Thoughts

My condensed thoughts on specific topics. Personal and possibly cheesy, but always well-considered, and never final.

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Volition

Willpower, volition, or the related concept of discipline, is a concept that deserves more attention in the current day and age, but some scrutiny as well.

Willpower is a trait we employ to act in accordance to our own will. It is not a trait to do just whatever we, or others want. Doing what others want is subservience, a concept that perhaps deserves its own thought.

At first glance, we may position willpower against laziness, reluctance or indifference. I do not think that is fair. Reluctance to do what others want can be natural and reasonable, particularly when it contradicts what we want.

The world we live in puts extreme efforts towards capturing our attention, convincing us of what we should want, and what we should value. It can be hard to see what it is that we want, versus what others want of us.

Similarly, we are often put into positions where we do not get to choose what we do. We may be pushed or obliged to do certain things for work, family or social norms. We may not have a choice. This is what makes life hard, and it is natural to feel overwhelmed, or indifferent to the needs of others.

How, then, can we excercise our will? We do not have to quit our job, cut ties, or go into full protest - though sometimes we must. Willpower is to have reached into ourselves, know what we want, and steer in that direction in the areas that we have influence over. It may be small, it may be slow, but when we act out of our own motivation, it can give us just that bit of control we need to sustain us through difficult times.

Masculinity

There is much debate on the nature of masculinity in this day and age. Most ideas revolve around its destructive symptoms (toxic masculinity), or its romanticised past.

I consider myself a man, by my own and by common definition. I identify with my born male sex, I identify with he/him pronouns, I identify as a father for my children. However, in many other ways, which I would call superficial, I have little to do with manliness. I don't care about sports, cars, and many other "manly" interests.

But all of the above is descriptive. I wanted to construct for myself, an ideal of masculinity. Not a list of what not to be or to do, but a list of things to strive for. Virtues may be too big a word. Perhaps simply; notes to myself.

One could wonder what gender should have to do with any virtue or ideal. Should we not all strive to be good in the same ways? And largely I believe so. But we cannot deny that some interplay between biology and history has afforded men many privileges. If there is any short summary to the list below, it is that I believe we should use the privileges we have to help those less privileged. Or even shorter, it's a way of saying: we should be better.

And though masculinity isn't exactly advertising itself in the best way right now, it may need to be said, anyone of any gender is free and welcome to subscribe to the below.

We should take responsibility

For our actions. For our promises. For the way we present ourselves to others.

We can expect persons of any gender to take responsibility, but it's men who have a greater capacity for and tendency of bluffing through broken promises, walking away and starting over, twisting words and denying involvement.

We should keep our promises. We should be there for friends, family and communities who rely on us. We should do hard work when it needs to be done.

We should protect others

We should be aware of our typically greater strength, depth of voice and other physical features. We have a greater capacity to inspire fear and doubt, and cause harm (physically or emotionally). We should show restraint, and never use them against friends, family and communities who rely on us, nor on anyone in a vulnerable position. We should use these features to protect them where necessary. If someone is in need, we should help.

We should lead by example

Whether we hold a position of official leadership or not, we should act as we expect others to act. This is the way we inspire others to be better too.

Mixtapes

“The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don’t wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.”

-- Rob Gordon, High Fidelity

It's better not to take advice from someone like Rob Gordon. But for mixtapes, we'll make an exception. The mixtape has a long and winded history, and it has fulfilled many functions over the decades. It could be a love (or a break up) letter, a political statement, or simply a concentrated effort to make a good party a great party. It can also simply be an expression of how you feel at a given time.

In eiter case, the mixtape is in this sense a pure form of curation. When done badly, it takes a work of art out of its context, making it estrange its listeners. But when done right, it takes something that the artist might not have consciously embedded into his work, and it places it together with other works that share that characteristic, to create something new that makes you realise that it fits, that makes this new creation sound as natural as the works that it consists of.

Making mixtapes has been a passion of mine for a long time. You can find some of them on this site under "Music".

Ethics

What a silly subject of study.

When I studied ethics as part of my philosophy Bachelor, and then later as part of my Applied Ethics Master, there was an idea that this was somehow less of a purely theoretical field then, say, ontology (the study of what is) or epistemology (the study of what is knowledge). At least, I had that idea.

Largely though, students of ethics were either already set on improving the world, and looking for ways to structure and justify this activity; or equally set on carrying on about their day and ignoring any potential real-world applications of it. I still don't know which group had the right of it, but I do see ethics more and more as exactly as theoretical a field as ontology or epistemology.

We may find that a certain strand of ethics appeals to us. We may follow it to the letter. We may follow it when implementing or even shaping policy, law of other activities that affect large groups of people. But I think that the theoretical activity of creating a system about what is right to do immediately crosses into political philosophy, if not actual politics. I suspect ethics is no more than a theoretical frame of reference to inform us when conducting politics. It does affect how we think, but we certainly cannot "use" ethics to affect the world.

That does not mean it is any less important. Ethical theories have influenced the world, and will continue to do so. But we should not hold ethicists in a higher regard than other experts. We should not speak of "the ethics" of a subject as any more than a field of theoretical study. And when conducting ethical study, we should acknowledge that it is largely detached from the real world. And that if we want to "improve" the world, perhaps studying ethics is among the last things we should do.

Writing

I write as catharsis. I put to paper what I need to say. I rarely look back. When I do, I see a past version of myself. I recognise myself partially at best. When I have no urgency to write, there is an active resistance in me to do so.

I have been asked whether I have an interest in writing as a profession. I don't really, because I only write well enough to be happy with when there is this catharthic drive. This is usually caused by a pain or problem that I see and feel in the world, and where I see a potentially valuable contribution from myself.

If I was just reading, writing and talking, I would not sustain these conditions. I need to participate in the world to know what I want to say.