Being Affected by Nietzsche

[I tried to write something to introduce myself to the idea of writing an introduction for my prospectus. And this happened...]

You know those times when you meet someone new and pick up a certain kind of vibe from them? Sometimes, even if your encounter with them is brief and superficial, you might get the sense that you could really get along well together or that they are someone who you don't particularly need or want to get to know any further. In some cases, you might get a weird read from them that leaves you somewhat unsettled, or maybe there is just something about them that makes you feel better, lighter, more relaxed, or even happier. It may be that you don't even know precisely what it is about the other that resonates with you, but for whatever reason, you just have a hunch about them. Call it sheer intrigue or an insight from intuition, these experiences reflect the idea that there is something there. Even if this "I don't know quite what" can't be described, it sometimes suffices to say, "It's just a feeling."

These types of experiences have been described by the late feminist philosopher Teresa Brennan in terms of the transmission of affect. For Brennan, the felt dimension of another person's presence, how they can lift you up or bring you down, is a phenomenon that reveals something about our ontology as social subjects. More specifically, such phenomena exemplify how affects are literally transmitted among individuals and within groups. More than just sensations and "feelings," Brennan explains that affects are themselves material. Gesturing to the role of things like pheromones, Brennan notes that they are literally "in the air." Furthermore, affects can be understood in terms of the material, physiological, and biological changes that they engender in our bodies, which means that the affective dimension of our embodiment and such experiences of being energized or depleted by the presence of another are not just psychological in character, but biochemical. According to Brennan, there is also a cognitive dimension to affective experiences since affects are not mere sensations but rather occur at the moment of a (perhaps mostly unconscious) judgment. So even if you don't know what it is that makes you feel a certain way, people like Brennan want to say that an affect does, in a sense, "know" on its own. The affect indicates a judgment about whether one takes in and incorporates the affects of another or rejects and deflects them.

Brennan's analysis presents a number of important implications. Perhaps most importantly, the transmission of affect reveals that our social interactions with others affect, alter, and shape our biological bodies, for better or worse depending on if the transmitted affects are positive ones like love or negative, as in the case of anger. This is a provocative inversion of the more typical view that our social interactions are mostly guided by our biological constitution, as if one is more nurturing or aggressive because of one's biological sex (and all that this is presumed to entail in terms of hormones and "natural tendencies") rather than the affective atmospheres within which one engages with others. Already, then, the transmission of affect blurs the boundaries between what is social and what naturally biological and if one can actually be thought before the other.

A second implication arises in light of Brennan's suggestion that affects are judgments, which gestures to the epistemological importance of affects. There are various and contradictory views espoused across and within numerous disciplines regarding affective embodiment and cognition, and although there is little agreement on the precise nature of the relation between cognition and affect, the sheer volume of attention dedicated to the topic is noteworthy in that, if nothing else, it reflects the social, political, and epistemological value that is already attached to what people can "know" by virtue of their affects. This is especially evident with respect to heavily value-laden social and political issues such as discrimination and oppression or the evaluation of morally right or wrong actions. In such instances, an epistemological link is often tacitly acknowledged in appeals to things like "gut instincts" about what is right or wrong, what sort of actions are viewed as disgusting or attractive, or which groups of people evoke fear, distaste, or aversion in others.

Finally, the transmission of affect and subsequent biochemical changes in one's self that occur in light of this blur the borders between self and other. The notion of a self-contained, independent individual disintegrates. At the fundamental level of our ontology, we come to be recognized as thoroughly intersubjective beings. I (and my affects) affect you while you (and your affects) affect me. So much so that we can literally feel it when we encounter one another.

While each of these issues regarding the transmission of affect merit further analysis, I will not yet pursue them here. At this moment, I bring up Brennan's emphasis on the transmission of affect to shed light on a specific and peculiar kind of hunch that I've had in the past that is different from Brennan's analysis of the transmission of affect but that certainly shares a kind of resonance.  My hunch was about a man, but I didn't ever meet him in person. I only read his books. But it was more than that. As I read, I was deeply affected by his words. I felt charged, giddy, and much like one on a high from a new crush, this excitement would often materialize in outbursts of laughter. Sometimes his words would make me feel uncomfortable. Not just uncomfortable because I couldn't understand what he was saying, but really, physically, or better yet, physiologically uncomfortable insofar as considering the implications of his arguments would put my stomach on edge in ways that he often anticipated throughout his own writing. At other times, I would fall silent or even cry because his writing is just so poignant. So beautiful. It possesses such resonance. This man, of course, is Friedrich Nietzsche.

My first introduction to Nietzsche was in the fall of my junior year in college when I took a phenomenal class with an amazing professor entitled "Meaning and Truth in Religion."  Though I really didn't understand much about the theology we were reading, I was exposed to a different kind of philosophy, or a different way of doing philosophy; different questions, different problems, different understandings. I have since realized that this was my first exposure to what is frequently referred to as "Continental philosophy." Although I found Nietzsche's critical thoughts on metaphysics and ontology interesting then, I wasn't quite yet grabbed by him. In fact, from what I had gathered in the short time that we focused on Nietzsche in class, I was more interested in making him politically palatable--the will to power seemed to be too frequently interpreted (by myself, too, at the time) in violent and forceful ways that didn't sit well with me. I gather now that my initial desire to make him more "acceptable" reflects a good deal about my philosophical sensibilities then, but it probably also indicates that  I didn't really "get" Nietzsche yet.

