We might ask ourselves in a moment of contemplation, ‘why is there something, not nothing?’ or ‘why is the cosmos the way it is and not some other way?’ But that’s like asking ‘why does a bee sting you?’ It’s an absurd question because that what bees are supposed to do. There is no why. […]
Explaining the Buddhist viewpoint of Emptiness (Śūnyatā): The Cosmology of ‘No Things’
‘Insofar as the senses show becoming, passing away, and change, they do not lie. But Heraclitus will remain eternally right with his assertion that being is an empty fiction. The “apparent” world is the only one: the “true” world is merely added by a lie’. Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols Emptiness (Sanskrit: Śūnyatā) is […]
Pitfalls of self-help – Distraction and Addiction
I’ve read many self-help books but in recent years I’ve become more cautious of the whole genre. My quest for personal development lead me to read, listen and watch to so much advice. But a part of me became exasperated at how much it felt like work. I asked myself ‘When will it end? When can […]
How to find the right path in life
I often ask myself if what I’m doing is the right thing. I have only so much time and I want to use it wisely. Is art my way forwards, and if so what type of art? Would I do better leaving my job to become a full time artist? Is writing more my forte? […]
You don’t have to know what you’re doing all the time
Am I just wasting my time? Is there something better I could be doing? Oh shiny,! maybe I should be doing this instead? I don’t know where I’m going with this… I’ve had many doubts about what I should do with my life. Last year I seemingly had an Existential crisis every month. These questions […]
What is meant by ‘Map’ in ‘Map vs territory?
‘I don’t know where the artificial stops and the real starts’ Andy Warhol In the post The Map is not the Terrain I explain why our ideas about reality are not reality, yet here I wanted to unpack what is meant by Map, in the Map vs Territory dichotomy. Below it outlines what encompass the […]