Reading
The writers I think with. I am not a philosopher and will not pretend to be one — these are simply the people who gave me language for things I could already feel.
Currently
Resonance
Hartmut Rosa
The other half of Rosa's argument, and the more interesting one: not what acceleration costs, but what it costs us the ability to have.
Standing debts
The Trouble with Being Born
Emil Cioran
The writer I trust least and return to most. Cioran offers no programme and no consolation, only the peculiar relief of hearing someone say the worst thing plainly, and well.
The Burnout Society
Byung-Chul Han
Han named something I could not. We are no longer disciplined from outside; we exploit ourselves willingly, exhaustively, and call the result freedom.
Social Acceleration
Hartmut Rosa
The clearest account I have read of why a century of time-saving technology has left everyone with less time. Rosa treats the feeling as a structural fact rather than a personal failing.
The Myth of Sisyphus
Albert Camus
The absurd is not despair, and this is where I go when the pessimism I enjoy starts turning into an excuse.