We can fast forward a couple of years ahead when I found myself in graduate school in a predominantly Continental philosophy program surrounded by other philosophers and enthusiastic new graduate students. As is probably the case in most academic disciplines, whenever philosophers meet for the first time, one of the first questions people raise to break the ice asks about what kind of philosophy you are interested in and who you study.  Having declared my major rather later in my undergraduate career, I was still relatively new to philosophy, and given that I had a mostly analytic background, I wasn't even able to make sense of most of the names and topics with which others would align themselves and their projects. Heidegger and phenomenology were pretty empty signifiers for me then. But I do recall the moment when I started to align myself with two particular thinkers. It was within the first couple of weeks of my first semester in graduate school when I said to an older graduate student, "I don't know for sure what I am going to do in philosophy, but I have a hunch that I will become quite involved with two figures: Nietzsche and Foucault."

At that point, I still had a hunch, but it was only a hunch. I guess it was significant enough to act on though since, despite the fact that I still hadn't ever read a single book by Nietzsche or Foucault, but thanks to the convenience of online shopping and the impulsiveness of my spending, I actually already owned a number of them. My guess is that my theological glimpse at Nietzsche and the references to Foucault made by feminist philosophers I read during the last two years of my undergraduate studies planted some seeds in my mind, and from those seeds, my own little library had already started to sprout even before moving to graduate school. I was probably able to anticipate my trajectory just from the things that I had gathered about them through what other people had written. But even once I recognized that I had this hunch about the two who would eventually be adoringly referred to as "my philosophical homeboys," I didn't want to force things. Like with any healthy love relationship, I was willing to let it develop organically on its own. Instead of making it a point to test my feelings by immediately diving into their books, I chose to let it sit as it was for however long it needed to. I trusted that there would be a time when their relevance would make itself known, and I suspected that it would be at a time when I was ready for it.

It wasn't until the second semester of my first year in graduate school (Spring 2009) when I took a seminar on 19th Century Continental philosophy that I became fully involved in what became known to myself and others as my semester long love affair with Nietzsche. For those fifteen weeks, I truly was in love and everyone around me knew it. It even became the topic of my seminar paper. Here's the shameless introduction:

Upon my first close reading of some of Nietzsche’s work I felt myself being wrapped up in what was to be light-heartedly referred to for the rest of the semester as a love affair.  Whether I was reading in my bed at home or at a coffee shop surrounded by other people, Nietzsche made me toss my head back in laughter and throw my hands up in awe.  Literally, there were times when I read something that would make me exclaim, “Yes, Nietzsche!”  At other parts of his texts, those that proved more difficult to swallow, I noticed my discomfort rise. And there were even times in Thus Spoke Zarathustra that made me cry.  How could I explain to my friends and colleagues the experience of my semester-long fling with Nietzsche—the way his words would resonate with me, or rather, the way they would sing? This little love affair of mine might have been aptly named at the beginning, for it had quickly turned into an impassioned exploration of Nietzsche’s pages and of my own relationship to them. I am grateful that I can continue to carry around The Gay Science even after the semester is over, yet I have been left sheepishly wondering, “Could this really be love?”

While affects are certainly at play in how and when  I read Nietzsche, their presence and operation differs in important ways from the kind of transmission that Brennan discusses. Rather than being transmitted via biochemical pheromones and olfactory cues that happen when people physically encounter one another in the same time and space, my affective experiences occurred in the presence of books. Beyond mere books, however, I want to suggest that my affective experiences while reading Nietzsche indicate at least one possible way in which affects can be produced through philosophy; more specifically, through the reading of certain philosophical texts of a particular character which reach intended audiences through specialized aims.

It is because reading Nietzsche's books has so profoundly affected me on personal, physiological, and certainly philosophical levels that I will argue that the nature of philosophy itself can be understood as an embodied practice that can, at the level of our physiological constitution, affect us in ways that produce greater health, well-being, and vitality. This claim is found in the content of Nietzsche's own work (and it harkens back to more classic conceptions of philosophy among Hellenistic thinkers. This is something I will pick up at a later time). One of my aims is to show how an appreciation for Nietzsche's philosophical emphasis on health and physiology, along with the distinctive style of his writing, reveals an underestimated, and so far under-explored, connection between affect and philosophy. By no means does this mean that Nietzsche is the only philosopher to have this effect on others, but I will refer to my own affective experiences while reading his work as a kind of case-study for this connection, which involves other issues around pedagogy, rhetoric, and the "ends" of philosophy. I think it may even implicate a revision of what is characteristically understood to count as "philosophy."

