Introductions and the Evolution of my Thought

My voyage

When I first began contemplating serious questions at the beginning of my adolescence, I saw the world through a lens of individualism. I threw off my Catholic upbringing, adopted the views of secular humanism, and proceeded to deconstruct society. Feeling quite smug and content with my apparent "victory," I proceeded to throw all of Western society's norms out of my personal philosophy. Clearly, I had already learned everything there is to know at that tender young age of 15.

That's when I started reading Nietzsche and the existentialists. Boy, was I out of my league. I struggled for the next few years to grasp the concepts presented in the various treatises: Geneaology of Morals, Twilgiht of the Idols, The Antichrist, and the like. Every time I thought I had finally understood some aphorism or idea in Nietzsche's work, I would read it again and change my interpretation. I still don't have a firm grasp of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nevertheless, it was crucial that I discovered these works during my formative years. Simultaneously, I began listening to metal in all sorts of forms: death, black, industrial - everything. Unbeknownst to my younger self, I had opened a portal to a much different world than the one in which I lived. I began to relate the themes in metal, Nietzsche (and Schopenhauer) to ideas in classical antiquity.

Finally, the truth hit me. Originally, I had discarded Western ideas as poppycock due to my perception of modernity: commercial fascism, decay, depression, suicide, environmental degradation. These problems had not come from the Western tradition; rather, they had come from the rejection of it! Thus began my new journey to discover the important ideas of antiquity to determine what we as a Western civilization had lost. I also began reading Eastern texts in order to augment my understanding the slow decay of the Western world.

At this time, I am studying the works of Julius Evola, G.K. Chesterton, Spengler, and a few others. My goal with this blog is to piece together my new and expanded worldview in the context of modern decay. My hope is to go beyond a simple patchwork of philosophy and begin to develop methods which we can apply as individuals right now to combat the disease of liberalism. I plan to treat my patient (civilization) as any doctor would: Pathological analysis, research into potential medicines, and application. Hopefully you can come along for the ride.