The current writing project and plans for this summer

My desire to write this summer is born simply out of a demand within me that needs to write and explore my own perspective of the world. My own philosophy. For well over a decade I have been frustrated, never finding the space at the same time that I had the desire, or vice versa. For much of this time, other projects have consumed the time I had. Collaborations with others took up my summer. And they were good projects. But for the past two years I targeted this summer as a summer when I could focus on something that was strictly my own. To feed a craving I have had for too long. And to understand better the direction of my life going forward.

The goal for this summer is to write a complete book, but not a finished book. I do not yet know exactly what this book will look like. But its goal is to set out the architecture of my philosophy: my system of beliefs, motivations, foundations, skepticisms, and whatever else comes my way. It will cover ethics, teaching, and a naturalist spirituality. The goals for the writing project are these:

1. I will find my voice once again. I had a voice when I was in undergrad. But from years of learning an immense amount, and from thinking about all the ways in which I have re-thought how to pursue philosophy, I lost my voice long ago. I haven’t had the chance to exercise my writing legs in a long time, so I hope to find that once again.

2. To etch out the basic form for my whole way of thought, and to not burden myself too much with questions of audience or critical analysis. I don’t imagine this will be a clean or critical work. I am trying to create something to work on in the long term. My goal here is to etch out the rough shape of a sculpture, and then over the next few years to chink away at it by reading other philosophers, applying logical criticism and analysis, editing the writing, and elaborating on arguments that assume too much or need more explanation.

3. To have a clear idea of what I will work on during my sabbatical. I will be submitting my sabbatical proposal during the winter of 2017. If it is approved, I will take a sabbatical either in the fall of 2017 or, more likely, the spring of 2018. Combined with the summer months, that is about 9 months of time that I can devote to this or related projects. Ideally, I will have written a draft of my proposal by early August.

4. For the time being, I will write sections of the book on my blog–hopefully one per day at minimum, along with related reflection pieces like this one. I will post these on Facebook and perhaps gain some readers. I am doing this because, for better or for worse, I am encouraged to write when I know people may read what I’m writing.

5. Periodically, I may go back and re-write posts if it is clear how they need to be cleaned up. But this is not a priority.
For better or worse, I am a philosopher. I have the heart and passion of one. I may not be a good one, but that is what I am. Only a few things are capable of capturing my interest as completely as philosophy. Nothing feels as fulfilling as philosophy. And in every other pursuit, I always feel like I am imitating something that I can never understand.

In many ways, I have let myself down over the past ten years. Though I managed to land a tenured job teaching philosophy, and consider that an important victory, I always understood that not as the goal but as the most important stepping stone for my goal. With the tenured position, I am capable of being funded and having some time off every year to pursue my deeper interests. Since I achieved tenure, my drive has decayed. I tried my hand at a number of other projects, but I can rarely maintain my drive and enthusiasm.

This summer is the best opportunity to make forward progress on my primary goal: to create my philosophy. I am filled with self-doubt and the echoes of criticisms others have made against me. But I am ready to ignore all of that and simply write. I believe writing a philosophy will help me know myself better, allow me to understand how to speak my thoughts better, and provide me a framework in which to think.

Perhaps oddly, I am motivated by these words of Nietzsche, from Beyond Good and Evil, sections 5 and 6.

“What provokes one to look at all philosophers half suspiciously, half mockingly, is not that one discovers again and again how innocent they are–how often and how easily they make mistakes and go astray; in short, their childishness and childlikeness–but that they are not honest enough in their work, although they all make a lot of virtuous noise when the problem of truthfulness is touched even remotely. They all pose as if they had discovered and reached their real opinions through the self-development of a cold, pure, divinely unconcerned dialectic (as opposed to the mystics of every rank, who are more honest and doltish–and talk of “inspiration”); while at bottom it is assumption, a hunch, indeed a kind of “inspiration”–most often a desire of the heart that has been filtered and made abstract–that they defend with reasons they have sought after the fact. They are all advocates who resent that name, and for the most part even wily spokesmen for their prejudices which they baptize “truths”–and very far from having the courage of the conscience that admits this, precisely this, to itself; very far from having the good taste of the courage which also lets this be known, whether to warn an enemy or friend, or, from exuberance, to mock itself…”

“Gradually it has become clear to me what every great philosophy so far has been: namely, the personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir; also that the moral (or immoral) intentions in every philosophy constituted the real germ of life from which the whole plant had grown.”

For years I have craved to write something entirely to satisfy my curiosity and explain how I see the world. I have been incapable of explaining it in one go, and when I try it comes out broken and sounding like nonsense. I have been especially frustrated in dealing with other philosophers. Why is this so? It is possible that I’m simply off my rocker, incapable of swimming with the other philosophers. That when I speak, their greater appreciation for the subtleties of logic and the history of philosophy exposes me as yet another crank with half-formed ideas and too oblivious to my shortcomings. It could be that. Or it could be that I don’t yet know how to talk about what it is that I want to talk about, and that perhaps if I can simply figure out how to say it, and give myself the space to do it, then I will learn how to talk.

The first alternative is useless to accept. I have a deep craving to explain myself, and that won’t go away. If I accepted the first alternative, I’m simply accepting that I’ll be frustrated for life. It may be the more truthful option, but that is not an option I want to live by.

The second alternative may be prideful, but it is the only alternative I can accept.