This means that there are at least two distinct approaches for unpacking the relationship between affect and philosophy that I will discuss in turn. Not only are there interesting insights to be understood with respect to the philosophy of affect, that is, in terms of how we are to understand the ontological and cognitive (or not) dimensions of affect, but a greater sensitivity to the potential for affects of (or within) philosophy reveals exciting new possibilities for how we might understand, and undertake, philosophy as a transformative, even therapeutic, practice. Numerous issues surface when philosophy is undertaken as a kind of therapeutic practice that can produce such transformations, including questions about the connections between mind and body, and psyche and soma.  Metaphilosophical questions about the nature and aims of philosophy itself also become relevant. For instance, new lines can be drawn that reinterpret the classic analogy between medicine and philosophy as perhaps more than just an analogy. Furthermore, the relationships among truth, philosophy, and pedagogy can be reevaluated in terms that echo, once more, a view of philosophy as a practice, as an art of life.

Exploring the connections between affect and philosophy in both directions and raising such questions invites a dialogue of different voices and views from apparently disparate disciplines including philosophy, psychology, physiology, and neuroscience. As disparate as these fields might initially appear, on issues related to affect, emotion, and embodiment they have already been brought together in ways that reveal exciting new possibilities for health and healing. Furthermore, understanding the particular methods by which affects are cultivated, produced, evoked, or transmitted is valuable in order to better appreciate the role of affect with respect to personal well-being and political oppression or resistance. This is because, as was mentioned above, I want to suggest that not only are affects philosophically significant, but they also already operate in politically charged ways. While much of what I will explore deals with the two pronged approach to the philosophical significance of affect (that is, the philosophy of affect and affect of philosophy), this investigation is motivated by a sensitivity to the already political dimension of many affective experiences and their role in perpetuating and justifying discriminatory attitudes.

[After writing this, I went to an empty classroom with two chalkboards and sketched out a rough outline of what I think will shape up to be my dissertation.]

PART I.

PART II.

"Oh, Philosophy. So what do you want to do with that?"

"Do you want to teach?"

Yes.

In fact, before I even knew what philosophy was I wanted to teach, at least in some capacity. I didn't know what I wanted to teach, but I knew that I have always felt comfortable in the role of an educator, leader, and mentor.

"So do you want to become a professor?"

Well, I don't know.

I only ended up here--in academia, in graduate school pursuing a dual PhD in Philosophy and Women's Studies--thanks to a unexpected and, yes, lucky turn of events. The tale of my path includes the moment when I decided to not drop out of college after my second year and then when I declared a major in philosophy, not because I loved it so much, but because it was pretty much the only thing I could do and still graduate in four years. There was one justifiable benefit of becoming a philosophy major though. As one of my not-so-warm-and-fuzzy professors at the time told me, at least it would teach me how to read, write, and think, which are helpful skills no matter what you end up doing. So, I stayed in school and studied philosophy. 

I could not have anticipated how my life would change so quickly after that.

In the fall of my junior year I took an amazing, mind-opening, totally inspiring class with a brilliant and enthusiastic young professor who has since retained his position as easily one of the most influential people in my life (Shout out goes to David Deane!). And with that class, as I heard about new ideas that I had never even considered before and was introduced to concepts that seemed already familiar because they made sense of my experience but that I couldn't have articulated on my own, I knew that something big was happening.

I felt the metaphorical path beneath my feet twisting in new directions, leading me, a naive, but excited twenty-year-old, to board planes to Syracuse, NY on my own and attend a conference for no other reason than to just go and listen to some of the people whose work I had started to read, such as Judith Butler and Helene Cixous. Being that this was my first conference and I was so new to everything in the world of philosophy, I didn't really care enough to heed the advice of my professor to make connections and make myself known (to people who, for example, are now vice-presidents of the American Philosophical Association..and my facebook friends! Ha!). Motivations for networking were out of the question, but I was so moved by Cixous's keynote paper, "Promised Belief," and again, so unaware of professional etiquette, that I did follow her around and pester her until I was able to tell her about the amazing experience I had during her reading of her paper and ask about feminine writing. The funny thing was that I was actually disappointed when she responded to my question. She stated, "I am a philosophical poet. Derrida is poetic philosopher. But I never intend to "demonstrate" anything with my writing. I just write to write." At the time, I didn't really even know who Derrida was, let alone appreciate how awesome it was that she followed this deflating comment by saying, "That is not my project. But it could be yours!" Despite how incredible it is to me now that one of the most significant figures in feminist theorizing and writing passed a torch on to me (a torch that I guess was never really her's but perhaps was already my own), at the time I was more intimidated by my young professor's comment during one of our coffee-fueled conversations when he said, "Of course you will go on to graduate school, and you will write a book, and you will become a professor. And you will be superb." A BOOK?!? Now that was unfathomable.

But he was right and my path was obviously heading in that direction. I got more involved in philosophy, went to a week-long summer nerd camp for aspiring young philosophers at Penn State before my senior year, returned with even more passion and energy for doing philosophy in new ways, and when I returned to Colorado, I used that newly found perspective and confidence to become more outspoken in the many philosophy classes and graduate seminars that I took during my senior year to complete my bachelor's degree. And in the course of those two years between nearly dropping out and being admitted to graduate school, I totally fell in love with philosophy. More importantly, though, I developed my own voice.

