When the whole book is finished, the last thing I’m going to do is read through it one more time. I’ll resist the urge to throw it all away in favor of sitting by the fire and finally learning guitar in peace. And I’m going to write this short chapter. I’m going to do this last because it is my belief that at that point I’ll have the best perspective on my own body of thinking — the best vantage point from which to distill the message.
For now, what I’d like to share with you is simply that this whole process has been fantastically worthwhile for me. If no one were to read a word of it, it would have been worth it. I’ve been writing about politics, culture, and social issues since the late nineties. But it was a little over a decade ago that I accepted the challenge to articulate everything that I believe to be true. It started as a simple list of terms. I didn’t really think that it would become a book or anything. I just wanted to put what was in my head down in words to begin to thoroughly scrutinize myself.
If you are someone who wants to be of benefit to society, I urge you to do something similar. You don’t have to write a book to get this benefit. Just find a way to really put the details of what you think is important down in an artifact, something outside of yourself that you can look back on, share with people you love, or maybe put out into the world. It will change you.
I do hope to make it to that fireside date with a guitar one day. But I might not. I am under no illusion that things will get simpler for me when this book drops. We have a lot of work to do as a society. And there are a lot of very good people holding down the troubadour role. This role, though, the task of rekindling the engine of philosophy, it is less peopled. We do not need one philosopher king, a few brilliant minds to tell us what to do, or a consensus dogma. Philosophy is a social project. In the best times, philosophers roll deep. It’s not for everyone, but if you feel the call we’d love the company.
cheers.