Apeironaut: An Explanation
What is Apeironaut?
Apeironaut is, in its simplest form, the blog I’m starting in order to create a portfolio of reviews and critical essays not only for my future, but also for my own personal enjoyment. I may also be posting poems and short stories if the creative mood strikes. However, the name does have meaning beyond just sounding ‘cool’. The word, which I almost definitely did not come up with first, comes from two words — ‘apeiron’ and ‘nautēs’. The latter is less interesting, so I will start with it. Very simply, it is the ancient Greek word for sailor, but in modern use it is the root word of ‘astronaut’, and variations upon, such as the ‘gastronaut’. Astronaut means, simply, a person who travels in space; who navigates it, charts it in person and through their own direct experience and learning. The ‘-naut’ suffix can be applied widely — a gastronaut being a person who explores food, an oneironaut being a traveller of dreams. So what is the ‘apeiron’ all about then?
Apeiron refers to the ancient Greek philosophical term which means, in a simple form close to misrepresentation, chaos. However, it is the chaos that creates order, the primordial mass from which all things emerge — the primary principle of all things. In a way, it is a kind of nothing — a vague and ambiguous term that designates no particular recognisable substance, with no signs that point towards its nature beyond being The Creator. It created opposites; hot and cold, light and dark, and without one of these there could be not the other. In a way, it is proto-Taoist, in that it acknowledges the necessary opposition in the world.
My thought is thus: does apeiron not act as an allegory for the world in which we live? Though matter and concepts may not have emerged from it in reality, it certainly seems to us that it is the form that those things take. A murky, impossible to parse chaos that surrounds us, that we must mould with our own hands into fire, clay, iron, bronze and beyond. When presented with such an impenetrable world, what can we do but explore it? In my own words, what is there to do but to travel it, to navigate it, to chart it in person and through our own direct experience and learning? When presented with meaninglessness, (which is what apeiron presents us with — chaos with its own impossible mechanics and complete opaqueness) we must create our own meaning, chart our own maps and our own enjoyment.
Yes, reader, apeironaut is a pretentious word for existentialist. But that is meant to be the underlying principle rather than the content of every post. When thinking about my own future, I could think of only two possibilities. The first, writing. The second, an early death. I had to find that out, by exploring myself and my options, my passions and the things that give me, personally, meaning. This blog exists due to existentialism, due to apeironautical thinking. This blog will keep my mind sharp, my critical senses alert, but most of all gives me an outlet for the inane bullshit that gives my life, my thought and my essence (not in an essentialist sense, mind you) its own unique meaning. It’s a passion project in the truest form, while also serving a practical use in that I can present it to future employers as an example of my writing, whether I decide to go into film or book criticism, or whether I decide to go into academia.
I will be reuploading and expanding upon my own Letterboxd and Goodreads reviews, since I think that there is good content in there that I’m proud of. You can find those links on the about page. As for what is to come, here is a short list of upcoming possible projects:
- A Short Musing on AI Art – Can We Find Meaning in Desecration?
- Godzilla Minus One – How Do We Live?
- Non-Human Allegories for Human Discrimination – An Oodly Long Exploration
- Probably a lot of Doctor Who
- Shin Godzilla – We Are (Not) The Lovecraftian Horror
- Those Who Walk Away From Omelas, and what they must do
- Starvation in The Road, The Left Hand of Darkness, and Blindness