Tenth Blog-aversary! Ten Years of Examined Worlds!

"Welcome to Examined Worlds: Philosophy and Science Fiction! This blog will consist mainly of my ruminations and explorations concerning two of my favorite things: philosophy and science fiction."

With these words, Examined Worlds was brought into this universe ten years ago today! The inaugural post on Tues. Dec. 23, 2014 was called "Philosophy as Science Fiction; Science Fiction as Philosophy."

After briefly introducing myself, I said a bit about philosophy as a type of science fiction and science fiction as a type of philosophy. I ended with a Star Trek-inflected mission statement.

Socrates said, “… the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being” (Plato’s Apology, 38a). In this blog, I hope to examine, not just lives, but strange new worlds, to seek out new ideas and new juxtapositions, to boldly think where no one has thought before! (Or at least to have a bit of fun).

Whether I have successfully examined strange new worlds I leave to you to decide, dear reader. But I can say that I've had a bit of fun over the last ten years.

Ten years is a long time, especially this ten years. In December 2014, Donald Trump was a reality show host, social media was merely kind of annoying, and there had not been a major pandemic in almost 100 years. I was just starting a tenure-track job, having moved from Tucson to Chattanooga a few months before.

On Dec. 23, 2014, I wasn't entirely sure what this blog was going to be.

Would it be a blog for professional philosophers? No. That was never my intention. Philosophers have plenty of other venues (and in any case, most academic philosophers are not inclined to pay much attention to someone in my weird niche in the overall academic hierarchy). Besides, the whole point of this blog is to give me an outlet for writing outside academia (I love philosophy, but the academic discipline of philosophy can be stodgy and constricting, not to mention weirdly elitist and hierarchical).

Is it a blog for science fiction professionals? No. I have even fewer pretensions of being a professional science fiction author, editor, publisher, etc. or even a super plugged-in mega-fan (a "Secret Master of Fandom" if you like).

So, what is this blog supposed to be? Honestly, I've never been entirely sure. But I think that's a good thing! 

"Branding" or "marketing" for some preconceived "audience" is pretty much antithetical to my entire personality. In Dungeons & Dragons terms, I'm chaotic rather than lawful (I try to be good, but who knows?). I also have no desire or need to make money off of this blog, given my vaguely anti-capitalist inclinations, but also: I have a day job that pays the bills.

One constant: book reviews! This was always one of my main ideas (as you can see from my second post, "Book Reviews Coming Soon!"). I've changed the format of these reviews over the years. I tend to write shorter reviews these days, and I no longer separate the philosophy content into a separate section I used to call "The Philosophy Report." I no longer provide numerical rating (at some point I decided there's something reductionist and joy-sapping about assigning a numerical rating to a work of art that in any case has a life that spills far beyond whatever number I might assign to it). 

But I still usually say a little bit about the philosophical aspects of whatever I'm reviewing, I just tend to mix it in with the rest of the review. I still link it to my Goodreads review (most of that, honestly, is due to my amusement in creating a loop: I link my blog review to Goodreads, and my Goodreads review to my blog).

I've also discussed movies and TV (I've become a bigger horror movie fan in the last decade), general trends in both science fiction and philosophy, other random ideas (including my long-running "Random Ideas" posts), journals (especially during the height of the pandemic), plenty of political and social stuff, plenty about my involvement in fandom and academic philosophy (I have both philosophy and science fiction conferences coming up in Jan. 2025), personal reflections, and really just about anything I think about. Why would I limit myself?

I wrote a lot more posts the first couple years (when blogging was shiny and new for me). I wrote a lot in 2020 (because: 2020). The last couple years I have written less (perhaps part of a general slowing down that comes with aging another decade), but I still manage at least one or two posts a month.

At some point I created a subject label for "Meta-blogging," and this post may be one of my most meta blog posts yet. But why stop there? Let's do some meta-blogging metaphilosophy!

What is the point of this blog? What is the point of any blog? Does anyone read blogs, anymore? (Spoiler alert: not that many people do). 

Should I instead make TikToks, YouTube videos, or some other video-based medium? (Spoiler alert: No. Even making the graphic on this post took me longer than I would care to admit, and video production is even more time consuming in skills I do not easily acquire. Frankly, I just don't have the time or energy for it).

I do think there's a value in the written word. Reading, in my opinion, encourages a level of meta-cognition that video formats--especially in our current age of TikTok level attention spans--tend not to. 

This is not to say that some of my favorite films (like Interstellar, which I discussed on the blog in 2015 and recently saw in IMAX for its tenth anniversary) aren't deeply philosophical. It's not to say that even silly films can't be philosophical. But most of that thinking comes after watching the film, whereas reading encourages more thinking along with the author as you're reading it; it allows you to stop and ponder what you're experiencing while you're experiencing it (without having to rewind--this is my personal issue with audiobooks, too). 

Text is a conversation between the author and reader, which is why I often address you directly, dear reader. It is also a conversation the author has with themself (and honestly, I write the blog posts I would want to read, and if someone happens to listen in, so much the better).

Video and audio productions certainly have their place, and I love them (okay, I don't really like TikTok, because I have an attention span). But the written word is where ideas thrive.

Video formats may be catchier. Podcasts may generate more interest. But here I blog. I can do no other.

I have no idea if this blog will continue for another ten years. I have no plans to stop blogging here anytime soon, but reality, of course, often has plans of its own of which we are not informed.

So, here on Mon. Dec. 23, 2024, I'm still not entirely sure what this blog is going to be. 

But as in life, why should I limit myself to some preconceived expectations? Why not let this blog represent my attempt to be part of a conversation with what Ursula Le Guin once said (and as I once blogged about her saying) "realists of a larger reality"?

Maybe what I've learned in the last decade is this: science fiction and philosophy are avenues for exploring this larger reality, and this is what has always drawn me to my two favorite things: science fiction and philosophy. 

Examined Worlds, then, is an expression of my love of being part of a reality that is vaster and weirder than our minds can possibly imagine. Yet there is meaning and joy in striving to imagine and examine this larger reality, even if, or precisely if, such a task will never be complete, not even in ten years of blog posts. Maybe, just maybe, the examined--and imagined--life really is worth living.

Thanks to you, dear reader, whether you've been reading for ten years or just stopped by today. Let us be realists of a larger reality together!