Metanoism

Western post-modern society has seen the continuation of an age-old infatuation with the concept of personal growth. While this enamorment is nothing new, there has been an exponential rise in ideologies that encourage the performance of change and self-improvement. These ideologies represent growth of the individual as something aesthetic and generally positive, which exist in direct conflict with those historical depictions of difficult trials that one must commit to in pursuit of eudaemonic satisfaction.  Despite this accelerating infatuation with performative experience, or possibly as some ironic juxtaposition, this same society has resurrected the popularity of historical philosophers Fyodor Dostoevsky and Friedrich Nietzsche (not to mention the post-modern stoics). Yet it is difficult to believe that these individuals would have supported the societal commodification of their ideologies. To them, meaning and growth were not passive artifacts to be discovered in the approval ...

Where does anything begin? Regardless of its specific form or context, our human experience seems to center around a notional perception of continuity. Each day we awaken to a belief that we existed yesterday, and each and every moment before the present. It’s easy for this to seem like a needless distinction. Obviously, we can make any number of delineations on events or features: when we are conceived, or our heart first beats, or we are born, or our first memory. Any one of these may constitute one's opinion on the beginning of a human life, but each and every one requires a prior existence that makes the decision that this distinction designates the "beginning" seem rather insouciant. The meaning of a beginning for humanity is equally perplexing if not equally peripheral. Our love of continuity prefers to accept the prevailing theory of evolution, but this only serves to raise the "species problem." Nature does not construct boundaries with bright lines; spe...