Farewell

Some time ago, I was talking with a friend about how I'm letting go of a lot of ideas. I told her that, quite unscientifically, I visit my memories and think about why I no longer find certain ideas interesting, that these are often ideas I explored during my studies. Big ideas! From Kant and Hegel, etc. She was quite taken with my story and asked if I would write it down. I said, "Why? I'm just saying goodbye." She was disappointed. Did she want to verify if I was right to leave these ideas behind? Did she want me to share so others could follow, or did she simply want me to become a fellow writer? She advised me to start a blog.

The idea I bid farewell to when I talked about it was not a small idea. It was Kant's idea of the transcendental ego. The notion that there must be an I that can accompany all my thoughts. This I not only makes these thoughts conscious to myself, but also integrates them into an identity. At the same time, however, this I is not merely part of my conscious world of experience, otherwise it would be fleeting, lost in sleep. On a long train journey to France, I realized that something similar must exist. An anchor point, so to speak. From here to Hegel and the Phenomenology of Spirit. However, I realized that idealism no longer interested me. Especially German idealism. Consciousness in Germany is romantic and dangerous. It is subjective.

That's why I now read books from India. I find cemeteries fascinating and suspicious. Strange anchorages.