Nilsi

Share songs that are close to perfection; ideal; archetypal.

Bloomsbury released a top-tier print edition of Stanislavski's original trilogy in its Revelations series - one of the best-curated publishing collections out there. Highly recommend checking it out!

Gotta love a dose of pure 80's nostalgia.

I always saw myself as an artist without a craft - until I discovered Stanislavski's Method. It gave me the philosophy and tools to see my character as a work of art - to understand it, dominate it, shape it, and unleash it with unrestrained imagination. As a thinker, Stanislavski is criminally underrated beyond the world of professional acting.

One of the most audacious political minds of the 20th century; the uncompromising Anti-Hegelian historian of our age - this is the kind of raw, unfiltered thought you can’t afford to ignore.

Well then, surprised you shall be, because isn’t it the fundamental lesson of psychoanalysis that what you dismiss as “gibberish” is precisely where the communication actually happens? And someone obsessively disregarding the unconscious as mere noise? That’s what we call a hysteric.

Lovely.

I want to be very clear here: I’m saying this - as fits the topic of this thread - as a good historian, not a metaphysician; though, admittedly, I’m not entirely convinced the two can be disentangled so easily. I always hate it when Hegel comes back to bite me in the ass, but I suppose such is the fate of the eternal philosopher; or as Derrida so eloquently put it: “A specter is always a revenant. One cannot control its comings and goings because it begins by coming back. The paradox of spectrality, the specter or the revenant, the ‘thing’ begins by coming back. The spirit of Marx [and by extension Hegel], in a certain sense, is still to come and thus it remains to come. It is never simply a ghost but always already a revenant.”

Cigarettes, booze, cocaine - anything that makes you thank the bearded man in the sky for blessing you with this beautiful body to revel in his grand, fucked-up world.

"In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women." – Tony Montana. Of course, we might also add drugs. Drugs really help. Alternatively, you could try being a Marxist - that’ll get you some pussy too.

Without a phone? Robbing a gas station sounds like your best bet at that point.

I think you might be on the spectrum. That’s like claiming Shakespeare was conceptually confused, as if all his depth could be reduced to a string of dry, rational analytic propositions.

I’ve always thought Morrissey was a whiny loser, oozing an unmistakable castration complex. This is precisely why I adore Lou Reed so much: even in his most decadent moments, there’s always an undercurrent of the heroic.

High on life.

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. Besides, it’s great fun - I couldn’t imagine something more fun, actually.

But what good is your intellectual stamp album if you can’t pay your rent, cultivate fulfilling relationships, or build a meaningful life? I’d rather treat “perspectives” the way a hedge fund manager treats investments: sure, it’s important to know what’s out there, but in the end, you back the horses most likely to grow your fund. Of course, that choice depends entirely on the outcome you’re aiming for. Nietzsche has a brilliant essay on this topic, titled On the Use and Abuse of History for Life. I highly recommend giving it a read.

You’ve come to the wrong person then . Just an idea I had. I develop new business over the phone, and I suppose you could try the same by flipping through the local telephone book and dialing away. It’d be a great exercise in willpower and persuasion, though I doubt it’s something you’d want to do. It sounds like you’ve mostly got it figured out within the constraints of "scientific ethics."

I tried... .

