Dear Readers and Friends,

Contemplating contemplating (not a typo), I wrote this piece yesterday.

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Someone is taking a dump in the bathroom, and nobody is thinking about it. No philosophers have been created in the past twenty years because no child has taken a crap, in all that time, without looking at their phone.

“We didn’t notice at first,” said a top philosopher, who doesn’t believe his name is relevant. “But then suddenly our philosophy classes were empty. And I’m not waxing philosophical here. No one was there. Literally or figuratively. Or even spiritually or peripherally.”

“No matter how many perspectives we contemplated,” explained the minutia-obsessed philosopher. “There was no scholarly article that supported any previous theories as to why philosophy was dying.”

“At first,” he continued, holding me hostage with his baseless theories. “We thought the reason for the absence of student bodies was due to global warming. Who is going to have a nebulous existential crisis when a real existential crisis is occurring? But then, I walked past the bathroom where my son was taking a dump.”

“I’d been waiting for my Eureka moment my entire career, and finally when it arrives, it was toilet adjacent. It was so goddamn meta, I couldn’t believe the earth didn’t crack open and gulp me and my beautiful idea up into the swallows of the core.”

“I realized philosophy was dead because no one was contemplating their shit while they were taking a shit. They were on their phones watching YouTube or TikTok or Instagram.”

“Luckily, there is a group of people who don’t let their kids use technology. Unfortunately, they’re such self-righteous assholes, I’m not sure I want them becoming the next generation of philosophers. They’ll probably say, “It’s kale. We’re not eating enough kale.”

“Fuck those people. Philosophy is dead.”