A Little Shifting

Recently my books and scribbles have been lent out all over the place in a mini venture to help improve the Religious Studies course that a colleague of mine is running. This means for me, in the mean time I am without my usually well equipped utility belt full of stoic quotes and Chinese proverbs. Of course, I’m no Ryan Holiday, able to whip out quotes and phrases at the top of my head at any given moment to give you the top 5 stoic tips on how to improve your finances and what not.

That being said, I’ve began to dabble with Diogenes and the Cynics in my reading, expanding the philosophy to not just be stoic focused as this journey – in my opinion – is one of many ingredients. Of course, with that in mind, as well as Confucianism and the work of Sun Tzu, it means I will be needed to revamp my categories and classifications of posts to not just make it easier for me to reflect on later but also for you to navigate.

So:

Stoicism is now Philosophy

Spiritualism is now Spirituality

Taoism is both, so will be falling under both (“perfectly balanced as all things should be”).

Naturally, my typos and grammatical fuck ups will be still staying, how could they not? It’s why people read my stuff, right?

Z3N0

Weekend Posting

This month due to my posting hiatus, my uploading and writing has been a bit of a non-existent mess. It’s been something that’s been my problem for a while, that is, especially on the weekends.

With that being said moving forward with my writings, I shall be limiting myself to the weekdays to be able to have a richer content base. Of course, if I find myself hit by inspiration I shall be writing as I like but typically, I’ll be sticking from here on out to the weekdays.

So this, is not a real post – just a notice

And with that, adieu, enjoy the Sunday.

The Lost Post

This is a minor post – a notice, if you will.

One of minor importance to tell you, reader, that an hour of writing of ramblings was lost.

On the positive, I have thought of a haiku when trying with futility to recover the post.

WordPress killed my post

I’m not fussed, I’m a stoic

Maybe next time, huh?

Z3N0

Family Friendly

I was looking into my AdSense last night and discovered that the system works similarly to how YouTube advertising works in the sense that language over the PG rating is unlikely to lead to monetization of content. While making money from this blog would be a nice bonus – and ads will be staying just in case -, I will not be changing up the content for that.

It would be a move without integrity, to neuter the catharsis and the journey for monetary gain. A disservice to myself to be dishonest and a disservice to the reader, you. As overly dramatic as it may be, I remember Meditations 6.2:

“If you are doing your proper duty let it not matter to you whether you are cold or warm, whether you are sleepy or well-slept, whether men speak badly or well of you, even whether you are on the point of death or doing something else: because even this, the act in which we die, is one of the acts of life, and so here suffices to ‘make the best move you can’. – Meditations 6.2

If I’m here, sharing my stoic and spiritual journey it is my duty to do so in the proper way. Like a duty of care and quality assurance that I’m not doing it half-assed or with self-imposed censorship to try to rake in that ad money. I will cover topics that may be triggering. This includes: death, abuse, addiction, illness, and many more. Why? Because how can I talk about life while missing out key components? It’s a fraud to think that I can speak about life without death. It’s like talking about the night sky and not mentioning stars.

And, if a few fucks, shits, wankers and bollocks’ slip in: I’m sorry that I’m not sorry. Sometimes no other words will do to describe some shit. Aside from being a stoic, I enjoy brevity and swearing in comedy which you can blame The Thick of It and Frankie Boyle for. I’ve not lied to myself or the reader through this medium. I don’t plan on it either so I’m not going to censor nor rephrase because it may earn me some money. It’s not a career, it’s a service to myself and a service to you.

“Lying, too is a sin against the same goddess: her name is Truth, and she is the original cause of all that is true.” – Meditations 9.1.2

I’m not even sure about the definition of family friendly as who knows what that means anymore. I know a few families who watched Game of Thrones together as a Saturday night ritual to replace the monotony of X-Factor and Saturday Night Takeaway. Compared to that, my half-baked musings on philosophy and the divine are pretty bloody tame.

Z3N0

P.S. I know this isn’t a proper post, but it is. There’s a lesson in there somewhere for me and someone else should you or they find it useful. That lesson: don’t sell out.

Posts, Pictures and Format

I’ve been perusing other blogs and I’ve seen that pictures are the best way to grab people’s attention and make a blog more colourful. And I’ve also noticed that my shorter posts are more popular than my longer reads.

I’ve only been doing this for 15 days and I feel like I’m getting into a nice post-dinner routine with my writing. Unfortunately for the growth of my blog: I don’t like using pictures that I haven’t taken myself. Double unfortunately: I am living in Lockdown 3 (or maybe 4, who knows, I’ve lost count) Britain and leaving my house is a treat outside of work. So I may compromise and introduce more gratuitous cat pictures to grow my blog. This started off as a cathartic journal but I’ve received some good verbal feedback that I should continue to grow and expand. A big fucking compliment, by all accounts as I was happy to ramble to myself.

My post length may also slim down a little, as I’ve seen the more successful blogs being tagged as “2 min reads” for quick consumption. I’m open to that if it makes my content more accessible but I’m still going to be posting longer reads for topics that deserve the respect of in depth discussion.

As for my formatting of the blog entire, it’s a game of trial and error. If you suddenly see great changes or magic categories appearing at the side or some other shenanigans, bare in mind, it’s a work in progress. The format greatly reflects my own journey and as my thoughts come together and are able to be categorised in a much more digestible way, things will shift around.

Thanks for taking the time to check this post out and all my others. Again as I mentioned in my Welcome post which is buried around here somewhere, I am grateful and privileged to have you take an interest in my journey and I hope it resonates with you. I hope some lessons that I’m learning can teach you something about your own Path and help you along your way, even in the most minor way possible.

Z3N0

Welcome

I’ve had a blog before.

Nothing too fancy, it was about being cynical and how terrible everything was. It was quite fun to vent on the internet but I quickly found myself running out of content whenever I had a good day or something didn’t annoy me.

The name Z3N0, while being a terrible bastardisation of the founder of stoic philosophy’s name, represents the beginning of a journey. A founding of a school of thought. While I’m not claiming to be such a thing, it’s representative of my own internal school. The founding of my own education – practically free ignoring the fee for WordPress and the books, of course (wink).

Coming to the end of 2019 and into 2020 I discovered stoicism. I had heard about it before and as a fan of Mr Spock and the Jedi, I finally decided to buy some books. My first was Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic and then suddenly I spiralled into the this new headspace. A reverse of Alice in Wonderland, finding myself tumbling out of the rabbit hole rather than down one. I’m still going, I don’t think I’ll ever stop. It’s not for everyone though, is it? Saying ‘fuck it’ at things that would normally get you down isn’t always possible to do. I’m not perfect, I’m supplementing my road to enlightenment with SSRI medication and IPA and I like to think of them as the Holy Trinity of my own mental health. Perhaps I’m missing the point entirely but hey, I’m new to this too.

I’m digressing.

This blog, this awkward and perhaps cliched corner of the internet I’m paying £3 a month to keep is to share my own journey. To discuss philosophy (most likely to myself) and note down observations and musings and whatever keeps me on the path, and to explore my own half-baked ideas on the divine nature of all things and how’s ultimately it’ll be ok. This isn’t a self-help blog or anything like that, I’m no where near qualified to be giving anyone any sage wisdom, but if you do find some of my ramblings and observations helpful to you, let me know. It’d be a privilege to hear your thoughts.

I hope this message finds you – whoever you are – well, and welcome.

Z3N0