The tightrope between being a fool and being a mummy
I’ve been thinking about my relationship with philosophy lately. I miss reading more of it, sometimes. I miss the patient reading, the depth of insight, the openness of thought. It’s not like I don’t read any philosophy now, but It’s more of a light seasoning, a sprinkle on the surface, than a submersion into complexity. But I also remember why I distanced myself in a way; the fetishism of the text, the incredibly dragging exegetical discussions on interpretation, and more so, the feeling that the importance lies on interpreting the text itself, more than what you can do with it.
These difficulties are common in the space of academic philosophy. My interest in philosophy has always been, in some way, primarily existential (or rather, vital, to avoid using a term that harkens to a specific theory). I’m motivated by my own journey of thought, my attempt at thinking about how to live my life. I should care more about whether a text helped me find sense in things and navigate through life than whether I have the optimal interpretation of said text.
Yet herein lies the crux. It can’t be the case that anything goes. Rigour and precision are important. The finer distinctions can, in fact, make all the difference. And patience and openness lead the road of reflection when trying to get something fast and effectively risks getting nothing of value at all, and, worse still, believing you did.
A dear teacher of mine said to me once (perhaps quoting Voltaire, or someone else, I do not recall); “philosophy is the endeavour to not be a fool”.1 Doing philosophy does not, in itself, prevent you from being a fool. In doing philosophy we confront our ever-present tendency towards foolishness, we make an active effort to recognize it and offer a humble attempt at overcoming it. Taking the text for granted, believing ourselves above the questions posed, is a surefire road to foolishness.
We must take the text seriously. We must take ourselves seriously. But that prompts another set of questions. How closely, how carefully, should we read? At what point have we squeezed the life out of thought and are left with the desiccated corpse of the text? Nietzsche wrote in Twilight of the Idols of the way philosophers have used reason to grasp reality:
All that philosophers have handled for thousands of years have been concept-mummies; nothing real escaped their grasp alive. When these honorable idolators of concepts worship something, they kill it and stuff it; they threaten the Iife of everything they worship.2
This is the tightrope we must walk. A balancing act. I’m glad to be eclectic, take what I find useful and add it to my toolbox to look at things that interest and excite me. Sometimes the extra finer details and technicisms are not needed for that. But one must be careful not to overlook too much detail, less they become the fool. Conversely, one should not be too preoccupied with detail that they become unable to walk and suffocate the passion that made the inquiry worthwhile in the first place.
As an anxious person, I have tended to ere on the side of mummies. The need for control, the fear of being mistaken or taken for a fool, the perfectionist impetus that makes one second guess, all these have taken hold of me and often slowed me down or paralyzed me. The end result is that I do less, I put myself out there less, I express myself less and in less creative ways. And I have often lost sight of what mattered or motivated me in the formal entrapments I felt I had to follow. I have been working to be more daring, more vital, more eclectic. But I also strive to not lose sight of the subtleties, that this therapeutic effort itself does not result in me losing balance and toppling over (like a fool!), that this attempt does not distort the sources from which I pull, that they do not disrespect thought or misrepresent the text; that in its playfulness it remains humble and patient.
But that is what I strive for, to be more playful, lest I dry up like a mummy.