'Art, Zen, and Insurrection' In Its Entirety

From September of 2010 until May of this year I occupied myself with a longterm writing project.

It was titled, 'Art, Zen, and Insurrection: Finding Personal and Social Change in an Aesthetic Existence'. The goal of the essay was to argue that aesthetics and ethics needed to be mutually elaborated: that it was worthwhile to conceptualize our lives as a work of art, and that this type of aesthetic life could be a moral life.

The project was inspired largely by Foucault's work in The Use of Pleasure, but was focused more heavily on Collingwood's The Principles of Art.

The project never panned out like I thought it would.

But it was an invaluable exercise. It helped me develop myself intellectually, and, more importantly, helped me become more expressive, more moral, more mindful.

I am happy to let it go and to present it to the internet in its full form.

You can find the document here.

Thanks.