Ongoing Project: Quia Sum, Cogito
The need for careful construction when creating any alternative is due to three necessary traits: the inclusion of current local civility, the intentional and obvious change to the conflicting aspects, and – most importantly – an embedded self contradiction. The first point – which includes a sense of respect – is necessary for the new mythos’s acceptance. The second is to introduce the necessary critique to the forefront of the community conversation. The last is to ensure an underlying critique of mythoi and the rejection of civility is always acknowledged.
Radical Civility – Implementation – Deconstructing Civility – Deconstructing Mythoi
I’m Working On A Project
I’ve been away for a bit, and I’ll be posting a lot less frequently for the foreseeable future. I hope this is for a good reason. I’m going to be working on a novel! While I intend to eventually publish both it and my thesis, these will always be available for anyone to read here and here respectively. If these are ever taken down, I’m sorry. I failed you all and I’m ashamed of my future self.
This will likely eat up a huge amount of my free time (when I’m not dealing with my real world issues or not addictively posting on twitter). With that in mind, if anyone was interested on becoming a guest author, that is a possibility.
What It’s About
In a word: heterotopia.
While this is usually reserved for stories that are beyond the realm of believable (think HP Lovecraft), mine is intended to be grounded in reality… with changes. It’s a futuristic story (2112) and – if i can accomplish it – it will force the reader to experience a complete rejection of the reality they know. Human nature, morality, governance, paradise, dystopia; all these ideas will be attempted to be challenged.
The name (Quia Sum, Cogito) is intended to be translated as “Because I am, I think”. Some may recognize immediately that this is intended to twist René Descartes’s famous “I think therefore I am” (or “Cogito Ergo Sum” in latin). If I was going to go fully into why I think Descartes deserves critique (he seemed to appeal to church ideology by not following through with the question of “what if god is a mad scientist and we are brain in a vat”) it would make this more than just a quick article. That said, my alternate proposal is a shift in that narrative: even if we are a brain in the vat, it doesn’t matter. “Because we are, we think… [and create narratives to make our existence make sense].” Reality then is not objectively knowable, but we do our best.
To reinforce this idea the novel will take on the perspective of 4 main different characters; each one having a drastically different worldview than the others. Each one being painted as both problematic and perfectly acceptable. As the novel goes along, the dystopia presented in the first perspective will hopefully become acceptable (albeit chaotic) by the end. For these different perspectives, I’m more than happy to share the pen with others to achieve different voices and experiences (but I don’t expect this) so if anyone is interested, let me know. (Please note this is not intended to be a grade school paper… this is something I hope is meaningful and it will take a considerable amount of time.)
If you want to know the outcome of the central conflict, I’ve already laid it out in the last chapter.
Thanks for Following
I do thank everyone that shows interest in this. I hope that continuous feedback will help, and I will be posting updates as I progress.
Take care of yourselves, and as always
Every action, every decision, every choice is a vote to make reality what you want it to be. Please help promote each other.