The unpleasant truth about graduate school, though, is that no matter how much you love what you do--the research, the learning, the intellectual stimulation--and no matter how passionately your pursue it for noble causes like greater justice, equality, and positive social changes, it doesn't take long for doubt and disillusion to set in. Even (or perhaps especially) those who are most passionately motivated for all the right reasons come to the conclusion that academia is just not for them, that they can't actually bring about the changes that are most important to them, that theory and practice don't really intersect in sufficient ways. So people burn out. And a lot of people leave. And at some point, many of those who remain do so only because they've already gotten so deep and dedicated so much time that there don't really seem to be any other viable options.

For the first two years of my graduate career I was constantly tempted by the thought of quitting, especially when the end of the semester rolled in and paper-writing season consumed every hope for sanity and a healthy, balanced life. I would have emotional break downs and cry. I would be in physical pain from typing for so long and cry. I would think about a lifetime ahead of me of doing this all the time for my career--reading things that other people wrote that nobody else ever read or cared about except for a few people like me, who were trapped in the depths of hell forcing themselves to write papers that nobody else would ever read or care about. And then I would sometimes cry some more.  Much like when other people find themselves in an unhappy marriage and have a mid-life crisis, for graduate students it is during those times when papers have to be produced and turned in that everything else seems to lose its meaning and you really question your life choices. However, even when my now best friend (whom I met when we both started the philosophy PhD program together) left before Thanksgiving break of our first semester, I decided to wait it out at least a year before making any drastic decisions.

With time my perspective shifted, but only a little. During my second year, most of the graduate students I knew in my own program and in other disciplines had gotten quite comfortably blunt about their dissatisfaction of being in graduate school. My own discomfort manifested itself in explicit questions that I directed to my advisors, professors, academic superiors, and even "philosophical role models." I asked many of them, "Do you have any regrets?," meaning, would they have gone a different route in life if they could do it over again? Some actually had the nerve to forsake any kind of consolation for why I would ask such a question and said yes. Others gave a very qualified no. Only one person could say, "Absolutely not. I love what I do." (This person was Ladelle McWhorter, another of the most influential philosophers in my life, and definitely one of the handful of people who have encouraged me in ways that have actually kept me in philosophy. I am hugely grateful for her, and my style and approach to philosophy are significantly indebted to her example.)

Despite the lack of overly-encouraging hindsight from my superiors, it was at the end of my second year when I was finally able to come to my own decision about whether or not I would stay in graduate school and finish my doctorate degree. And the decision was made because during my fourth semester I was able to teach my very own classes for the first time. I was able to craft one syllabus on my very own, and I taught it to two classes, about 65 students. And I loved it. It wasn't easy, especially since I was taking four graduate classes of my own, but I did it. As part of all of the experiences that we had in those rooms together, I learned an awful lot. I learned about philosophy. I learned about my students. I learned about myself, as a person and as an educator. By the end of it, I was very aware of how cool it was to be able to say that at the age of 23 I was actually able to do exactly what I've always wanted to do. I was getting to teach material that I wanted to teach, how I wanted to teach it, and we were all learning as a result of that. Given that finishing my degree would mean that I would continue teaching for at least three more years, I had come to better appreciate that I was in a pretty cool situation. Not only do I get to do what I have wanted to do for so long even before I finish my twenties, but at the end of it, I will also have a couple of degrees. Sweet deal. So I stayed in it.

That justification worked out well throughout my third year of graduate school. I was able to put the pressure and anxiety aside about "what I would do" with a PhD in philosophy, not worry so much about working hard to look super impressive for my impending run on the job-market gauntlet, and focus more on simply doing what I love to do. It's worked out well. So far I'm one of only two people in my cohort to actually be on track in terms of our program's timeline. I even heard through the grapevine that when a somewhat skeptical, and very befuddled, professor in the department questioned how it was possible for me to be getting through the program as I am, he surmised for others that it was because I said, "Screw the expectations of everyone else! I'm doing it my way! Why? Because I want to." In  a sense, he's right. But moreover, it's not that I am doing my work as I am just to be a rebel, but rather because I actually enjoy and love the work more when I do it in my own way. In fact, I think it is the only way for me to be able to produce or teach anything at all.

But now, as I prepare to enter my fourth year (and yeah.....I am still working on putting together my dissertation prospectus), I have entered a new stage in my graduate career, one that makes evident that I am steadily approaching the end of this journey. I still have a couple more years to go, but there's really only one more thing to do. Write the dissertation. And then what? Well, I guess go on the job market and try to get a one of those very rare, tenure-track jobs.

But for all the same reasons that I worried during those first two years about what it means to live a life in academia, I have some reservations about my future and to where this current path is leading. Is that all that is available for someone who has reached the end of formal training in reading, writing, and thinking? I realize that all of the people around me who have doctorate degrees in philosophy are professors, but aren't there people who have also earned their degrees and gone on to do other things? What do they do? What other options are out there? Without a very clear or bountiful set of answers to these questions, I have spent a good amount of time imagining what other things I could do with my life after graduate school. This morning (though there was nothing particularly unique about this morning, it just came up in conversation over breakfast) I allowed myself to say a couple of things that I have always tried hard to recognize and appreciate:

I love to teach and I want to keep teaching. But I don't know if that has to happen in a university, or if I really want to deal with all of the other (less pleasant stuff) that comes with that kind of job. If I could do absolutely anything, I think I would really love to teach philosophy in a more community-based setting and within a greater demographic range. Sure, I like college students. And it would be fun to go with a older-than-college-kids crowd and do philosophy with grown adults, but my real passion for philosophy compels me to go the other direction--to work with younger kids. Like kid kids, middle schoolers, and high school kids. Those years are some of the most formative times that I can remember, when your peers are more influential than your parents, and they can also be some of the most difficult of times. Especially for those who are going through a lot at those ages, who have to deal with a lot of "grown up" issues and face "real life" experiences but probably lack sufficient tools to help them make sense of their experiences, I think that philosophy can be a very rich resource for those tools.

