Fellow Philosophers,
I hope this finds you well!
I really enjoyed the opportunity to step away for a week, take a break from writing, and think more deeply about TPP. I also had the opportunity to have really meaningful conversations with a few readers which helped me to refine and think through ways to make this continuously better and more digestible.
I’m developing some adjustments to our format which I hope to implement starting January 3, 2022 at the latest, I’ll keep you posted.
Finally, tomorrow is the last day to refer friends before we close the door for free subs, share your personal referral code below for a chance to win a small gift directly from me :)
Without further ado, let’s do some philosophy!
Today, a story for your consideration.
As a first semester junior at West Point, I had finally completed enough of my requisite engineering and base courses to delve into my major—philosophy.
As I’ve written and spoken about previously, this would begin an interesting tension between my narrow, fundamentalist worldview and the breadth of thought and history I was to encounter in this discipline.
At the end of this first semester—a relentless deep-dive of the entire arc of human thought—our professor threw us a curveball. At an institution that to this point hadn’t even trusted us to chose our own clothes, our professor told us our final was to write a philosophical paper on any topic of our choice.
Any?
To say I was overwhelmed would have been an understatement. I had no idea where to start—and my professor knew it.
I explained to him what I was interested in, what I wanted to know more about, and what I hoped to gain in studying in philosophy.
Through that conversation, he directed me to Nietzsche and his famous work Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
I got a free version of the book on my iPad and started reading—rather trying to read. As my first real dive in primary source analysis, I was lost.
I did my best to find a central idea, irked out a thesis, and drafted a short essay.
It was rough, but it was enough to pass—and I didn’t feel much better about understanding Nietzsche than I did when I started!
Fast forward nearly 8 years later, and as part of this project I find myself returning to Zarathustra and Nietzsche.
Only this time I find a man, a story, and an artistic journey that captures the path I’ve walked since I first picked up that book.
The journey of Zarathustra is a new format of both philosophy and storytelling—an evolved and integrated perspective of humankind.
At its core, it’s the vision for a people which finds themselves on the other side of corporate religion and nationalistic myths.
In this work, Nietzsche not only captures a story I can relate to, but one I believe you might as well.
It’s the template of how we abandon the values of our youth, for the pursuit of our personal philosophy. If this resonates, you’ll definitely want to hear more from Nietzsche.
We’ve only just begun.
I’ll see you back here tomorrow to begin unpacking what Zarathustra was all about, and why it just might perfectly outline this community and our collective identity.
Until then,
Matt