Thinking Without Rails is a new blog where I can explore various thoughts and ideas I have. The title actually comes from a quote for Hannah Arendt, the political theorist. She has a collection of essays called “Thinking Without A Bannister” and she has a quote in front that says,
"There's this other thing, which Draenos brought up...'groundless thinking' I have a metaphor which is not quite that cruel, and which I have never published but kept for myself. I call it thinking without a bannister... That is, as you go up and down the stairs you can always hold on to the bannister so that you don't fall down, but we have lost the bannister. That is the way I tell it to myself. And this is indeed what I try to do."
I think that this accurately refelcts the current state of our time. It seems the rails have come off and it is important to be able to thinking outside of what we are used to. With the rise of a kind of neo-nationalism and populism, and different kinds of fundamentalism, it is vital to be able to consider where we find ourselves and where we go from here.
The title also reflects that I won’t be constricting this blog to one topic in particular. I am a generalist of sorts, and have thoughts on different subjects ranging from politics and current events, to technology and history, to philosophy, science, and religion. My hope is for this blog to be both entertaining and informative as well as grow in my understanding by writing out my thoughts. There was a thinker who said that they did not know what they thought about something until they write it down. I think this is very true and intend to follow through on that.
Thank you for reading and coming on this journey with me.