The greatest value for me in practicing philosophy has been found in the confidence, strength, and empowerment that it has cultivated within me. As I have gained new insights on how to understand myself, others, and the world around me, I have also developed a voice that has enabled me to articulate my thoughts and describe my experiences. So I would love to teach philosophy in a way that encourages the development of minds, bodies, and voices of those who need to know, and embody, their own sense of strength, value, and significance. I want to help cultivate the skills that have so drastically shaped me in those whose voices need to be heard.

In short, practicing philosophy has literally changed my life. And I have changed as a result of that. Thanks to the texts written by innumerable others before me, and the guidance, conversations, and examples from my professors and peers around me, I have become who I am today, and I continue to grow and change. Philosophy has the capacity to make significant changes and powerful transformations. In those moments when I begin to question the importance of doing philosophy, I only have to remember that I am a testament to the powerful affect that philosophical practice can have on our lives and how we live them.

So when I finish my degree, yeah, I want to use it to teach.

On a side note about how people accidentally get into philosophy and what it's about for some contemporary intellectuals, here's the title sequence to a film by Phillip McReynolds (Penn State). 



AND. I really like this part of the film. If you're into it, go watch other clips from his film.

Thinking of You

Philosophical possibilities aside (because I know that there are many passages I could bring in here), I've been wanting to mention one thing that has really been on my mind over the past couple of weeks.

There's a really good chance that you are part of it. Seriously.

Because what I've been paying attention to are the many instances, minutes, and days in which thoughts of other people are present to me. Most likely, all of this occurs unbeknownst to those who cross my mind. I imagine that many, many people would be surprised to know how often I actually think of them. Once I started paying attention to it, it even surprised me. I'm talking about strangers, friends from 10 years ago who I no longer talk to (in fact, lots of people with whom I've seemed to lose touch), peers from high school, teachers, students, friends of friends, people I've never actually met but whose path I've crossed enough to recognize their bags, and of course, family members, loved ones, friends, and acquaintances. I often think of people who I've never had the chance to meet but whose stories I've heard, as well as (of course!) those who make their way into my stories. And there are those who I don't simply conjure up in my memory but who I literally see throughout any given day. When I'm sitting in a coffee shop or watching people walk by me, I wonder how many of them are aware of the fact that I am aware of them.

That is what all of this comes down to: Recognition. Acknowledgment. Consideration. Awareness.

This has come up for me pretty strongly lately in part because I have had the great fortune of being contacted by lots of people over these past couple of months. Just last week I was taken aback by the amount of birthday wishes that I received from people on facebook alone. And over the summer, I've received numerous messages from strangers on the Internet, while others say when we formally meet, "I've seen you walking around campus before..." These are some of the ways that indicate when and how others think of you. Just think of all of the mini thoughts that we have of people which seem to leave no trace...

Sometimes it's heartening to hear from others. Sometimes it's humbling. Sometimes it's surprising, and yes, sometimes it's kind of weird to find out that people have "noticed" you before. But the vast majority of the time, I think it's important to know that you were on someone's mind, because it helps one to better appreciate how connected we actually are and recognize that even in times when we might feel isolated, disconnected, or alienated, it has to be trusted that you are significant enough to be remembered and recognized by someone, somewhere.  We see each other more than we let on, I think. We notice lots more than what others are probably aware. We remember so much, too. A lot of the time, I think it's because we really do care.

So I've been wondering what it might mean if other people could somehow know that someone else remembered, considered, and acknowledged them. Even if it was just for a second. I've imagined what it would be like if it was possible to keep a running tally of all the people who worked their way into my conscious awareness in one day and then share it in such a way that they would know that someone, somewhere, was (unexpectedly?) thinking of them. Sure, there might be something valuable on its own about appreciating "traceless thoughts" and letting them stay that way, but my sense is that there are lots of people who don't give themselves enough credit, who underestimate their significance in the world, who seem to think that no one cares about their existence. And I think that it would be really cool if, at least for just one instance, they could be shown otherwise.

Despite all of the frustrations that people might have about social media and the way that Facebook, Twitter, and other online-whatevers have degraded our ability to communicate, to know what "real" connection means, to maintain substantive relationships with others, and to participate in genuine human interaction, I am rolling with the changes that they bring. Sure, these parts of our lives have been dramatically transformed, but that doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing.

What if we weren't afraid to reveal that we were "stalking" someone on Facebook and actually went ahead and "Liked" something that they posted? Then they would know that we're following and paying attention.

