About

Short Version.

Foucault’s panopticon, except the prisoners are components of whatever reality is. And sometimes, we stress-test them.

The Muses and the Furies

Director’s Cu[l]t.

I’d been thinking I ought to start by publishing a warning post first, one what would “guard” over the content that was yet to come. I meant to start with Article #0—in fact, I did, and I’m rewriting this paragraph “as” you’re reading it.

I meant to start with Article #0.1—in that draft, “The Muses and the Furies” was something else entirely—followed by Article #0.2, et cetera, all the way until I’ve properly introduced the thematic map of the publication. It even had a name: Warning! Another name for it—for those more prone to seeing adventure where many see danger: A Map for Future Explorations, even if I do have an unpopular opinion on what both the concept of the future and the word itself mean.

I first meant this as an introduction to all that is to come, and the first post’s introduction similarly. But the next section of the article #0.1 hit almost 3,000 words, and I realised that that Warning! Should have its own warning, deciding in the end to just shut up about thematic maps and grab the devil by the throat, since I’m writing this for myself first, even if everyone else is invited.

A map implies an adventure, which should do perfectly for a publication that is, as I see it, a symbiosis of criticism, figure-of-speech overload, and academic writing. Or, if you’d rather, creative nonfiction grounded in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.

In my opinion (and now I regret not calling the publication #IMOs; it’s a perfect defence when science betrays you, or you betray science), one should be thrilled instead of being overly cautious about asking a question and seeking an answer, if there is one—or one answer only. Seeking knowledge and meaning between seemingly disparate fields is a journey I want to embark on—one I’m looking forward to.

But in this upcoming odyssey, I want homecoming to be a return to rational, critical, human thought, even if it goes off the track at some point. That’s what criticism is for. Expect my future posts to cover a range of topics, from world literature, folklore, and cultural problems to psychology and psychoanalysis, cognitive neuroscience, sand astrophysics, among others.

Because how can you possibly discuss stream-of-consciousness “technique” without Modernist literature without trauma without perception of time without neurodiversity without physics without language without Arrival and Interstellar—?

Sure you can. You can be as dry as the November challenge, if you want, but I don’t.

Which is all to say, when I wake up one day to discuss radioactivity, perhaps even Chernobyl itself—or Chernobyl the TV series, or people affected by its disaster, or maybe even the black fungus that thrives there by feeding on radiation—the content itself should pose no danger. Not physically, at least.

At some point I most certainly am going to write about Homer, and though I share Kafka’s view on literature—that books should “wake us up with a blow to the head” and “be the axe for the frozen sea within us” (1904)—no one will face physical danger from either Scylla or Charybdis.

Not any real danger.

Still, the first article is about reality and its artificial nature, so…