We have a loneliness epidemic in our modern societies. More and more people struggle with feelings of inadequacy, shame and not knowing who they really are. More people than ever can't find a romantic partner. This has created an entire market for "self-help".

They say that in order to solve your issues with confidence and loneliness, before you can start dating, you need to achieve some sort of Nirvana in an empty room all by yourself, like an enlightened Zen monk. Repeat some pointless mantra in front of the mirror every morning telling yourself how magnificent you are.

The thing is, you can't cultivate happiness in a vacuum. Just like, if you wanna build muscles and a healthy body, you can only do it with the help of external sources of protein and vitamins. Sure your body produces of the things things to keep it going, but you absolutely need to take in the nutrition from external sources. Same thing with sex, you can masturbate and you might even like it, but it's never as good as being intimate and feeling the warmth from another person that you love.

Granted, it's obvious that you need to cultivate a basic sense of self-respect and be able to be your authentic self. You need to at least be able to live with yourself.

But it's an illusion when they say you can be the source of your own happiness, and once you have achieved this Nirvana, you'll automatically be rich and find the partner of your dreams.

We humans are inherently born imperfect and we are social creatures. On a fundamental level, we seek companionship in order to complete each other, to add things to each other that we may lack. But many people these days think this is a sign of desperation and thus people who overtly seek companionship get labeled as 'desperate'.

Happiness and confidence doesn't happen in a vacuum. I'm more confident now than in the past because of the people who I've been together with, the few friends who liked me for who I am, who made me feel that I am good as I am after a childhood with abusive parents and siblings. The assholes I've encountered who awakened my dormant sense of self-respect. I learned gratitude from seeing other people who have it far worse than me. I could never learn any of these things on my own in a vacuum.

I'm nowhere near where I wanna be in my personal growth and I still have a long way to go. I don't even know if I'll ever reach the light at the end of the tunnel. But my progress has only happened when I was out there in the field, in the arena, grinding and daring greatly.

But these youtube grifters just spam endless videos about how to be a Machiavelli. Just sit in an empty room lonely and meditate, and when you go out, you'll be successful. But yeah, self-love is a grift that snakeoil salesmen sell you to make a profit and get your views.

The reality is, happiness comes from external sources. That doesn't mean that other people are responsible for your happiness just like food won't fly by itself into your mouth. But it does mean that you have to go out there in the field. You can't just meditate and love yourself and then step out of the door and have a successful career and relationship.

When Ideas Do Not Feel Safe

People often assume secrecy comes from selfishness.

They imagine someone withholding an idea is guarding power, status, or superiority. Sometimes that is true. But another kind of secrecy is driven not by greed, but by fear.

People hide ideas when they do not trust the world to receive them safely.

A person may spend years developing a theory, refining an invention, or finding language for something difficult to express. What they create may be fragile, not because the idea is weak, but because it remains vulnerable to distortion.

Once released, an idea no longer belongs only to the person who understood it.

It can be mocked, oversimplified, copied without credit, weaponized, or stripped of its purpose. A serious insight can become a slogan. Something meant to help can be seized by those who only want influence.

There is a parallel between physical and intellectual safety. People carry weapons when they do not trust their environment to protect them. Likewise, people guard their deepest ideas when they do not trust their culture to protect them from ridicule, theft, punishment, or misuse.

I feel safe enough in Canada that I do not need to carry a gun.

But I do not always feel safe enough to share every idea.

This does not mean every private thought is profound or every hidden theory correct. Ideas still require criticism, evidence, testing, and correction. Intellectual safety is not freedom from disagreement. It is the freedom to present an unfinished thought without being treated as foolish, dishonest, arrogant, or dangerous.

Criticism should examine the idea, not punish the person for thinking beyond what is accepted.

New ideas often arrive incomplete. They may be clumsy, mistaken, or years from refinement. If every imperfect thought is publicly humiliated, people do not become better thinkers. They become quieter.

The curious censor themselves. The original disguise their work. The cautious wait until someone with more status says it first.

Eventually, society wonders why nobody produces anything new.

The problem is not that insight has disappeared. It is that insight no longer feels safe enough to appear.

Some ideas should be handled carefully. Harmful knowledge may require limits. But secrecy should not be romanticized as wisdom. A world where valuable ideas must remain hidden is not mature. It has failed to create conditions in which truth can be shared responsibly.

The goal is not to celebrate those who hide what they know.

The goal is to build a culture worthy of being told.

A culture where people can offer strange, unfinished ideas without being destroyed, and distinguish exploration from certainty, error from deception, and questioning reality from unquestionable authority.

Truth should not require a weapon.

An idea should not need armour merely to enter the room.

When people conceal their deepest thinking, we should ask what made hiding feel necessary.

