Why philosophy?

Someone says you’re idiosyncratic. You take it as a compliment though it was delivered with indeterminate tonality.

A lovely word – its Greek stems idios ‘own’ and synkrasis ‘mixing together’ – an exacting neologic combination. It's very much a mix of what are ultimately shared characteristics and peculiarities that make up a person and provide something like an identity, independent of the mass (morass). I became this idiosyncratic person by living in inner-city multicultural societies from which my mix was collected.

Naturally I, Amy Rudder, of independent and curious mind think this ‘mixing together’ is a fundamental of modern humanity and something to be celebrated. I value activity and authenticity, and having had the privilege (and the gusto to get up and go) to travel widely, I’ve learned to communicate across drawn, cultural and linguistic lines, forming opinions based on experience, not conditioning (she thinks). I want to lead by example, challenge preconceptions and instigate positive change (of course). But, to make a meaningful impact as an individual, emotional and mental strength (and stability) are important. The pursuit therefore of a more refined thinking – to order and organise – is to understand and overcome what can sometimes be an overwhelming torrent of thoughts and ideas. When the very things I/we think can destabilise, we’re far from able to contribute even in the smallest of ways, making values (for all their merit) mere sentiment.

Professionally (in the context of 'the office' as workplace), I'm sufficient. I have somewhat commercially viable analytic, strategic, administrative, project management and communication skills. I’m a generalist, favouring an emphasis on techniques and methodology applicable to numerous subjects. With a 21st century (a priori) awareness of ‘knowledge’ (and google a click away) I can canvas and consume large quantities of information, synthesise ideas, and convey them concisely to a prescribed audience.

Big whoop.

Grinding out and graduating with a Bachelors in communications in 2000, it took 15 years of living to identify a field for focussed, Masters study which feels every bit a necessity, now.

In between came life (good and bad) and a whole heap of listening, reading and writing. Over time, my interests continued to gather in the philosophical disciplines (predominantly existentialism and ethics – I didn’t know what phenomenology was back then and didn’t know yet to recognise it). Guided by the steady and thorough approach of Joe Gelonesi on the ABC Radio National show, The Philosopher’s Zone, my interest in public things, thinking and politics was reignited after the decade prior had seen me stuck in a sort of post-millennium apathy. My cherished subscription to the London Review of Books also played its part; the prevalence of thinkers producing quality writing, and writers producing quality thoughts, something of an epiphany to this one-time cynic of all things remotely academic.

I guess there are parts of my story that have been predictable. I’ve been at times engaged, serious, militant, disillusioned, bored – ‘give a fuck? As if I give a fuck!’ I’ve taken an interest in politics, policy, people and I’ve dumped them all. I’ve escaped for the arts, only to use art as a medium for understanding political and philosophical systems, and as an avenue for meeting the challenges of cultural communication. Like critical thinking, art is important in personal examination and progress, and a fantastic antidote to the banal. Creating something telling or intriguing from the pragmatic trappings of existence is a conscious act and requires an engagement with the world around us. For me, it marked a return to the very frictions of political and societal complexities I’d tried for a time to avoid, but found impossible to ignore.

As a writer, my role might be to extract and concoct a bit of truth by borrowing words from those deeper and funnier and images from scenes lighter and darker, smashing them together to create an interesting, accessible, (and if I do it right) recognisable/truthful/real other. So I observe and preserve, filling notebooks and napkins with an obsession for story, relationships and risk-taking. And if I consider fiction an art (which I do), it sits alongside and is necessarily informed by the other arts. A ‘beat’ in a script where you witness nothing acted into being, an all-consuming orchestral crescendo, the precision in a painted surface, all influence the material, the form; which is not to say it’s in any way formulaic. The realm of ideas is nowhere near that safe. Perhaps with the exception of the stoics, people of ideas inhabit the arena of risk; an artist’s interpretation of ideas – a pretext to the art – a very real, very public or personally confronting commitment to questioning the status quo.

For the egocentric (I’m in recovery), this feels important.

Egoism made me bold, but also left me flat. The very thing that led me to feel, has led me to feel responsible, and more often than not, irresponsible, for what could have better been me/my/mine (yes, I thought too often about me). So thank goodness for the absurd, for Dario Fo (Grammelot), for Camus (Sisyphus); for Chris Marker – what is he talking about? This conquering?

I dare say it may be love… Yes, it may well be love that saves us. And in the absence of love – philosophy that fills us, art that stimulates, words that resonate.

In a modest city art space I co-founded and that opened to the public in 2011, we showed Lani Seligman’s neon work ‘Yes, but’ on which I wrote at the time:

“…like a billboard [it] demands attention, but unlike everyday advertisements has an alternative agenda. The affirming proposition has a sting of uncertainty in the tail which better echoes reality. Decisiveness is so rarely black and white. ‘Yes’ is just a word – an antonym to ‘no’ – and so lacking in the complexities we often want, or need to convey. Complex, contradictory answers are the stuff of humans. As is our eagerness to please. It is within this context that the artist confronts our idle ‘yes’ and asks us to defy and redefine our easy willingness.”

It just so happened that when she proposed the work I was reading Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. And there, in the text, was the following:

“…he realised that if there was any such thing as ever meeting, both he and his grandfather would be acutely embarrassed by the presence of his father. Anyone has a right to do it, he thought. But it isn’t a good thing to do. I understand it, but I do not approve of it…But you ‘do’ understand it? Sure, I understand it, but. Yes, but. You have to be awfully occupied with yourself to do a thing like that.”

Ego. Suicide. Absurdity. Absolution.

The religious doesn't feel that far away. Yet it never rang true. For me, art, philosophy – even fantasy is a better fit.

It was Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album that made me realise I was once left for an eggplant, and though a massive blow to the ego, it shocked and tickled in equal parts. I later learned that Kureishi studied philosophy. In retrospect, I can see his capacity to be both reflection and antagonist of the zeitgeist, rooted in such studies.

I continue to explore ethics, philosophy of mind, despair and resistance, as well as the shift in epistemological value over the last few hundred years. In a country where thinking seems undervalued, I often feel the need to leave to do just that. When I read repeated reports of Australia’s disregard for its Indigenous population and asylum seekers it is with head in hands for our ongoing squandering of opportunity in the face of good fortune that self-imposed exile feels necessary, even if of no consequence to the unwitting fools who have driven me away.

Despite my desire to leave it all behind, I remain invested in Australia… there is too much in me that is Australian to ignore. But I’m other things too. I’ve been called idiosyncratic, wild, sensitive, heroic. I like to think I’m principled, resourceful, intuitive. I am a sucker for adventure. I am for outsider art. I am for the cause of women – for women to be free to follow their dreams on their own terms – to be seen, to be heard, to have opportunity and respect. I am a feminist. I can be moody, snobby, judgemental. I am ridiculously skilled at navigating. At ground level, I simply cannot get lost. But up in my head? Well, that’s a different story.

Yes, But by Lani Seligman and The Black Album by Hanif Kureishi.