Philosophy Is Not for Everyone, It Might Kill Your Soul.
I’ve been into philosophy for just two years, but it has already reshaped how I think, feel, and experience life. It all began with questions—some that had no answers, some that my soul couldn’t digest, and others that left me with a strange sense of emptiness.
Philosophy teaches you how to think from first principles. It strips things down to their core—asking not just what something is, but why it even exists. It deepens your clarity, helps you understand history, human behavior, consciousness, ethics, morality—all the fundamentals of life that most people never stop to question. It improves your judgment and protects you from society’s abstract traps—desires, genes, religion, culture, tradition, money, success, and even the idea of justice. True critical rationalism only kicks in after a certain philosophical awakening.
One of the biggest realizations is that life is made up of theories, constructs, and perspectives. There is no single right answer. Everything is subjective. A murderer’s mother might do everything to protect her child, while the victim’s mother will stop at nothing to seek justice. Life isn’t fair, and the playing field is full of invisible constraints and unfair advantages. Some things that society condemns aren’t really that bad, and some things that are glorified aren’t good at all.
Eventually, this questioning spirals. Philosophy begins to suggest that life itself is suffering, that expectations ruin experiences, and that what we call happiness is often just fleeting pleasure. Then the real questions begin—Why this job? Am I doing it, or is it doing me? Meaning and purpose start to feel like traps. Everything seems like it’s driven by imitation, pleasure-seeking, materialism, and comparison. That’s when the emptiness hits.
As someone who overthinks and gets deeply attached, it hit hard. I stopped doing anything. I slipped into depression—not out of pessimism, but from too much reflection. Oddly, I wasn’t even hopeless. There was optimism in my mind—the kind rooted in the ideas of people like David Deutsch. That kept me afloat.
I realized I had been living in anticipation my whole life—waiting for school to end, for college to finish, for a job to give me peace. I was stuck in survival mode, thinking life would begin “after” something. But life is always now.
Then I saw how people use different strategies to cope with the weight of existence. Some of the things I understood:
God, religion, cultures, and rituals are ways people cope with the fear of the unknown—giving their suffering a structure.
Relationships and marriage offer people a sense of responsibility and meaning, especially when they bring a child into the world. That becomes a reason to live.
Some people find peace in their work—not because they’re changing the world, but because they love the process.
Addictions—drugs, alcohol, shopping, distractions—are ways to avoid these difficult questions.
Only a few create real change or innovation because it requires obsession, curiosity, pain, and an intense use of energy, often aided by luck.
I’ve written hundreds of notes, had long chats with AI models, and read books and philosophies across the spectrum—Nietzsche, Frankl, Camus, Deutsch. But most of my thoughts stay with me because they’re transient. I don’t share them unless they stick around long enough.
The only quote that truly captures this space I’m in:
"An unexamined life is not worth living… but an over-examined one can become unbearable."