Living in Toronto during the five years of my graduate studies felt incomplete. I am not referring to the incompleteness of an unfinished story or an interrupted episode, but an incompleteness that would persist with any length of time. Because of that incompleteness, which is not in length, but in width or depth, leaving Toronto…
Author: Davood Gozli
Commentary on Jordan B. Peterson’s “12 More Rules” (Table of Content)
I wrote the following six short essays a while ago, and in somewhat of a haste. The haste came from knowing if I were to slow down, I’d not get to the end. There are some things you can do only in a rush, and those things tend not to be very pleasant. In any…
Criticism, Philosophy, & Love: An Exchange with Javier Rivera
My friend, Javier Rivera, has posted a video about the relationship between religion and philosophy. Specifically, he talks about the duty of philosophers to ask, “What is religion?” Javier points out the dominant tendency in philosophers to fixate on their own discipline, asking again and again, “What is philosophy?” but a similar kind of (philosophical)…
A Different Kind of Loss
Having a good conversation about a painful topic is bittersweet. Having a good conversation about loss, for instance, has sweetness mixed with the core bitterness of the topic, and I think the sweetness comes from the truth we discover and the understanding we come to share. Even loss–and our attention to loss–can become a way…
Videos on Don Quixote (Cervantes)
In my list of 22 books for the year 2022, Don Quixote was number one. While reading the novel, I also read a little from Vladimir Nabokov’s Lectures on Don Quixote, and I made references to Nabokov on Parts II and III. I enjoyed these livestreams and I’d like to continue doing them, despite the…