The Barbados Files

The Barbados Files

My trip to Barbados was not intended to be a “working holiday”. On the contrary, it was intended to be a non-working holiday (totally in vacanza). I made a point of not taking my computer with me just in case I felt tempted to write something. (I had a companion.) However, a couple of days before leaving Miami I had the beginnings of some ideas that it seemed worth writing down; so, I brought some paper and a pen with me just in case I needed to jot down a few further thoughts. To my surprise, these grew and multiplied and eventually I had to find a store that sold me more paper. Moreover, during the second week a new set of ideas began to sprout, sometimes even at the beach! So, I needed to make a note of these as well. I didn’t spend hours at a time writing this stuff down, but I was at it pretty much every day for an hour or so. I began to have a startling thought: I am re-inventing Western (and Eastern) philosophy. Oh no, please! Picture me on my last day there in the Barbados airport in a fast-food joint (Chefette) writing down my remaining ideas on metaphysics and epistemology before I boarded the plane home (my companion had departed earlier that day).

I say all this to announce an intention: in the coming weeks I will be writing out these new thoughts and publishing them here seriatim. I will do this in the usual form: short pieces stitched loosely together. There is a lot to get through. The first part will be on metaphysics; the second on epistemology. The Barbados files will become the Miami chronicles.