In addition to music, fashion and video game design and sporadic social media ranting, Kanye West has added another string to his bow, and has casually announced that he’s working on his own philosophy book.
He let this information slip during a Hollywood Reporter interview with interior designer Axel Vervoordt, who worked with him on the home he shares with Kim Kardashian. As the two spoke about our fascination with different time periods, Kanye said:
“I’m writing a philosophy book right now called Break the Simulation. And I’ve got this philosophy – or let’s say it’s just a concept because sometimes philosophy sounds too heavy-handed. I’ve got a concept about photographs, and I’m on the fence about photographs – about human beings being obsessed with photographs – because it takes you out of the now and transports you into the past or transports you into the future. It can be used to document, but a lot of times it overtakes [people]. People dwell too much in the memories. People always wanna hear the history of something, which is important, but I think […] there’s too much of an importance put on history.”
That certainly tracks, given Kanye West’s ongoing fascination with images, and his apparently love-hate relationship with Instagram. On Valentine’s Day this year, he reactivated his account, posting photos of famous real and fictional couples, but several days later, he deleted the whole thing again.
He went on to offer some musings on the concept of time, saying:
“A designer told me that my wife was a master of light and I was a master of time. How to use time is equal to being someone who can cut a diamond. The ability to preserve time is more valuable than the ability to preserve a diamond because time is our most valuable resource. So using something timeless to remind us of what time is, is a good bar.”
There’s no word on when or if Kanye West’s philosophy book will ever see the light of day, but watch this space, I guess.
