Welcome to Phil's-Osophy
Some time ago, I wrote that we should all leave social media. In that essay, I noted that:
Twitter and Facebook have cheapened the world of ideas. On social media, individuals hope to score likes and retweets by posting witty one-liners and half-baked thoughts. We seem to have forgotten that ideas that can be distilled into 280 characters are almost always superficial. Given how divisive modern political life has become, I believe that we need a return to longform writing.
Well, it’s high time I took up my own call to action.
We are living in frustrating times. We are undoubtedly restless, confused and polarized. American discourse is in utter shambles, perhaps without precedent. Our news and media establishments cannot be trusted. Nor, in large part, can our government; the past seven years have been marred by a corrupt, power-hungry bureaucracy that seems to have been culled from Orwell’s dystopian universe. Today, it is an unnecessarily tall order to separate fact from fiction, bias from reality. It is a sign of worry, not of confidence, that we are writing books about basic epistemology in the 21st century; we are wary of what we can actually know about the world.
Things are troubling, to say the least.
One of the ways I have managed to keep my head somewhat afloat has been through reading and writing. As many of my friends and followers know, I read a good deal, and do my best to write often. Reading and writing have allowed me to block out the noise that grabs our constant attention. Instead of following the newest “current thing” trending on Twitter, I have attempted to spend much of my day engaged in the world of ideas. There is something distinctly peaceful and comforting about being immersed in a fine book that touches on the human condition, reading a magisterial, eye-opening work of history, or spending hours in my dimly lit office searching for the best word to drive home an essay. Few things are as redeeming and rewarding as being lost in thought.
In these pages, I hope you will join me in the art of getting lost in thought. It’s certainly what I hope to achieve.
My goal here is to write several times a month (once a week, perhaps?) on literature, history, politics, Judaism—whatever happens to fall into my mind on a given week. I might even tip my hand at publishing some short stories I’ve had brewing for some time. Given that on my desk currently sit Crime and Punishment, four books on chess theory and a history of atomic explosions and mishaps, I hope I will be able to keep things fresh and interesting.
In his famous essay, “Why I Write,” George Orwell described why he was compelled to become a writer: "I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.”
So it is here.
Welcome to Phil’s-Osophy. I hope you will stick around.