The Rebel

I haven't read a book like this in a very long time. The genre - philosophy. The subject - exploration of metaphysical rebellion in the context of historical nihilism and revolution in Europe and Russia. I won't go in to the content so much. Frankly, I didn't understood most of the book. There were too many references to other philosopher's texts and historical events.

The other reason why I didn't understand a majority of the book, is like any stereotypical philosopher, he had to take 300 pages to explain a single topic. Many times circling around multiple times to churn out one idea. Don't get me wrong, his logic, and reasoning is phenomenal. It was an exercise of rationalizing. Most chapters had to explore every possible aspect of the concept in order to refute any criticisms or strengthen any weaknesses.

Strangely enough, many of the quotes that stood out, resembled spiritual concepts and ideas that I've gleaned from other books I've read. Just take a look at some of the quotes. The concept of nihilism is strangely familiar to Buddhist concepts of emptiness. Or other spritual concepts of no ego or no self, lack of intrinsic value of the material world or even of concepts and principles.

However, many of the ideas that stuck only reinforced my current values and belief system. I'm prey to the comman trap of finding exactly what I was looking for. Gathering more evidence to support my current values and perceptions.

It was a good book. I posted quite a few quotes from The Rebel. Some, because it had deep meaning to me. Others, because the meaning was so deep, I'll have to circle back, reflect and dissect a bit more before I fully comprehend the idea that the quote represents.

Overall, a very dense and heavy book with a tremendous amount of insight in to metaphysical rebellion. Don't think I'll pick up a book like that for a while.