Metaphysical Exile

In this essay I discuss how — even though we might yearn for freedom and fulfillment in personal, social and political ways, and even though many of those longings are perfectly justified and worth fighting for — we (that is, sentient, conscious beings) will never be truly satisfied. I argue that there's only one way to avoid this existential oppression and dissatisfaction: never coming into exist...

QAnon is one of the craziest, stupidest and most dangerous far-right cults out there. In this essay, I talk a little about how it's not even creative, since it borrows heavily on old antisemitic conspiracy theories. Text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2021/11/q-and-blood-libel.html  Music by CO.AG: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcavSftXHgxLBWwLDm_bNvA

In this essay, I talk about how even the best lives aren't worth starting. Suffering and pain, being intrinsic to conscious existence, will always make themselves felt. By coming into conscious existence, we got an extremely bad deal. From a negative ethical standpoint, then, we shouldn't pass it forward.  Text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2020/11/life-is-very-bad-and-never-worth-it.htm...

It is amazing how little frightened most of us are of our circumstances. It is as if the entire business of humanity is to build a wall around reality and nature, which is violence, pain, death, decay and rebirth.  Text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2021/10/be-very-afraid.html Music by CO.AG: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcav...

In this essay, I discuss how Nietzsche was influenced by and eventually denied Schopenhauer's pessimistic philosophy, favoring a life-affirming posture. Later, in the 20th century, Cioran criticizes this.  Text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2021/06/nietzsches-dionysian-pessimism-and.html Music by CO.AG: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcavSftXHgxLBWwLDm_bNvA

Utilizing a metaphorical and poetic language, we can state that our consciousnesses are imprisoned in our bodies, our flesh. However, the reality is even worse: our consciousnesses are part of our bodies, they arise from our flesh. They themselves are a prison. Once generated and born, we cannot escape. In this essay, I discuss how we're "locked" inside our bodies, which themselves are imprisoned...

All of us are part of nature's insidious game. If we took a good in the mirror we'd see in ourselves all the horror of the world — and if we were prudent, we'd deny the program in ourselves and refrain from making new fellow sufferers and monsters.   Text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2021/05/the-reflection-in-mirror.html Music by CO.AG: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcavSftXHgxLBWwLD...

In this essay, I discuss how existence is not only filled with suffering and death, but have suffering and death as its intrinsic features. I also discuss how, no matter the type of universe we happen to live in — one with a definitive beginning and end, or one that recycles itself and always gives rise to new suffering beings — the negative ethical imperative against the creation of new conscious...

Birth, life, suffering, death, repetition — and just the right dose of dopamine to keep us from realizing how pointless this whole process is. Nature is insidious in how it makes us perpetuate ourselves. Even human events and history ends up being an endless repetition that goes nowhere.   Full text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2021/09/repetition-and-decomposition.html  Music by CO...

In this essay I go through a few reasons why it would have been better not to have been, and how not even an Utopia would change this preference.   Full text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2021/04/better-to-remain-in-potentiality.html  Music by CO.AG: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcavSftXHgxLBWwLDm_bNvA

In this essay I emphasize the idea that while, from a pessimist standpoint, the best is not to be born and so we should abstain from creating new conscious beings, that doesn't change the fact that there are people alive today that live under immense man-made forms oppression. These are forms of oppression that could very well be remedied if only we stopped preying on each other. Telling oppressed...

In this essay, I talk about how many of us, to a greater or smaller degree, believe history has a purpose or direction towards the fulfillment of reason and progress, and how that belief is unwarranted. If cockroaches could reason like men, they too would believe roach history had a purpose.  Full text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2020/11/men-and-cockroaches.html  Music by CO.AG: h...

In this essay, I show how the idea that Fascism and Nazism were "left-wing socialist" ideologies is a complete fabrication by the contemporary right in order to distance itself from Fascism and Nazism — which is ironic, since almost all of them admire many aspects of both Fascism and Nazism, while they pretend to decry those regimes. Full text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2020/11/fascism-and...

In this essay, I continue the discussion about how slavery, racism, sadistic violence and authoritarian rule became ingrained in Brazilian society, and how the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated this. An important observation: this was first written in Portuguese on May, 2020. At that time, Brazil had a few thousand deaths related to the pandemic. As of January, 2022, the pandemic's official death toll...

In this essay I talk about how slavery left a horrible mark in Brazilian society that is plainly felt to this day, and how many white Brazilians pretend they don't live in an extremely racist society. I also discuss how the Brazilian economic elites are incredibly callous, rude and openly treat workers as if they were disposable. An important observation: this was first written in Portuguese on Ap...

In this essay I discuss sir Roger Penrose's Conformal Cyclical Cosmology and how, from a philosophical pessimist point of view, it would be preferable if the universe eventually dies for good so that consciousness never arises again in the eternal future. Full text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2021/02/roger-penrose-cyclical-universe-and.html Music by CO.AG: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC...

(This essay was 1st published in Portuguese on July, 2020) In this essay, I talk about how pessimist philosophy doesn't owe anything to political conservatism. I discuss how we might believe in political and social progress while still being aware that existence is suffering. Another thing discussed is the idea that in order for one to be an antinatalist, one doesn't have to subscribe to a strong...

In this essay, I discuss how life is capable of eviscerating sentient and conscious creatures in the most horrible ways. Full text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2020/11/eviscerated.html Music by CO.AG: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcavSftXHgxLBWwLDm_bNvA

In this essay I talk about how if there was a God he would deserve our contempt and not our love. I also discuss the idea of evil as lack of good or as a negation (Plotinus, Irenaeus, Pelagius, Augustine) and evil as a constitutive aspect of reality (Marcionism, Gnosticism, Schopenhauer, Cioran). Full text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2020/12/misotheism.html Music by CO.AG: https://www.youtu...

In this essay I discuss “The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant”, written by philosopher Nick Bostrom. In the fable, the men-eating dragon represents death, and the story is about the hope that humanity will one day conquer death and become immortal using technology. I argue that death is only one of the harms of existence, which is structurally problematic. Full text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/20...

This essay is based on a presentation I made at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro State, about Emil Cioran's philosophy and its ethical implications, which include a rejection of the perpetuation of life (i.e. antinatalism by another name). Full text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2020/11/cioran-philosophy-of-despair-and-its.html Music by CO.AG: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcavSftX...

In this essay, I discuss philosophical pessimism and antinatalism in general, and in South American literature and philosophy. I go through David Benatar's asymmetry argument in a little more detail, and also discuss Julio Cabrera's antinatalist argument expounded in his book “Discomfort and Moral Impediment” Full text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2020/11/pessimism-and-antinatalism-in-south....

In this essay I talk generally about antinatalism, the history of the idea, from antiquity to modernity, and about some of its current proponents like David Benatar and Julio Cabrera. Full text: https://www.metaphysicalexile.com/2020/11/we-have-to-talk-about-antinatalism.html Music by CO.AG: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcavSftXHgxLBWwLDm_bNvA