August 2022 - Colin McGinn

Song

I have just stopped taking voice lessons with my esteemed teacher Nicole, after two and a half years. She took me from lamentable singer to not-too-bad performer, even if I say so myself. After a year of intense coaching and practice I achieved my goals, rather to my surprise. We then formed a duo named The Duetones and together have recorded about 200 videos (about 150 different songs—there are repeats of some). They range from ballads to blues to rock to pop and everything in between—all my favorite songs basically. That means I had to learn all those songs, from top to bottom. I could expatiate on each of them at some length. In addition, at Nicole’s prompting, I began writing songs and now have about 60 of my own compositions. Let me tell you, this isn’t easy: it’s a completely different way of writing. This is an object lesson in what you can do if you try, even at the age of 70.

No More Philosophy

Readers may have noticed a cessation in the philosophical essays I have been posting on this blog. The reason for this is that I have nothing further to say. For the past several years I have been writing down my philosophical thoughts and publishing them here. I never intended to do this indefinitely, but the thoughts kept coming. On a number of occasions I felt the well was drying up, but I was wrong; now I think I have reached the end of the line. I am quite happy about this, because writing philosophy is a burden that interferes with other things. I just finished reading Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle and The Origin of Species, both immensely worth reading, and writing philosophy would have interfered with this. I now feel I have said all that I want and need to say about philosophical subjects, so I am perfectly content to write no more philosophy (I have been doing it for nearly fifty years). I think I have said enough, and more than most people can handle.