Well, I did it, successfully completed the little challenge I laid out for myself.  Just some general observations.

One thing that surprised me was that I didn’t run out of things to talk about.  In fact, my biggest problem was the opposite.  The posts that gave me the most difficulty did so precisely because I had so much I wanted to say, so many different avenues to explore that I’d find myself digressing all over the place, struggling to remain on topic, and unable to be anything approaching concise.  A lot of this was likely the result of not having the time to organize my thoughts.  Normally, when writing longer pieces, articles, conference talks, the dissertation, etc., I tend to craft very detailed outlines, so detailed that writing itself is more a form of re-writing than original creation.  The pace of this project did not allow for that. 

Time was a huge factor throughout, with posts during the first week averaging about 25 minutes to complete and in the last more than an hour.  The turning point was my piece on indirect communication, which I don’t think was an accident as, after that, I began to move to more interconnected, complex treatments of various subjects.  Thanks, Vico.

Speaking of, I really didn’t expect almost half my posts to be meditations on The New Science, but it is really a titanically rich book, one which easily allowed me to draw connections to other authors.  I wish I had been able to draw some of these connections in greater detail, particularly Ernst Jünger who I only started to get to in the yesterday’s post, but Vico himself was difficult enough, and I’ve barely scratched the surface.

I should add the disclaimer that a lot of the ideas expressed over the last two weeks are not original to me.  My only part was, to use a common medieval image, to serve as a honeybee, collecting the nectar of far more brilliant flowers. In the beginning, I leaned on Gabriel Marcel and Kierkegaard heavily.  Then, as Vico-posting really took off, on Robert Pogue Harrison as an interpreter of Vico.  For my post on history and original sin, I drew heavily from Karl Löwith, Eric Voegelin, and Augusto Del Noce (the latter in particular in the bullet points that concluded the piece). 

Overall, I enjoyed the experience, though there were some difficult days.  I think I stand by everything I’ve written, with the caveat that much of my thought might be poorly expressed.

I don’t know what the plan is going forward.  I’m about to do some traveling and will likely not be posting during those travels.  Whether that will utterly shatter the momentum built over these last three weeks, I have no idea.  Assuming it doesn’t, something like three posts a week seems entirely doable, giving me time for a little bit of prep work on “off days,” but I’ll hold off on a final decision for a little while. 

I have no witty or profound words to leave you with.  Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.