Before the beginning is…
This will be a perpetual work in progress. Well, as perpetual as I have a share in sanity and vanity, I suppose. But given my really well-hidden sentimental nature, I don’t think I will ever be able to feel like I am finished with this website, an article, or even this page.
In reading anything from this website, of course, you are consenting to tolerate all of my outrageous (intentional and unintentional) dissent from all common editorial and style suggestions regarding succinctness, active voice, and whatever. You are also consenting to (very likely) feel aggravated about all of my inconsistencies in thoughts and in writing (unless you really like me I guess). Going on tangents and being vague is virtually a guarantee.
(And just to make sure I demonstrate the point of both tangents and vagueness right away, “vague” is not always a symptom of my writing. I might just be speaking in a quasi-private language, in which case you will just need to do the work for me and find out all of my unconscious rules regarding how I think and talk. I am sure not much prize awaits if you do that, hehe.)
I will try to follow what I have in mind, writing things down first, and thinking about presentation later. I might edit stuff that seems incomprehensible to myself, but even then, I probably do not have the Elements of Style in mind.
If I hadn’t lost you yet, well, thanks. You do care about me a lot, don’t you? In case you are a curious stranger, you will probably be disappointed soon. I warned you. If you are a friend, sorry you are stuck with me. You are the best. <3.
Why Philosophical Ramen?
Why not?
Well, even I know that’s not really an answer. I was really into making ramen at the time I started to think about this website. I’ve always thought that I’d have a place to collect my thoughts and writings at some point, and the idea that it is a mind palace in the setting of a Chinese or Japanese ramen place (面馆) has always appealed to me, for some reason.
Imagine Wittgenstein sitting in the corner slipping noodles quietly and intently with almost no sides but seaweed salad, which he enjoys but feels guilty about, while Plato is playing a puppet show in the front of the shop, gathering crowds making a shit ton of noises. Montaigne is probably somewhere in the back kitchen helping me prepare something. (But I really haven’t made conspicuous what his contribution to my thinking is, so I don’t know how to develop this metaphor. I somehow instinctively think that the sappy mood of this website is an inheritance I received from him. But who knows.)
Kinda nice, right? Well, you don’t have to say yes. I think it’s nice, and that’s what matters.
So, people and personalities come and go. They all teach me different bits about how to make a good bowl of ramen, and this is a shop where you get a taste of what I inherited, learned, or made out of what they showed or said.
What will you make?
I am not sure exactly. I think everything on my mind is a fair game. Personal history, gender dysphoria, writings of more academic nature, blablabla. I will probably muse about my cats, imagine slices of life about philosophers I love (is this what people call fictions?), complain, and I will probably be talking about romantic and non-romantic partners and friends too, anonymously.
Most formats are up for grabs. I will probably steer away from poems, but that’s probably just because I am not particularly love-struck at the moment. I think I only tend to write terrible terrible poems, like most others, when there is an unfulfilled longing. (When you don’t have one rhythmic activity, you substitute another, right? Hhhhh)
Since there is no safety standard here, like there is in an actual restaurant, you might just get a mouthful of mild bad taste if you are lucky. If you are unlucky, no one (probably) will hold me accountable for making you feel infuriated. No promises. That said, I do have a version of common sense, whatever that means, and I will mark out what *I think* you might find disturbing. It’s never gonna be a perfect match though. (If it were, wow, we should be best friends forever.) I warned you before, I am warning you here, I will be warning you again~
So is this a professional website?
Of course not! Gee, I thought that was clear from the get-go. If anything, this website is more likely to destroy any prospect I have at the serious and holy institution of The Field of Philosophy. Am I right, friends? hhhhh
I think it’s just hard for me to imagine the professional appeal in this website if I compare it with ones aimed to add personal flavors to an otherwise philosophical profile. This website, on the contrary, is probably just a glorified personal Tumblr that happens to have a ton of philosophical elements because I am a philosophy student.
I will post things that seem appropriate for “serious” discussions, but really, this is just a place where I can type whatever out so that I can feel some peace of mind.
Wait, who are you anyway?
Oh hi, stranger. Not sure how you got to the website. And definitely not sure how you got towards the end of this page without closing it already. But I am glad you made it.
My name is Weiouqing Chen or 陈魏欧凊 if you speak Chinese.
I am a trans woman in my twenties.
I currently am a grad student of philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, where I live with two kitties. Their names are Nietzsche and Socrates. I went to undergrad at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, and I went to high school in Woodstock, Virginia.
Don’t be a stranger anymore~ Say hello!