What do you think about beginning, the very phenomenon?
If you don’t mind going meta for this moment: tpi.agency itself has been approaching a beginning for a couple of months – as of writing, the site is still private, but it has entered the prelaunch countdown.
Strictly speaking, the Philosophical Intelligence Agency began as soon as that name came to mind, when its mission and premise formed, and the logo appeared – and then, it became concrete when first chalked up as a website, its domain purchased, a hosting and content management system leased. It was becoming as pages were being written. However, a public launch is the beginning that gets all the attention, understandably.
This project in toto, so far, has been the solitary effort of yours truly, moi, the Director of P-I-A. And that seems to imply that the experience unfolding from this role and function of ‘Director’ is not irrelevant. Although the inception of directorship and its subtleties can be disregarded or understated, instead, let’s shine a light on this experience for a moment, at least now, just this once, since we are at the beginning.
When the website tpi.agency goes live, and a limited circle look at it initially (but still otherwise unknown), and when the first email newsletter goes out, what has begun with those steps is the inauguration of a new site (place) with its own two-way, public cul-de-sac on the Internet. This website has an address literally and figuratively, but also phenomenologically it is a space of consciousness, a nexus of consciousness.
Hitherto, that nexus has included the conscious states of moi, but once everything begins, and the site goes ‘live’, it becomes the intersection and crossroads for consciousness beyond what is loosely called ‘mine’. At that point, as if I had just opened a brick-and-mortar establishment and welcomed in the general public, the whole phenomenon starts a new, unpredictable, exciting phase.
For me – which is to say, as P-I-A’s official voice and persona – the salient beginning of P-I-A is that point, present and immanent, where directing it presents a stark departure from what is familiar and comfortable. More personally, I can mention how doing the work of Director thus far has been familiar insofar as experienced in solitude.
There always has been, however, a certain mirrory quality of this project for me, a self-reflexivity baked into the plain fact that the seminal ideas have been revealing themselves in particular ways, for me. Knowing that, alongside the cathartic and ecstatic qualities of P-I-A’s slated focus and substance (that is, eliciting ‘philosophical experiences’), the parallelism is clear: my experience as Director, undergoing the practical beginning of the public launch, presents the same essential arc or journey into the unfamiliar and perhaps uncomfortable as eventual visitors of the nascent P-I-A community could encounter (especially at the beginnings of courses and memberships).
The Audience-in-the-making of this site and its community are explorers, not afraid to depart upon beginnings.
In other words, with the approach of this veritable online beginning for tpi.agency, I am having butterflies even as I am celebrating what is happening. Here’s to having butterflies! And may we all have plenty of them now that the adventure has begun.
The Philosophical Intelligence Agency 