From my days shattering my school district's Accelerated Reader record—a system that awards students points for each book they read and pass a test on—to my contemporary penchant to peruse every chance I get, including during my lunch break, I have always elevated reading above all my other interests. While I read a variety of genres, my personal literary pantheon is duotheistic: Russian literature and philosophy tower over any other genre. Tolstoy's depiction of Prince Andrei's post-Battle of Austerlitz introspections and metaphysical ruminations as he lay wounded under the celestial sky mesmerized by his novel cognizance of the infinitesimally small role humans play in the great cosmic symphony marked a paradigm shift in my literary appreciation. I view War and Peace as a double-edged sword because, while exultant for reading it, each subsequent book seems lesser by comparison: from Joyce's Ulysses and Kafka's The Metamorphosis to Tolkien's LOTR and Herbert's Dune, no other work, besides Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, comes remotely close to the impossibly high standard set by Tolstoy's—or, more apt, humanity's—magnum opus. I am currently reading all works of Turgenev and Chekhov; most writings of preeminent Japanese authors Natsume Soseki, Kobo Abe, Yukio Mishima, and Haruki Murakami; and works from Nigerian writers Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
        Although I enjoyed my undergraduate philosophy courses, Russian literature's heavy philosophical underpinnings and Georgetown Law's inclination for the Socratic method proved natural conduits for my delve into philosophy and religion and ultimate conversion to existentialism. I spent the COVID-19 lockdown reading the salient works of every prominent Western and Eastern philosopher and theologian, from the pre-Socratics, Vedas authors, and Confucius to Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Marx. While I enjoy studying all three philosophical disciplines—metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics—and all major religions, I harbor a fervent passion for metaphysics, and the field's myriad postulations often preoccupy me. An ardent apostle of Heidegger's metaphysical brilliance—although I refuse to call him my "favorite" philosopher because of his dubious political leanings I unequivocally disavow as a proud left-winger—I have read Being and Time three times and consider it my favorite philosophical text: his notion of Dasein transcends the comparatively banal conception of the human condition expressed by other great things such as Arendt and Rousseau. With regards to political philosophical concerns, I align myself about halfway between the Rawls and Marx/Engels camps, agreeing more with Rawls's prescriptions but Marx's diagnoses. I also admire Wittgenstein's limited but inflential corpus.