What if we just sent a text that said, "Hi. Thought of you today. I really hope you're doing well." to one of those long-lost someones in our contact list?

What if we went back to writing letters? Because we can.

What if I finally stopped those two guys who I've seen for months and years (respectively) and told them that I love the style and attitude with which they walk around the streets of this fake little town--that they liven it up in a really wonderful way?

And then there are those people with whom we can't connect in tangible ways...

What if we could let those who have passed know that we are still thinking of them?

What if we could tell their family members that the loss of their loved one brought us to tears, too, and that we are heartbroken right along with them?
 
What if we could reach out in lots of ways and let others know?

In large part, it probably comes down to time. We may just not have have enough time to let others know that they crossed our mind. It's probably more so the case that we are too uncomfortable to break through whatever boundaries keep our thoughts traceless.

But just imagine. How cool would it be if.....

Yet even as I write, I am hesitant to put down specific names of those from just today. I know that the list would be necessarily incomplete. But even in acknowledging its partiality, it's almost too daunting to attempt. I want to. I really do. I just haven't figured out how yet. (And there's probably something important to be learned from that...) Or maybe one of these days it will become it's own project.


For now, suffice it to say that, someone, somewhere, has probably thought of you today.

On a more specific note from me, thank you to those who let me know that you were thinking of me, too. Thanks for the messages, the calls, the chats, the video messages, the texts, the meeting-ups for hugs and  "hello's." I've got mad love for you all.

All Things Out of Exuberance

In one of my most recent posts, while writing in the wee hours of the night into the birds' songs of the dawn, I reflected on my hesitations around writing my dissertation prospectus and concluded that I had not been fully preparing myself in ways that I knew were necessary for my own process. I spent those hours acknowledging that there was an unusual amount of fear and insecurity present in me, and I decided to allow myself a couple of more days to do whatever it was that I needed to do to get to a better, more productive place.

The next night, with philosophy books pulled off of my shelf and scattered about my bedroom floor, I ended up reading back through some of my old journals that were stored next to some of my most relevant philosophy texts. I flipped through the past two years worth of random thoughts, reminders, sketches, and poems about my relationships and the most growth-inducing experiences, as well as the tidbits of notes from philosophy talks and other paper ideas that were distributed throughout those now-filled journal pages. As I put down one journal to pick up the next, the next relationship, the next saga, the next series of challenges and reflections, their tan covers were soon intermingling with the books on my floor about feminism, phenomenology, Nietzsche, and Foucault. Of course. Of course it would all come together like that.

With the arrangement of thoughts and feelings and memories and ideas and arguments and personalities surrounding me, I picked up my current journal and began writing. Much like the texts and the books and my experiences throughout the past month of May, what I wrote reflected the near seamlessness of my philifesophy (that may be one of the first time that I have actually used the word in a sentence and meant it as such). I wrote about where I was at in that moment: After a month of dedicating my attention to my own patterns and personal relationships, I needed to create some space for myself and in my head and in my heart to let those realizations breathe a bit on their own. I need to shift gears into work, and let philosophy be the area that teaches me about my experiences. I wrote about the basic questions that will be guiding my dissertation. How is it that philosophy can change a person? How might this effect change how we understand philosophy itself? And as I elaborated upon those questions, without really intending to, I slipped back into addressing relationships (in very transcendental terms no less!): "...we work on cultivating the conditions for the possibility of the relationship..." And with that last twist in my writing, it became evident that what I needed to do was think my personal thoughts (which usually center on relationships) and my philosophical thoughts (which usually center on meta-philosophical questions) together.

No kidding, right?

I was already aware of my hesitations around philosophy. I was being held back by something, and I don't think it was just a matter of being preoccupied with all of this self-understanding that I had been engaging in for so long. It wasn't just that I needed to redirect some mental energy to the work; it was that I needed to approach my work from a different place. One that wasn't riddled with fear, anxiety, and insecurity from imposter complexes, and a place that wasn't defensive. I don't want to prove that I am right and others are wrong. I needed to get ready to do philosophy in the only way that I healthfully and happily can--by being fully engaged, creative, curious, and fully open to being transformed by it. I needed to put myself into the project with all of the passion and enthusiasm and glee that I feel whenever I read Nietzsche.

And what I soon realized was that I was also starting to do a weird thing in my personal relationships. These past few months have been really unusual: after ending my last long-term relationship in March, I've been surrounded by lots of new people and doing lots of new things. And in the process, I've met someone who I actually have started to like quite a bit. It's been rather unexpected, but wonderfully fun and exciting at the same time. Nevertheless, on that night, I realized that I was going through a pretty common thing that happens when someone starts to develop feelings for another person. It's the case with me, and I know others who have been through it too, that the precise moment when you start to like someone else is when worries begin to blossom: What if they don't like me? What if I do something stupid? What if...?

But just as quickly as those feelings were acknowledged, I let them go, because the thing is, none of that matters. Those questions and worries are misleading, if not completely misdirected already on their own. At this point in time, and it may be that this is always the case, I don't have to impress anyone. There are no stakes on making sure that someone likes me back. I can't convince someone to fall for me, and even if I could manipulate someone's heart into heavy infatuation, I wouldn't want to! To ask, "What if...?" and to approach someone (about whom you are interested in and excited about) from that place is to allow your feelings and actions to be rooted in insecurity and doubt. There is a degree of clinging that wants to bring someone into your life and hold on to them, hence the fear of rejection, but that is not a healthy source out of which one should develop any kind of relationship.

