Practice: Body of Work Binging
What I learned from binge reading All of Lyotard in Februrary 2022
In January of 2022 I listened to a Hermitix podcast on Lyotard.
20 years ago I read the postmodern condition and all I remember was that there is now a new axis for philosophizing: speed. (The other three are truth, beauty, right)
Lyotard’s opus is small (33 books) and no one has read it.
One of the reasons I like classics - the study of greek and roman thought - is because there are a limited number of books to study. These days there is so SO MUCH -I always feel like I don’t know enough.
But you know what - I can read 33 books. I like a closed system. Here’s the booklist.
Networked Reading
33 books in a month is a lot for me. I am not an academic. I’m a mom, a fintech worker, a follower of whole30 (which involves lots of food prep), and I have 10 million hobbies. I read these books in between kid soccer games, on the way to work, waiting for the asparagus to cook. You get it.
I would read different sections in a day. Sometimes the book I was reading on my computer did not sync with my phone so I would just read Lyotard. In the morning I would read a section from TRANS/formers, at lunch from Libidinal Economy, and at night Discourse.
What did I learn?
My weakness is synthesizing a body of knowledge into a tight statement. I believe this is because Jupiter is conjunct the sun in my 11th house in Gemini (Joking not Joking). You know who is good at this sort of synthesis: Bernardo Kastrup.
This is what I learned one day after reading Just Gaming:
I realize that these questions of justice and modernity, the discussion with anarchists, almost all these discussions that I participate in are around things I already know. Is this necessary? But what should I do - do I excuse myself from society. What is my role? Do I just sit alone and not do anything? Maybe. I should just wait for people. That sounds weird, and maybe that is it.
I sort of think I should write a book about my month reading all of Lyotard.