The Psychedelic Designs of Adam Nathaniel Furman

Adam Nathaniel Furman is a prolific, award-winning artist, designer, and architect of Argentine, Japanese, and Israeli descent. He is currently based in London. He is pioneering a design movement that he has termed ‘New Fabulous London’, which he describes as “design and architecture as a visual and cultural pursuit, which is highly aesthetic, sensual and celebratory…

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Exploring Yangon: First Impressions of Myanmar

I visited Myanmar in 2015 and, unlike in other Southeast Asian countries, US dollars were the preferred form of currency. But the dollars also needed to be crisp and pristine. If you go to a foreign exchange counter or bank and try to exchange creased, ripped, or scribbled dollar bills, they can be rejected. The…

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‘The Last Messiah’ by Peter Wessel Zapffe: An Overview and Analysis

The Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe is little known to most Anglophone readers. He was greatly inspired by Arthur Schopenhauer and has been called one of the “bleakest thinkers of all times and places”. Zapffe was also an avid mountaineer and a friend of fellow Norwegian philosopher – and originator of deep ecology – Arne Næss.…

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On Antinatalism and Depression

Antinatalism is the view that procreation is morally wrong. Its most well-known current defender is David Benatar, a professor of philosophy at the University of Capetown, who explicated this moral position on procreation in his 2006 book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence. However, antinatalism long predates Benatar’s work. Antinatalism has…

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Visiting a Famous Witch in the Nicaraguan Town of Diriomo

Nicaragua wasn’t a country I planned to visit during a round-the-world trip I did in 2015/16. I was intending to spend some time volunteering on an organic farm in Costa Rica, but this no longer seemed appealing as the date to start farming drew closer, so I changed my plan and embarked on a fairly…

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