My name is Thomas Tarp, and this is my personal playground, blog, webshop, and communication channel.
Thank you for being on my blog. I appreciate that you have taken the time to explore my site. I hope you find what you are looking for!
On this page, you can learn more about who I am.
Practical Philosopher
Alright, let’s address the elephant in the room… what’s the deal with the practical philosopher stuff?
It is my one-sentence presentation of myself. I have developed this one-line label because I value simplicity when it comes to self-definition.
I find it very useful to have a shorthand presentation that captures the essence of who I am. I feel like I know exactly who I am when I use this phrase (and sometimes I need to remind myself of it).
So… what do I mean by practical philosopher?
Being a practical philosopher essentially means being devoted to idea exploration and idea activation.
Idea Exploration
Idea exploration is the ‘philosophy’ part of ‘practical philosopher’.
To me, philosophy is not some reserved activity for professors or long-bearded old men… It is simply curiousity and idea exploration.
I once saw philosophy defined as ‘the pursuit of wisdom’. I like that because it highlights that learning is involved in philosophy. You explore ideas, and you become wiser from those explorations. I find it incredibly satisfying to learn, to become wiser, and to become a better version of myself.
Idea exploration to me is not necessarily as a means to some end. It is simply something that I am driven towards and which attempts to satisfy my insatiable curiosity (which, by the way, makes it a never-ending process).
The ideas that I like to explore span across all areas of life, e.g. entrepreneurship, sports, finances, health, technology, relationships, or just random projects. I guess an inherent part of idea exploration is openness to what’s new, and that definitely defines who I am.
Exploring ideas is not enough for me, though. That is why idea activation is an equally important component of my self-definition.
Idea Activation
Idea activation is the ‘pratical’ component of ‘pratical philosopher’. It is putting ideas into practice. It is making abstract ideas real. It is the creative process, and in my heart, I truly am a creative person.
Idea activation is about putting ideas to the test. It is figuring out how to make ideas work. It is innovation.
For example, entrepreneurship is idea activation to me. With my entrepreneurial projects, I try to create sustainable systems that activate some idea which hopefully solves an important problem.
Applied science is also idea activation, i.e. taking the thorough knowledge created by skilled scientists and converting this knowledge into useful applications.
In this sense, idea activation also becomes a filter on the ideas that I choose to explore. I only want to explore ideas that are meaningful to me. For example, ideas that I believe are valuable to others, make the world a better place, or are simply fun and exciting, such as my sports.
To me, practical philosophy is both fun, engaging, and meaningful. I find it fun to create new stuff. I grow from the things I learn, and it gives me variety. Furthermore, it is an outlet for meaningful contributions to the world, which endows my life with purpose.
So, now you know why I consider myself a practical philosopher!
In that context, let’s explore what this website is for.
Playground
I am an entrepreneurial spirit, and I always have a ton of ideas and projects going on. Some of these projects I will share on this website, such as coding projects or stuff I have built.
It is my playground where I test and share stuff that I do.
Blog
The blog is where I share things that I have been thinking about. I mainly write for my own sake, simply because I want to express my thoughts. This is where I explore ideas at the conceptual level.
It structures my thoughts and makes it more clear to myself when I put them into writing. You will probably find that my writing is a bit confusing at times. That is because the process of writing in itself is part of my idea exploration, and where I at least attempt to make my thoughts structured, although it doesn’t always happen.
That is also why the blog is essentially a doorway to enter my mind.
Hopefully, you will find something interesting here that ignites an idea in your own mind.
Webshop
I intend to open a webshop on my site at some point. I often find interesting products that are not readily available but should be! So I want to sell some of these products on my site to like-minded people as well as my homemade projects.
Feel free to send me an e-mail at [email protected] if you’ve got something on your mind you want to talk about!
By the way, this is me:
