We wire brains so that they can’t be alone. There is no resting state for the brain anymore. If I forget to bring a book on the train, I crave some stimulus — which means my phone. Often, I stop reading my book to read something inane on my phone. I don’t believe in the rational. Cartesian mind; experience refutes that hypothesis. I believe in what I am: a decentralized nervous system craving inputs. Irrational, easily overwhelmed. Or rather, arational: outside the binary of rational/irrational; thinking/feeling.

We use the stupid corporate buzzword ‘mindfulness' to trick ourselves into feeling like we can cope with our hardware issues — our hijacked minds. But of course, we can’t; I don’t know any truly mindful people. I don’t know anyone who goes to yoga and comes out more soul-full than before. More fit, healthier, sure — but more cognitively robust, secure: no.

Thinking is a knot, thought is the string. Once you have a string you can start to make new shapes. But you have to be able to undo the knot first. And you can only do that by admitting that what you’re dealing with is a knot: a tangle of hierarchies in the brain and really, the body, which is part of the nervous system.

Philosophical thought is metacognitive — and what that means is that it’s a way of producing concepts or rules that help us understand the concepts or rules that we’re working with. Biology, culture, psychology: the forces that add up to make our instincts — our wanting to check our phones, stare numbly at a video, internalize an advertisement…. Philosophy thought is — should — be a way to transcend blind randomness.

I prefer visionary randomness.