doing a lot better lately.

it seems i can repeat my own advice to others but cannot follow it myself.

you cannot force emotional or personal catharsis--it more or less dawns on you like an epiphany.

in my case i stress myself out so much that i am under such great tension that i become very very upset--sometimes to the point of serious mental illness.

i think the results of my month-long research into the blog posts i want to produce are now mature. they form a loosely related triptych:

1. an investigation of the internals of abrahamic religions--judaism, christianity, and islam. i approach the topic from a philosophical perspective, not an historical one.

2. an investigation of the coincidence between religion and social and political power. putting aside the internal coherence of religion, i want to know: why do people turn to the supernatural in order to ground their sense of social belonging?

3. finally: a nice, rigorous treatment on 'platonism'. when i was in grad school, i had no choice but to study in the tradition of anglo-american analytic philosophy, where everyone is scrambling to be the loudest and most devout enemy of 'platonism'. so the unwritten/unspoken convention dictates, you had better praise david hume, skeptical empiricism, or give up on an academic career altogether. a bizarre, lobotomised form of kant is as radical or exotic as one is allowed to get. frankly, i am disgusted by these attitudes and i don't care who hears it.

hope you're all well 🙏

sorry for the radio silence--

i haven't been using any kind of social media at all. reading has been taking up my spare time lately.

topics that have fascinated me include:

• scientology and the life of l. ron hubbard.
• western christian fundamentalism.
• mormonism and the "church of latter-day saints".
• the rhodesian bush war, and the eventual creation of the state of zimbabwe.

there is something about the connection between oppression and organised religion that i cannot quite put my finger on. especially in the case of religions established in the modern-day, it does not seem to matter much how nonsensical or confected the main tenets of a religion are, it seems merely sufficient that there are main principles to that religion in order for its organisation to continue to function.

this bothers me somewhat. at the risk of sounding like a snob, it seems people will follow any creed so long as they feel like they belong.

watch this space, i am hoping to put a lot of effort into unpacking all this.

hope you're all doing well, friends.