from the category link above.

In short, these two interconnected projects comprise by far the most ambitious attempt at a synthesis of thought & magnum opus I have made so far. I already know they will not be finished this year, but I think a reasonable goal is to have decided on the organization and division of their material into parts by the year’s end, and to have as much filled out as possible.

The organization of Gnosis is mostly finalized, which goes to show that one is far along. The precise organization of Praxeology remains a bit more up in the air, although the amount of quality material for it hasn’t lagged too far behind.

I am able to draw on notes and previous work collected over fifteen years, so there’s no shortage of material. The challenge is raising the standard in every way, and bringing disparate material together elegantly.

Writing Great Philosophy for the Sake of the Future

Some of the most important written works neither profit a thinker, nor advance an academic or public career. At first, they offer only themselves. (Or, perhaps, some extraordinary adventures and experiences necessary to write them—yet the total labor required to see them through often dims this value for the author.)

Yet the expectation that compositions should soon yield profits, status, fame or advancement keeps many thinkers and writers away from achieving greater work.

This is one reason why academia is very nearly the death of philosophy, and the market for writing, little better. Most who somehow emerge from modern “education systems” and have philosophy to offer—ideas cultivated through study and appreciation of the sciences (the fields of human knowledge) and expressed as a creation of art—are obliged to bury their ideas in entertainment in order to sell their work and support themselves. This is valuable, but second-hand.

While philosophical works should not quite follow “art for art’s sake,” they must be undertaken without promise of rewards save important work of great meaning. Though it is no guarantee, great philosophy first requires appropriate ambition, and dedication of oneself.

And we all require more great philosophy. Without great works to develop new ideas for the future, there will be no future different from the consequences of the ideas inherited from the past.

There are too many old and misplaced ideas we are living with. If they were ever right, they are no longer right, for us, now. We are still counting on Plato, Aristotle, St. Paul, and so many others to write our future—implicitly. Even Darwin has yet to sink in. We are still building upon ancient notions like foundations we almost never notice. Many of the newest sources are centuries old; many of those we call “modern” thinkers are unoriginal recyclers, copycats, and poor synthesists of the grab bag. Yet people who repeat echoes of Rousseau, Paine, and poor readings of Jesus wonder why they cannot change things. Utopian faiths, demanding abstractions, and political revolutions come up empty because they have been tried before without understanding, only to be repeated now as though new.

We wonder why we’re stuck in a present that still looks like the past—degraded, plus technology that—we like to hope—has something to say, because we don’t. No, we’ll only have a different future when enough of us commit to thinking and writing for one.