Against Systematic Knowledge

I would not contemplate putting myself into the same company as luminaries such as Nietzsche, Bataille and Cioran in terms of the quality and worthiness of my thought. However, I do believe I have one commonality with them. I'm more of a thinker than a philosopher, if we go by what (I believe) Cioran said about this subject. I do not have the exact quote but it was something along the lines of: A philosopher writes for professors, a thinker writes for writers. Thinkers tend to believe in philosophical undertakings as a sort of art form, with room for contradiction, internal inconsistency, soaring highs and gaping lows. They tend to write for other thinkers and inspire those other thinkers to write themselves. They have an innate distrust of philosophers who attempt to dream up a "system" of knowledge, in particular, a complete systematic knowledge of everything there is to know.

I can read Kant or Hegel and find much in it to stimulate my mind. But, in the final analysis, systematic knowledge has little, if anything at all, to do with how actual life is lived. Systematic philosophers construct elaborate edifices to show off their epistemological complexity and dexterity without it pertaining one whit to what happens when the love of one's life dies or one is overcome by rage, or the urge for suicide, or the urge to laugh. Systematic philosophy exists to pay the salaries of professors and earn money for universities. Such philosophies can come up with detailed arguments for or against the existence of God without telling the reader anything at all about the experience of God or the lack of God.

I would be hard pressed to write a book that was a systematic expression of my thought. First of all, I do not have a lot of little thoughts that are steps upwards climbing to one crowning thought. I have complicated snippets of thoughts and emotions that do not always agree and they range in subject from the (hopefully) quite deep to, here we go again, the aesthetics of Fraggle Rock. So, how am I to compose a tome that collects all these assorted impressions, impressions received through thinking, yes, but also, and most importantly, through living? This blog suits my purposes quite well. It allows me to rant at intervals about whatever is setting my mind and heart on fire. If that's an anime character or the absence of the Divine, it doesn't matter, it is important to me and I feel if it says something about me... perhaps it says something about life. And that's what thinkers do. They think, live and write about life. Their metaphysics pertain to the metaphysics of actual human experience, their epistemology pertains to the real life results of knowledge, their aesthetics do not dwell upon an ideal art so much as art as it is and as it could be. I feel more comfortable in the company of my thinkers than philosophers. When a systematic philosophers wonders what the meaning of life is, he sits down and composes an essay or, perhaps, a thousand page book on the subject. When a thinker wonders what the meaning of life is, he lives life and says, "I'll get around to jotting my thoughts down once the party is over." Life as seen through the window... or life as seen through the eyes of someone on the edge of erratic and unpredictable emotion and experience. The choice is yours. I know what I choose.