Composition of Philosophy. August 4.

Not sure if this post will be stamped as August 4 or 5, but it refers to activities of the 4th.

A few days ago I had an idea that will require me to restructure what I had planned for the second half of the book. One of the accidental merits of this rethinking is that it made Chapter 6 immediately doable, since the new principle that leads me to reorder the rest is a principle that is worthy of a chapter of its own, and I already know more or less what I want to say about it.

So, I started in on Chapter 6, about one week earlier than expected. I like the beginning of the chapter I’ve come up with; if you find yourself having to use the Jack of Diamonds as a metaphor in a philosophy book, then most likely you’re on to something fun for readers as well for yourself.

If there’s a general lesson here, it’s that points of blockage and obstruction in writing are often best removed by reordering things so that the material you know best comes next. That technique has worked pretty well throughout the current project, but especially when preparing Chapter 6.

Otherwise, I have a fairly miserable case of summer insomnia, going to sleep “last night” at 6 AM and waking up at 2 PM. That’s the worst. For me at least, it increases neither happiness nor productivity, and often it’s worth sacrificing a whole day just to get back to normal on the sleep schedule front. But I’m not going to do that right now, because I feel instead like working on Chapter 6.