Gonna try some philosophy
A couple weeks ago I had a craving for some philosophy. I don't know what brought this on but at the risk of sounding melodramatic here, it feels like a major life choice. I have yet to pull the trigger on doing any significant reading into any specific strand of philosophy as I have no idea where to start. I have The Metamorphosis by Kafka staring me down on a daily basis just waiting for me to finish my current book. I also have Journey to the East by Hermann Hess asking if it can go after Kafka. I feel like these are some beginner friendly philosophy fiction texts to ease me into the affair. The next question is where to from there?
So I did what anyone does when they have no idea where to start with a thing. I consulted the internet and have watched a plethora of videos from trusted content creators. Turns out there are a lot of books to read that cover various topics from authors who died a long time ago. The general consensus is that Plato's The Republic is the best place to start. Ok fine I will try find a copy of that. Now I'm no seasoned philosophy veteran but how does one read these tomes? Turns out that was a good question, because you can't just read one of these texts. You gotta read it twice and take notes and really chew on the arguments. This sounds like work if you ask me, but I'm ready to expand my mind.
After some extensive research on the topic I have come to the conclusion that I will have to select a specific branch and go from there. I figure I need some time to really work on a single text so I guess I should dedicate about a month to a book. That is either way to long or way to little but I suppose I will figure it out as I go. So since I'm gonna read The Metamorphosis first and that seems a bit of an absurd concept then maybe I will delve into Absurdism first. This presents an opportunity to delve into some Albert Camus who from what I have heard is rather good. Things are falling into place.
Absurdism, according to wikipedia, also has connections to existentialism and nihilism. This is a fortuitous connection as I recently had a discussion with someone about climate change and my takeaway from that was that they have adopted a rather nihilistic view around the whole thing. I can't blame them as we clearly live in an absurd world with existential crises happening on a daily basis which would push any sane human towards madness or nihilism. It's weird how things sort of fall into place sometimes.
On the other end of the spectrum I have also discovered a modern philosopher who is actually still alive and publishing books. Byung Chul Han is a fairly popular author who has written books on Burnout in the modern age and how slowing down is actually good for us. His work is mostly critiquing neoliberalism which I can totally get on board with. I'm no intellectual author but I could write a book on shitting on neoliberalism. Anyway I think I found my balance and at some point I will squeeze in that Plato I mentioned earlier.