It reminded my again of why I love Nietzsche's the Gay Science: When we approach work, love, and life out of a type of need, clinging, resentment, or insecurity, this affects the nature of what follows suit. Rather than being wholly reactionary, what if we strove to take on projects, start new friendships and relationships, write philosophy, and live in general from a place of overflowing generosity? Not because of a need to hold on to something or someone or to protect ourselves, but rather because we need to express the enthusiasm, joy, creativity, passion, and love that begs to be given. How would that change our philosophy? How would it change our relationships?

After reminding myself of all of this, I went down to the kitchen and wrote myself a note:

I also used the dictionary to help me put all of this into very dry, concrete terms:

exuberance: the quality or state of being exuberant
exuberant: 1. extreme or excessive in degree, size, or extent 2. joyously unrestrained and enthusiastic, unrestrained or elaborate, especially in style: FLAMBOYANT 3: produced in extreme abundance: PLENTIFUL
exuberate: to have something in abundance: OVERFLOW

Since that night, I've been doing more work. I've had peaks of motivation and productivity, and I've felt a greater sense of relaxation and release in both my work and my interactions with those around me. All of that has, of course, still occurred in between my fair share of summer fun--karaoke, dancing, late nights of hanging out, and cooking lots of farm fresh meals. I also decided to follow up on a suggestion from a friend and read this book with my breakfasts over the past couple of days:

Go here to take a peek inside the book.

It was a good, quick, and easy read, and one that spoke to me on many levels. In fact, I wanted to write about play and how it brings me back to Nietzsche, affect, and philosophy here today, but since I got carried away with these other things, I'll save that for next time...

:)

The Pleasure of Not Smoking

I'm thinking of quitting smoking...no small task. But instead of quitting out of some sense of guilt or shame, like because smoking is bad or because others negatively judge those who do it, I want to apply some ideas that I have come across through podcasts and philosophy to make this a pleasurable process. That is, instead of using pain and punishment as a mode of discipline, I want to discipline myself to quit smoking through the use of pleasure. If and when I want a cigarette, I will ask myself, "What would I enjoy even more than a cigarette right now?" and then do that.

You can listen to the podcast I mention here.

(By the way, Radiolab is one of my favorite podcasts! The shows are definitely worth a listen.)

You can also go back to my previous blog post about the Creation, Intensification and Multiplication of Pleasures.

Trouble for Old, Dead, White Guys (Video)

Think for a Change (13):




A viewer on Youtube asked about a forum for longer comments. I guess this will do for now...Please feel free to post your thoughts below.

Cheers!

Hesitations Before the Changes, and Breaking My Writer's Block

It's been a week and a half since I've been back after my cross-country drive with my dear friend. On that journey, I wrote about not doing philosophy, taking a break from the seriousness of it all, and allowing myself to stay grounded to the everydayness of life outside of academic philosophy. Upon my return, I knew that I would have to get back to business. With less than a month before I start my summer teaching, it is time for me to actually put together the structure of arguments and chapters for my dissertation. But, alas, in the past week and a half, I have not.

Despite my desire to be productive with my reading and writing, and despite the fact that the ideas I will work through in my dissertation have been resurfacing in various forms over the past few years now, for some reason, I can't bring myself to actually do it. Writing this prospectus is hard...This is the ultimate form of writer's block. I haven't even started writing it. So, much like I've done before, I have decided tonight that while I keep to the insomniatic schedule that screams as a poor excuse, "I'm still jet-lagged and on west coast time," I might as well write about my current process. At least it's something.

My advisor has, as usual, been very supportive. She previously described to me the experience of writing her prospectus as a "semester of floundering." To me it feels like desperately seeking guidance in an open field with no structure to direct or even limit the moves that you could make. Strange that limitations would be welcome, and yes, it feels a lot like floundering.

I keep telling myself that getting into it is probably the most difficult part of the whole writing process, especially since it requires that I make claims that I can't yet fully support. I have to suggest my arguments about embodiment, affect, psychosomatic phenomena, oppression, bodily practices, resistance, transformation, and the role of philosophy in all of this without even having done sufficient research to back them up. Not only does this go against my training, but it also quickly brings up the anxieties related to not yet knowing enough (Oh, the imposter complex strikes again. Hello, old nemesis. I haven't seen you in a while!). Of course there are a thousand more books out there that I can read, and hundreds of other people have written on the topics in question. In fact, whole disciplines are dedicated to understanding the biochemical capacities and physiological processes of our human bodies--yes, my dissertation is looking in these directions--but unfortunately, right now I could probably better convince more people that I'm interested in being a presidential candidate for the GOP than I could intelligently speak about these sciences.

Nevertheless, I know I need to do it. So in between cooking adventures, eating binges, and long conversations with friends and neighbors, I have tried to think about how I would put all of this together in a book-length manuscript. During one attempt this week, the farthest I got was to writing, "Do I really have to delve into psychoanalysis?" "Do I really need to deal with the unconscious?" "Do I really have to address Truth?!" How daunting! Especially because the answer to all of the above is most likely, "Yes."

