Philosophical Exercises

In March 2026, I practiced a form of contemplative meditation called “the Cloud of Unknowing”, described in a work of the same name, which was penned by an anonymous author in the 14 th century. The book and the meditation is an exercise in Christian mysticism. The strong Christian flavour of this activity made it challenging for me to get into it. At the same time, I think I should credit this specific Christian philosophy for giving me a new appreciation and a vocabulary for things I overlooked in the past: namely, the sense of the divine, the issue of spiritual dryness , and the notion of God being present even in his absence. The Pierced Cloud of Unknowing by Pierrick Simon (me!) The Cloud of Unknowing is part of the v ia negativa (negative way) or apophatic theology: a form of thinking that considers that the best way to approach the Divine is to talk about what it isn’t, as opposed to what it is. Only then can you move away from inadequate conceptions and start t...

By nature, I am a very anxious person. By training, I am pretty chill. I credit mindfulness meditation for giving me the option to live a different life. A life that is not completely consumed by my fears. I write this blog post with the same urgency I felt when I wrote “Fighting anxiety like my life depends on it” or my mindfulness-related 2025 New Year’s resolutions : the sense that I ought to convey, as explicitly and plainly as possible, how vital it is for some of us to rely on mindfulness in order to not waste our lives on fear. And I write with the hope that even those who do not struggle with a full-blown anxiety disorder might find it useful to reflect on their “sad passions” (as Spinoza would say). Ruth McEnery Stuart and Albert Bigelow Paine,  Gobolinks, or Shadow Pictures for Young and Old  (New York: The Century Co., 1896). A bottle of ink falls to the ground and spills out ink patterns, in which one can see goblin-monsters. As far as I can remember,...

by Pierrick Simon (1 255 words) Napoleon's Death Mask  (black and white) A hound startled by its own prey. This was Hamlet’s countenance upon passing through the secret doorway. In stupor, he forgot where he was off to and, in that place, what he was meaning to do. There was no discretion in the way he stumbled into the chamber; with a long noble sword by his side and shaky hands. So, looking at himself in the mirror as if at a stranger, how was he to know the lengths he was ready to go to? But there, silent, in the dark, was another man. Perhaps not who Hamlet was meant to meet now, but certainly he who had occupied the prince’s every unsleeping thought for a while – and dismantled his sense of space – and dismantled his sense of time – and who by chance, providence, or something darker, had found himself there without guards. King Claudius had killed Hamlet’s father. Of that Hamlet was nearly absolutely sure. King Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle, had hidden the deed under a shro...

In February 2026, I did my best to learn the True Names of all manner of things. With this admittedly strange phrase, I am referring to an exercise inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. In this story, a master wizard shows the main character a humble little plant and says: “ When you know the fourfoil in all its seasons root and leaf and flower, by sight and scent and seed, then you may learn its true name ”. This is how it’s done: you begin by learning the (conventional) name of something, before perfecting your attunement to it through careful observation across different contexts. Birds, insects, plants, and even the local electrical grid: I did my utmost to come to know what I was looking at . Two illustrations from Erbario,  a 15th-century Herbal from Northern Italy I feel as though my life has undergone a sharp and deep transformation. On paper, much is the same, I still go on those long daily walks that one might call mental health walks . But the expe...