Philosophical aphorisms

An aphorism is a thought that has been argued with until it stopped explaining itself. The sequences gathered here circle the usual unmanageable subjects — consciousness, free will, nihilism, love, grief, the suspicion that the self is a rumour — but they keep landing in ordinary places: a kitchen, a waiting room, four in the morning. There is no system on offer and no consolation being sold. What there is, at best, is the pleasure of watching a sentence arrive at a conclusion its author plainly did not want. Start with the shorter sequences; the longer ones run on until the thinking wears through.