The subject’s pursuit of truth is always driven by desire - a desire structured around lack. The subject chases “truth” as though it were the ultimate object capable of filling this void. But upon grasping this so-called truth, the subject doesn’t find resolution but instead encounters a traumatic, unbearable enjoyment. This disrupts the symbolic order, destabilizing the fantasies that once provided coherence. Truth reveals the “Real” - the raw, unspeakable kernel of existence that defies articulation, rupturing any illusions of meaning. Faced with this unbearable encounter, the subject retreats back into desire, constructing yet another layer of imagined “truth” to fill the void. This endless cycle is the machinery of ideology. What we call “truth” - or in Lacanian terms, the objet petit a - is precisely what Nietzsche likened to the god Apollo: form, image, illusion, and beauty. Conversely, the Lacanian “Real” finds its parallel in Nietzsche’s Dionysos: raw experience, passion, sublime joy, and unity. Ideology is nothing more than the Apollonian veil draped over the Dionysian chaos - a desperate attempt to make the unbearable bearable. Nietzsche’s revolution in Western metaphysics was precisely his recognition of this cycle - the eternal return. He saw that every metaphysical system - every grand attempt to impose meaning - is born out of the traumatic encounter with the Real and the subsequent retreat into the Apollonian comfort of ideology. In other words, metaphysics is nothing more than the reinstallation of the objet petit a to keep desire spinning. But Nietzsche didn’t just observe this; he wrestled with it. He struggled to escape this cycle while knowing that every attempt to do so would inevitably recreate it. This tension drove him to increasingly virtuosic levels of self-reflection, pushing the German language to its limits and elevating himself to ever more absurd heights of self-aggrandizement. The tragedy culminated in Nietzsche’s ultimate gamble: he decided to obliterate the psychological structure of the self entirely. By affirming the Real and skipping the objet petit a altogether, he abandoned the Other completely and and surrendered himself to the ecstatic void of solipsism. This act of defiant madness was immortalized in his final letter, signed Dionysos. And then, silence. Nietzsche’s mind shattered. He neither wrote nor spoke another word for the remainder of his life.

For me it looks like being a dirtbag bourgeois hustler, working under a caesarian egomaniac in a corporate scene straight out of American Psycho: egos battling over clients, designer labels, and pussy. I nonetheless see myself as a renegade - disrupting the free-market machine by manipulating managing directors and corporate players, appealing to their irrationality to secure big checks as a middleman. It’s all just a stage where I refine my act and play the bit.

I reject this model, obviously. That said, it’s a fair analysis to some extent, though I’d argue there’s a deeper, more profound will to power than simply being some hot-shot yuppie. What drives me - and I think you might relate to this - is the sublime (which is never accessed through the gaze of the other and thus never perceived as "cool" by it). For me, it lies in the uncanny gap between the promises of postmodern late-stage capitalism and its radical immanent critique. In an ironically Hegelian twist, this critique emerges by playing the bit so perfectly that capitalism’s ideological structure begins to fracture, its iconography exhausts itself, and a space for true artistic autonomy opens. There’s no revolutionary impulse here - this is purely an aesthetic one.

Well, hello there - long time no see. It was a mix of Nietzsche and French poststructuralists like Foucault and Deleuze. My fundamental critique of grand evolutionary narratives is that their teleology is ultimately self-serving, culturally contingent, and driven by passive forces like nihilism and ressentiment. That probably just makes me a vulgar postmodernist, so I doubt you’ll have much luck converting me to your traditionalism. That said, I do find it intriguing - in the same way that all things exotic are intriguing - since it feels so alien to the texts I’m accustomed to.

My god, that does sound like a hard sell. The biggest challenge, I'm assuming, is avoiding sample bias from arbitrary contingencies - like attracting mostly unemployed people, retirees, or psychology and wellness enthusiasts. Assuming there’s room to tweak the messaging, I’d strongly recommend making it more targeted and relatable. The golden rule in persuasion is "show, don’t tell," so appeal directly to the symptoms you’re addressing. For example: "Trump's back in office - are your late-night doomscrolling sessions helping or hurting?" "As Europe’s economy falters, is your constant news feed consumption fueling anxiety or action?" "Endless updates on Gaza’s crisis - are you staying informed or stuck in a cycle of despair?" These examples tie into people's immediate worries and make the problem feel alive and relevant. I’d design these into visuals using Adobe and use them as templates for guerilla marketing: flyers, posters, and social media-friendly graphics. To amplify the impact, I would target locations like major railway stations, university campuses, and large office complexes. Set up a small booth near these areas to survey people - ask if they saw the advertisement, what they recall, and how it made them feel. Use that as a segue to introduce the study, making an appeal to their civic virtue: contributing to scientific progress and improving mental health. Something like that is what I would spontaneously suggest.

I literally referenced that book earlier today, and I’m fully on board with it. Another great pick would be Manuel DeLanda's A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History. Anything that takes down the Hegelians and Wilberians is a win in my book.