Ever since I became more fiscally responsible, I canceled my Amazon Prime subscription. My brother commented that it’s a good thing that I did considering that it makes me buy less. That’s when I realizedthat Amazon Prime makes it far too easy to purchase things impulsively. It enables consumers to engage in (nearly) instant gratification. A very clever corporate scheme if you ask me. It makes sense and is consistent with their emphasis on making it so easy to shop on their website. From 1-Click and monthly product subscriptions to the new PayPhrase and the nearly instant content delivery on the Kindle, Amazon is savvy in reducing the path of resistance for consumers to make their purchases.

Coming from Amazon Prime, I was accustomed to getting my purchases at most two days after I put in the order. Now that I no longer have such privileges, I am stuck with Free Super Saver Shipping. And boy does it make me feel like a second-rate, third-class citizen. I placed the order on the 17th. It arrived on the 27th via USPS. To make things worse, they did the whole stealthy peach slip thing where they don’t actually attempt to deliver your package, forcing you to make your way to the post office the next day. I know the games they play, and it is incredibly frustrating that they lie and claim that the package is out on a truck when it’s actually just sitting in the post office.Anyway, I am extremely excited to finally have my books in hand. This summer, I fully intend to study Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals. I learned a bit about it from some lecture at Oxford I downloaded from iTunes U. Hearing the idea of the “sovereign individual” was like an intellectual ejaculation. I was that excited. Now, I have never read any of Nietzsche’s works or studied them in depth, so I have no clue whether or not Nietzsche is satirical of the idea of the sovereign individual (perhaps it is unrealistic to expect to achieve such sovereignty?). But it is certainly something I have been striving to accomplish for the longest time. Now I have something to study, a paradigm to apply to my life so that I can identify my stances with greater clarity and precision.As for where von Clausewitz fits in, he is heralded as one of the greatest strategists ever, and my intellectual interests drive me to gain a better understanding of strategy. But mostly, I am going to be doing an independent study of Nietzsche. I have no doubt that such an endeavor, pursued without the guidance of a teacher, will be a difficult one. Even so, I am thoroughly motivated to do so. In fact, I have given myself an assignment: to write a thesis by the end of the summer, as well as writing my own polemic by the end of the year. Much of writings are polemical, so much of the groundwork is done already. I only have to refine them and put them together in a cohesive form.