Derek Guzman

How Language Shapes Reality: A Writer’s Guide to Postmodern Philosophy

Why Every Word You Write Is a Political (and Philosophical) Act * Postmodernism posits that language is a cultural action that actively shapes reality rather than a passively describing it. * Derrida, Foucault, and Lyotard lay the foundation for the postmodern notion of subversive language. * Language is never neutral, and is either

Sisyphus in the Studio: Finding Joy in the Eternal Struggle of Creation

Why pushing your creative boulder up the hill is the point (not the problem). * Sisyphus’ eternal and meaningless boulder rolling parallels the unending frustration artists experience with creative blocks. * There’s an absurd joy that comes with the steady process of failures that pave an artists road to their masterpieces.

Guantanamo for Migrants: Why Trump’s 2025 Plan to Detain Immigrants Offshore Is a Threat to Democracy

How Offshore Detention Hides Human Suffering, Undermines Due Process, and Fuels the Deportation-Industrial Complex—And What We Can Do to Stop It * Why offshore detention threatens democracy. * Who is profiting, and who is a part of the deportation-detention industrial complex? * Practical advocacy measures on how to fight back. Have you

The Sartre Guide to Social Media: Why ‘Hell Is Other People’s Comments’

From selfies to selfhood: reclaiming authenticity in a world of performative posts * Sartre's "gaze" and "bad faith" explained. * Why social media is a Sartrean hellscape. * Sartre's antidotes for digital despair. One of my favorite viral memes was a post saying they'

Rituals 2.0: How Technology is Reinventing Community in the Digital Age

* Mircea Eliade and Emile Durkheim define a basis and utility for ritual in human connection. * Ritual is what's missing in modern society leading to depression, anxiety, and the loneliness epidemic. * Ritual can be embedded in UX design. * Technology is only isolating if the humans behind it neglect its

Escaping Meta's Cave: Why Plato Would Use Mastodon

* Decentralized Fediverse apps remove the Plato's Cave quality of social media algorithms. * Algorithms remove freedom of thought and individual development in areas like political discourse. * Censorship prohibits freedom of thought as much as what the algorithms volunteer to you. * Without ads and algorithms social media can be a