Welcome, reader! Here is a little ramble introducing my page.

Why Nietzsche? Why the City? What is going on here??

My relationship with Friedrich Nietzsche (FN) started when I read Thus Spoke Zarathustra as an umpteenth edgy teen. Did I get anything from it? Never. Years later, however, I laid my hands on The Gay Science and since then it became my personal bible: I constantly refer to it, I constantly get new revelations from it, and the number of notes I have made in it!! The edition is falling apart!

I’m sure that for some people this might make me controversial to the extent that he was (and never mind the book’s title!). But in my mind he was severely misunderstood through the distorting efforts of his Na*i-loving sister. And in my opinion, no one should read Zarathustra as their introduction to FN. So, I take it as my personal mission to do him justice.

Anyway, why him in the title? Because I believe that we should learn from him to philosophise with a hammer. We should question things. See if they hold water. See if they can manage a little hammering.

That’s what I intend to do here anyway.

And the city? Well, I’m a decidedly urban girl, which certainly affects my view on things, and I want to take that into account. Plus, it just makes everything sexy, doesn’t it?

Now seriously, who I am and what I am trying to do here

My name is Daria, I’m a Russian girl that moved to Prague after school and has recently celebrated her 30th birthday here. I have a bachelor’s degree in English studies but I work in an international consulting firm in IT. So much for my biography.

All my life I have been a voracious reader, of both fiction and non-fiction books. Especially of those that explain to me how things work or how they developed. That is not to say I remember everything in detail, neither that I am the cleverest person in the room: just to show how bloody curious I am about the world — and people.

After attending Henry Rollins’ show on the Valentine’s Day 2023 I realised that despite my music tastes that lean more into metal (my favourite band of all times is Limp Bizkit, if I didn’t sound controversial enough yet; and I’m deeply pleased to have NIN in the substack’s URL), ethically I am a punk.

I wanna probe The Established System in whatever shape or form it takes, and I don’t want anyone to be left behind and fall through the cracks.

Admittedly, a punk working within a corporate machine doesn’t sound credible, but it is like trying to be eco-friendly these days: unless you put an enormous amount of effort, you are still gonna have a considerable carbon footprint (that is, if you happen to live in a westernized society). So, you would have to make compromises either way. I say, don’t try to play a demiurge and fix everything with your bare hands, just try to make incrementally better choices.

Speaking of compromises: I’m also here for synthesis and synergy, especially when it comes to the rational and irrational (or esoteric, if you will). So, if I reference a chakra here or there, that’s me incorporating traditions or approaches that The Scientific Mind would scoff at but which I find beneficial in one way or another.

This would be my hammer.

Why subscribe?

Because you find these posts interesting. Hopefully, enriching and thought-provoking.

I will be seriously chuffed.

Would you like to tip me?

I want this page to be a place for conversation, and so I don’t want to put anything behind the paywall (also, I don’t want to put myself under any such responsibility). But if you feel like it, you can throw a little — or not?! — tip my way over here:

On that Ko-Fi page you can also find some of my old drawings and paintings, so, you know, maybe we can count it as a bonus content? :D

Anyway.

Thank you!