PicoBlog

I guest-editored Purple Magazine’s latest issue, with the theme, Revolutions. For the issue, I interviewed Bernardo Kastrup (this was based on my podcast interview, which you can watch here). Hope you enjoy it! It takes time to assimilate Bernardo Kastrup’s philosophy — presented in The Idea of the World; More than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth, and Belief; and Why Materialism Is Baloney, among other works — but it is well worth the effort.

The limited-government libertarian, however, maintains that the libertarian anarchist has placed himself in a dilemma. For permitting the market to operate in the choice of such things as police protection and legal codes means that justice will be determined by the highest bidders. But this, in turn, means that a libertarian legal code will emerge from an anarchist society only if the society, itself, is overwhelmingly libertarian. But if there were sufficient demand for, say, the suppression of nude swimming or marijuana smoking, an individualist anarchist society would produce laws prohibiting such activities as well as defense agencies willing to enforce them.

This show is not trash. Was never a SATC fan - in fact publicly criticised it for "...putting a pretty dress on desperation and calling it empowerment...". and felt that Carrie had zero personality. Add to that I am a Classics Major and a literary snob - read Ovid for breakfast, Proust at night... Didn't even notice the SATC movies when they came out. However, when a NY playwright friend asked for my thoughts re: casting Cynthia Nixon for the lead role in her play, and after reading all the reviews saying how terrible season 1 of AJLT was, I felt compelled to watch it.

When I recently selected “Midsomer Murders,” Season 5, Episode 7, “Sauce for the Goose,” I did not remember it as one of the stronger episodes. Nor did I remember it at all. But upon rewatch, I’m starting to wonder if this 2005 ep is the show’s finest. Finest, that is, after the first two of Season 1, which are, like, art. But “Sauce for the Goose” is maybe the perfect non-pilot-type “Midsomer.

Last week I learned that the copy of Dr. Seuss’ On Beyond Zebra that I and my daughters have so enjoyed for years is now officially a collector’s item. The Seuss estate has decided to no longer publish it and five other Seuss books because of their racist imagery. I get that we might not want to be showing kids some of the images in the other books, where the only black people depicted are exotic, subservient “natives,” or the only East Asian is a Chinese person who “eats with sticks” in To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street.

Throughout my life I’ve heard friends talk about their bucket lists. They want to kitesurf in Peru. Bungee Jump in Bali. Have coffee with Dolly Parton in a roadside diner in Tennessee. All of which sound amazing. But my personal bucket list has always been a bit different. For many years now my biggest dreams haven’t required passports or parachutes. As much as I love traversing the world outside, healing my inner world has been most of what I’ve longed to do in this life.

Imagining the weeks of my life falling away into darkness is one of the most powerful philosophical practices I’ve adopted. I designed my memento mori calendar to help me do it. It’s an anti-bullshit device that makes me aware when I’m wasting my life and not living in alignment with my values. I’m gifting it to paid subscribers of Socratic State of Mind to thank those who support my work financially.

A note to Fight Freaks Unite readers: I created Fight Freaks Unite in January 2021 and eight months later it also became available for paid subscriptions for additional content — and as a way to help keep this newsletter going and for readers to support independent journalism. If you haven’t upgraded to a paid subscription please consider it. If you have already, I truly appreciate it! Also, consider a gift subscription for the Fight Freak in your life.

January is full of hope and beginnings, the promise of new and change and different. It’s also, for me, a battle of wills, a clash between two forces: one of wants and one of shoulds. Of course, when it comes to eating, the battle gets bloodier. Force number one, the strong and comfortable and seemingly reasonable, reminds me that it’s cold and gray, and we’re all a little sad about the end of the festive season, and wouldn’t something rich and indulgent be exactly what I want?