About

“All my life, I have lived with the feeling that I have been kept from my true place. If the expression ‘metaphysical exile’ had no meaning, my existence alone would afford it one.” 

“Can it really be that for us existence means exile, and nothingness, home?”

 (Emil Cioran)

My name is Fernando Olszewski. I have a bachelor's in economics from the University of North Dakota (UND), a bachelor's in philosophy from the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), and I am currently working on a master's in philosophy at the University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). My current research is about how Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) and Emil Cioran (1911-1995) used anticosmic religions — e.g. Gnosticism, as well as branches of Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity — to support their rejection of the world. This research is being done under the supervision of professor Regina Schöpke. Previously, between 2019 and 2021, I researched the nihilist and pessimist views of history and existence found in Cioran's works, under the supervision of professor Rossano Pecoraro, my academic advisor at UNIRIO. Part of that work explained some of the ethical implications of Cioran's pessimistic thinking — above all, his rejection of life and becoming.

This blog is the English version of my Portuguese-written blog, something I've had for quite a while now, and has mutated throughout the years. When I first started writing, many years ago, my blog had a different purpose and dealt with different themes. With time, my views on several subjects changed. Little by little, a lot of the beliefs I held were altered, from everyday questions to politics to the meaning of life. A lot of the “truths” that guided me for years crumbled. I write from the point of view of negative or pessimist philosophies that embrace the idea that the world we live in is far from the best world possible. There are consequences when one reaches this conclusion. One of the them is to think that between what exists and nothing, maybe it would be better if nothing existed, especially when we are dealing with our consciousness.

This sounds depressing. I admit it is. But I'll continue to write from my own perspective, trying to bring something more to the discussion than just a depressing view of the subject, even though sometimes depression is warranted. Although I defend that existence isn't something we should celebrate, I believe that, since we are already here, there is no need to make it even worse by contributing with suffering. This attitude has ethical, and also political implications that I try to expound in writing. The areas of philosophy that interest me the most are: ethics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science and technology, political philosophy, and the study of nihilism and pessimism. Some of the authors that have influenced me are: Seneca (4 b.C.-65), Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), David Hume (1711-1776), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Peter Wessel Zapffe (1899-1990), Julio Cabrera (1944), David Benatar (1966), among others.