So naturally, I started to feel a bit worried and overwhelmed. I started to wonder, how am I actually going to do this? I know that I can do it, but HOW?? And then tonight, just as I was getting ready to get myself out of the house and meet up with some friends, something occurred to me.

I'm not ready for this.

I think it is the case that some kind of fear forms the root of my hesitations and blocks...It's not necessarily a bad fear, but an anticipatory fear, one that feels a lot like the sort of fear I remember feeling when I was learning how to snowboard. I would take my time while strapping in, making extra sure that the boots were perfectly snug, knowing full well that right when I stood up I would have to attempt to carve out a turn. But learning how to carve is tricky. You catch a lot of edges and fall a lot, and if you stiffen up and hesitate for too long, you start gaining speed and end up rocketing down the hill without any control. When you inevitably catch an edge anyway, with that increase in velocity, the fall only hurts more. Eventually, and with practice, I was able to relax more, bend my knees more, throw my hips more gracefully, and carve pretty effortlessly. Eventually, and this is to be expected, that initial hop up onto the board wasn't so intimidating, even if a tiny little tug in my tummy still remained. And eventually, once I got the hang of it, I was able to really enjoy the feeling of gravity pulling my on my body as I would glide over the snow.

This analogy is the best way for me to relate my current feeling of not being ready (sorry if you're not a snowboarder and the example doesn't resonate in your belly, too). I'm not ready to hop up and get right into the prospectus. All of this time so far (for nearly the past month!) has been me diligently brushing the snow out of my bindings, putting my gloves on...going through the minute motions of getting ready, all the while finding ways to avoid feeling the real fear of standing up.

But, thank goodness, in addition to realizing that I am not yet ready to do this, I think I have also finally realized a part of why I'm not ready to do this: I've been thinking about this project, what I need to do, and what's ahead all wrong!

I've been envisioning myself undertaking the task of sifting through various unknown disciplines and topics--like neuroscience and evolutionary theory, just to give gratuitous nods to other contenders in the ring--all in the hopes of teasing out threads that I can hopefully string together into a compelling narrative about how oppression works on and through our bodies, right down to the physiological dimensions of our affective experiences of discomfort and dis-ease, and how philosophy is a bodily practice that can similarly work as a means of resistance by affectively captivating us through episodes of passion, joy, and enthusiasm. While that may be a pretty good summation of my thesis statement (which is actually not that bad for it being the first time I have written it in such a way AND given that it's nearly 5:00 am), I know better than to think that this is all of what I am going to be doing while I write my dissertation.

From reading my most influential philosopher role models and from my own experience of writing papers thus far, I should know better than to assume that I could have a very solid idea of the ultimate form of my dissertation. One thing that I can be sure of is that my thesis statement will likely change. As I continue to go about the research and the writing, the arguments that I craft are almost certain to change. Perhaps even drastically. And, of course, I WILL CHANGE. The very process of doing philosophy, especially in the very involved, rigorous, and dedicated way that I am going to have to assume over the next 16 months, is a process that engenders new insights, new questions, and lots of growth and transformation.

If you are brighter and sharper than me, then perhaps you already realized for yourself that this is the very sort of change and transformation that I have been talking about for quite some time now. If nothing else, I have already indicated it a couple of times above in this post alone. However, so far, as I have been picturing the dissertation in all of its potential, one of the most important elements of it was missing: me. It's not just piecing together a puzzle, I'll be the one doing it, and I will be just as much as involved in the process as will Nietzsche. Furthermore, and much like snowboarding, I think that doing philosophy is a bodily practice insofar as it will require for me to be present with my own sensations, affects, and feelings as I proceed. But writing the dissertation will also require that I take up new routines, position my body in new locations, develop new habits, and carry all of that in my body. And needless to say, as I continue going about my day to day, I will also encounter lots of other life experiences that will challenge me, inform my opinion, reshape my thoughts, and influence my arguments...and me. None of these things can be anticipated in their specificity, but that I will encounter them is about as sure of a thing as I can imagine. The greatest hope is that, much like snowboarding, there will be even more pleasure and enjoyment in the process than there is frustration while learning.

When I think about the task of writing my dissertation in this way, my worries about not knowing enough and hesitations from needing to do more research make a lot more sense. They are there because I don't know enough. I need to do more research. But it is also the case that I will do those things. That is point of the project. Recognizing this, I can already feel those anxieties begin to dissipate.

It also means that rather than reading more books and articles right now at this moment, the real preparatory work for me to do is on myself. I've been intellectually preparing myself for my dissertation over the past couple of years through classes, selecting topics for my seminar papers according to my philosophical interests, and, lucky me, almost all of the books on my comprehensive exam lists related to these issues of affect, embodiment, oppression, and philosophy. Now, then, I need to get myself ready for a project that is going to change me. I don't know what writing this dissertation will entail, but I know it will be an experience in its own right. And soon, I think I will be able to step up to it.

Tomorrow (or rather, today) is the first day of this new process, but for now, I must get some rest as the birds sing their morning songs.