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Anti-Curiosity Exercises, Plutarch, and Quitting Obsessions

As someone with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and as someone who is really into trying the various exercises that philosophers like to prescribe sometimes, I always wonder how various philosophical practices would interact with my disorder. I gave myself a challenge for the year 2024: to commit to practicing one new philosophical exercise each month, and to write about it on my blog . Because of the Stuck on the Puzzle project, I decided, for January 2024, to take on Plutarch’s anti-curiosity exercises, described in his essay On Curiosity [1] Indeed, I was specifically interested in seeing if those exercises could help counteract OCD. Reflecting on my own OCD, I came to agree with Juliette Vazard’s assessment that this disorder must have something to do with a dysfunction of the mechanism that normally leads someone to pick out things worth inquiring into [2] . She describes two linked affective mechanisms: one mechanism to assess if a proposition has stak...

Stuck on the puzzle. A philosophical inquiry on OCD

The idea Stuck on the puzzle. A philosophical inquiry on OCD aims to provide a philosophical understanding on experiences of compulsions, obsessions and intense uncertainty, commonly through the contribution of people experiencing such phenomena. These experiences are typically thought of as part of an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), but you do not have to be officially diagnosed as such or identify with this label in order to talk to us. We are a goup of philosophers interested in people’s experiences. Some of us, who are conceiving this project, do have OCD, and this is what motivates us to initiate a dialogue on this theme, bringing together philosophical resources, especially those coming from the field of phenomenology, and lived experiences. We are planning to create a podcast featuring a dialogue with people who have, or have had, these experiences. We believe that this kind of conversations can reveal certain aspects that are useful for society to ...

Weltschmerz. Not always pure is the snow

I was eager to help. Now ghosts visit at night, memories haunt me. I’d like to go back. Ghosts come and visit because I am still committed to helping. They don’t want me to go back. It is a conflict upon values. Let me share what I’ve learnt. Experiencing obsessions and compulsions does not have primarily to do with washing or checking, nor with control or certainty, rather with values, acceptance, freedom. I wanna go back. Let me go back. It was November, it was cold, and the snow outside just claimed another victim. Berlin’s Winter can be harsh, especially if you have got no roof over your head. Until that very day, I had felt extremely helpless before homeless people. My friend had found an open-air soup kitchen and gently nudged me to give it a try, together. Under Berlin’s grey sky, there they were. Hundreds of hungry, miserable existences were there, queueing to have some food, perhaps some clothes, and most importantly, a dialogue with another human being. Indeed, any kind of in...

Stuck on the puzzle

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