The need-fire
Afflicted with writer’s blight? Strike a need-fire.
“Philosophy may be called a sublime ability to say the obvious, to exhibit what is closest.”
Think deep? Think deeper.
Your herbs and flowers
Keep out swine, dog and beast.
What do you write with your last year of life?
Did Keats have regrets?
Gather inclination
When the pen is too heavy to be lifted by the hand.
What makes no difference?
Can you miss the boat on writing? No.
A blue tailed coat, yellow waist-coat and trousers with high boots
What do you think of Werther? No matter what you think, by page’s end you will know him.
Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen
What is the one thing you can do that ties it all together?
Speechless yearning in Lucretius
Want it. Write it. Never settle.
Asking after the oblique mystique
Is our writing always in the last place we never look?
End of the World
If the end is nigh, why not write it out?
Has this ever happened to anyone you know?
It’s never too late to help a poet in trouble. Reach out. Make contact. Save them from themselves.
Παραθαρσύνω: embolden and encourage
Are you reading your tactics book hard enough?
Poetry is a controlled refinement of sobbing
Do you cry? Or weep? Or sob?
Preachings from six elderly doctoresses
Writers can avoid betrayal.
Thorough rebuke, all you proud poets
Write what is forbidden, please.
If experience ruptures your philosophy of life let writing be your constant
What do you do when it hurts too much?
I am a thorn: beneath the nail
You get to choose for yourself.
How can hair come from what is not hair, or flesh from what is not flesh?
Name your fatherland and always be at home.
One must hate literature in order to be a philosopher
Even when your living flesh is scraped apart from you with the blades of oyster shells, you must write.
It’s not you, it’s them
Who is to blame when words won’t behave?
The energy of dislike
Write what is forbidden and set yourself free.
What we think becoming, others call unseemly
Is a change in perception about our writing possible? What can we learn from the neck of a dove?
The gift has already been given
What did Prometheus give to us all?
Consult the oracle
How can we predict the future of our unwritten works?
Make words speak louder than actions
What is a worth worth compared to the deed?
Nonumque prematur in annum
How long should it take to write? How long should we give to our writing?
Gather from rills that run with honey
Shall we blame the writer for writer’s block?
Phaedrus 245a
Writer’s block (ii)
What are the conditions of a writing breakthrough?
“So the days pass and nothing is done”
A quote from Joseph Conrad
If I were Queen
What would happen if English had a robust subjunctive mood?
Is writer’s block a social condition?
What results from a change in perspective on the locus of writer’s block?
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
What are the claims in the story of writer’s block?
Writer’s block (i)
What are useful metaphors for understanding writer’s block?
Some notes on disgust
How can we talk about disgust in a way that matches the force of it as an experience?
Epistemological concussion and masochism
Can knowledge and experience ever reflect each other?
Why did we hurt sadism?
What must phenomenology do to be able to see past difficult cultural frameworks to the experience of things themselves?
Is the writing the philosophy, or the object of a philosophical process?
Writing in phenomenology is Ausdruck, not a result.
Is philosophy a result or a process? A done thing or a doing?
Messy, difficult and inconsistent. That is good philosophy.
What can a phenomenologist see when they look at the world?
Want something for free? The world, the oyster, are given to you. Giveness is a quality of the world bestowed to anyone who cares to perceive.
Is pain a pleasure through ‘some strange alchemy’?
To write a defence of masochism is a brave and difficult task. Weak claims about pain and pleasure undermine the effort.
Opening into the dog; how phenomenology gives us fresh eyes
Phenomenology can seem like a lot of long words and concepts but it’s really a process for seeing the world as it is.
How does phenomenology generate knowledge?
Too often, phenomenology is made into a step-by-step process that claims a knowledge outcome. Knowledge, however, in a phenomenological study, is an altogether different beast.
What can you do with a Stupid Detector?
A lot of what is ‘peer-reviewed’ and published as phenomenology is, my stupid detector reports, stupid. But why?
How writing rescues us from being dull and blind
To write a description is to wield a special magic. Description moves us from being blind, dull and predictable into being visionary, original and of truth.
Touched and touching: beyond neural evidence models
Some things do not ask to be explained, but understood. Cognitive models of touch, philosophy of mind and consciousness studies fail us.
