The later someone arrives to philosophy in life, the more difficult it is for them to integrate the concepts and the harder they tend to “fall apart”.
This is a difficult process.
This is why I say that young people who find my work are at a great advantage. This is also why I say that no matter your age, if you work hard, it tends to go easier.
Work hardest at the beginning - this way you accumulate fewer cruddy habits.
If philosophy is highly likely to tear you down, then if you are lackadaisical, the “falling apart” is going to hit much harder. The less you scooch boot, the more likely you are to be hit by a hammer.
Philosophy is extremely difficult.
The later into life a person is, the more entrenched their bad habits. Regular society teaches us that your irrationality is permissible within certain bounds. Just don’t build a killdozer and go whacko on police authorities. Don’t type certain terms into the search bar and you’ll be OK. Try to not rape, kill, or steal unless you have a net worth of above $30million. Above that mark and someone will bail you out for a handsome cut and enduring tribute. Try to not walk around in society butt naked unless you’re in Portland or Seattle.
You’re allowed to do a lot:
-as many drugs as you’d like
-have as many children as you can IF you’re nonwhite (donde esta mi SNAP)
-you can do most crimes to White people
-you can doom scroll until your eyeballs rot
-you can rehearse whatever kind of mystical sayings that comfort you
-you can spend your Visa Rothschild chits in the casino economy, no problem
-you can get into whatever political anything so long as you don’t organize
-if you organize, be anything that isn’t Far Right or black SUVs show up to your house
-you can do butt stuff
-you can take on copious amounts of college debt
-you can play woketard video games where the White man is bad
-you can avoid the opposite sex like they’re the plague, especially if you’re White
-you can avoid people, especially if you’re White
-enjoy all the slop food your body can tolerate before you get fungi and parasites
Point is, you have lots of leeway to do whatever you’d like. If you didn’t receive peaceful parenting as a child, which is a 100% certainty for anyone born before 2008, you definitely got into something as a teenager or young adult that wasn’t good for you. Or your parents did something to screw you up.
Obviously there’s a continuum of “screwed up” but never underestimate what a few errant passes will do to a sensitive soul. Western Europeans tend to be like thoroughbred racehorses.
Are you 1-3 years into philosophy and feeling like utter shit?
Could be that the foundations of your life as you’ve lived it are being overturned. That’s hard on a person. Batters the ego.
I have the seen people with the absolute most diamond-hard constitutions turn away from philosophy because they couldn’t give up the violence in their personalities. They didn’t want to take the hard edges out because they had to define themselves by their hard edges to domineering, predatorial parents long before.
I have seen people laze their way into the minefield of their unacknowledged feelings and then step on landmines and fritz out, never to return to the barren land. Off they go into an entire adult lifetimes of distraction (entertainment, hedonism, academia) and abstraction (politics, conspiracy theories, careerism, religion).
But what I’ve never seen is someone double down on philosophy when the going gets tough and come out from it worse for wear. The person who doubles down on philosophy begins to know a strength they only glimpsed as a flicker on the horizon as a child.
Have you tried my patented chicken sandwich I invented last year?
That’s what philosophy tastes like, if you push through the “Desolation Within”.
What does “into philosophy” look like?
It doesn’t mean, “I listened to Stefan Molyneux for years man and yeah, great stuff bro. I love libertarian economics and when women get corrected and shit!”
That’s better than nothing.
But I am talking about the self-knowledge component. You gotta do the self-knowledge part. You’ve got to ask yourself where you’ve been in error. You’ve got to examine the mistakes of your parents. You have to look at your programming.
Been in a conflict? Programming likely had something to do with it.
Had trouble securing work or finding love?
Had a period of loneliness followed by illness?
Been caught up by the law?
Haven’t read any books in the past year or two or three?
Maintain self-defeating, short-term oriented habits that wreck your long-term prospects?
These can only be somewhat mitigated by listening to Stefan Molyneux’s wonderful show.
Working with yourself and getting honest is where most of the juice resides.
If you’re looking for more in this vein, try my older book Make Self-Knowledge Great Again. Some of it is fantastic and some of it, a bit dated or I’m at odds with.
If you’re falling to pieces, let it be because you used philosophy to tug at some seams that are now spilling open.
Life has to get messy before it can be tidy again.
Unpack the rot. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Let your wounds breathe.
Try to not take it hard. This is part of the process. Learn to unwind strategically, not hedonically.
Drop me a line if you’re looking for professional guidance.
You cannot expect perfection. And philosophy shines a light on your imperfections. Great big abreactions happen because of something. They aren’t mystical codexes.
“Depressions” must be put into proper context. Empathy and patience allow for that process to play out.
Don’t give up on the process!
There are sunny shores. There are elysian fields. All is well… in a well-ordered and clean conscience. You can’t just will your way there. We are all challenged by a push and pull of the conscience. Sometimes it tells you to start from scratch. Sometimes it does not trust you. You’ve lived in error. All those endless choices I listed above have something to do with it.
Appreciate the article, very grounding.