Some people grow up surrounded by family who genuinely love being around each other. They have cousins they’re close to, siblings they can call, parents who feel like home. They grow up knowing what it’s like to have a place in a group without having to question whether they belong there.
Some people effortlessly make friends. They always seem to find their people. They know what it’s like to have someone to call when they’re bored, someone to celebrate with, someone who notices when they’ve been quiet for too long.
And then there are people who spend their entire lives watching those experiences from the outside.
I think one of the hardest things to accept is that not everyone starts life with the same opportunities to experience connection. Some people are naturally welcomed into the world. They fit into rooms without trying. They are remembered, invited, included, loved openly. And for others, belonging feels like something they have to constantly earn, chase, or wonder if they’ll ever find.
It’s strange because you can be surrounded by people and still feel like you’ve never truly been someone’s person.
I don’t think people realize how lucky they are to have experienced genuine friendship, a close family, being someone’s first choice, or simply knowing what it feels like to belong somewhere.
Some of us aren’t necessarily asking for a perfect life. We just wonder what it must feel like to move through the world knowing that there are people who would notice if you disappeared.
Maybe that’s the real privilege not money, beauty, or success, but having a place in someone’s heart that feels secure.
And I wonder how different some of us would have become if we had been given that kind of love earlier in life.

Some of the beliefs I've held most confidently turned out not to be the truest ones.

They were simply the ones that made the world feel predictable.

Curiosity is uncomfortable because it asks us to admit that we may be wrong. Certainty asks nothing of us except that we keep believing.

Looking back, the moments that changed me weren't the moments I found answers. They were the moments I stopped defending answers that no longer fit the person I was becoming.

Maybe growth isn't replacing one certainty with another.

Maybe it's becoming comfortable enough with uncertainty that truth finally has room to enter.

Intelligence makes you understand and realize more of what's going on around you. You either recognize and think about things in your day to day life and you either ignore the questions of "what ifs" and the constant realization of mortality, or you go and numb and want to go braindead,whether that be drugs or alcohol. The reason that people get an addiction to drugs is cause it feels good and if you've felt pain and anguish from the curse of intelligence then the blank and empty from drugs and alcohol feels better than if you werent intelligent.Drugs feel better because of the lower base line happiness.So that influx of happiness from the drugs feels better, and you crave the drugs for the calm. Do you think that my thoughts process makes sence?

when someone dies, you're not just losing what already happened with them. youu're losing every conversation you hadn't had yet, every year you assumed you'd get, every version of forty years from now where they were still in the picture. the person you lose in your head isn't the one who existed , it's the one who was going to keep existing.

that's why grief doesn't fade on a schedule. you're not mourning a fixed, finished thing. you're mourning an entire branch of your own imagined life that just got pruned without asking you. every time you catch yourself thinking "I'll tell them when" and thenn remember you can't, that's not old grief resurfacing that's a new death, of a future you didn't know you were still building

maybe that's the real reason loss feels bottomless. It's not one event you're grieving. It's an entire timeline, collapsing all at once, that you only find the edges of one imagined moment at a time.

Lately, I've been wondering if it's actually better to fail in private than in public.

Not because failure is embarrassing.

But because people rarely remember your effort. They remember your outcome.

Imagine telling everyone you're going to start a business, write a book, become a doctor, change careers, or pursue any ambitious goal. For months or years, people ask how it's going. Some encourage you, others quietly wait to see if you'll make it.

Then one day, it doesn't work out.

You haven't become less intelligent overnight. You haven't lost the discipline, resilience, or skills you built along the way. In many cases, you've grown more than someone who never took the risk.

But that's not how most people see it.

To them, your entire journey gets compressed into one sentence:

"They tried. They failed."

What surprises me isn't that people judge. That's human nature.

What surprises me is how quickly one result can replace years of effort in someone's mind.

And yes, I know the common response is, "Who cares what other people think?"

I get it. In theory, that's the right mindset.

But we don't live in isolation. Whether we like it or not, reputation influences how people see us, how they talk to us, and sometimes even the opportunities we're given. Pretending social perception doesn't exist feels just as unrealistic as letting it control your life.

So I've started following a different approach.

I work quietly.

I share my goals with only a handful of people I genuinely trust.

If I succeed, great.

If I fail, I can learn, recover, and decide what comes next without also carrying the weight of dozens of opinions from people who only ever cared about the final result.

I'm not hiding because I'm ashamed of failure.

I'm protecting my focus from becoming a public performance.

Maybe this is emotional maturity.

Maybe it's fear dressed up as wisdom.

Or maybe there really is value in keeping your biggest ambitions private until they become reality.

I feel this pain very closely

I've been realizing something about myself lately.

A black bear has been spotted a few times in my neighborhood. I usually go for a walk every morning, and I've read enough to know that black bears generally aren't looking to attack people. But I still get nervous about walking.

The strange thing is, I don't think I'm actually afraid of the bear (well maybe a little). I think I'm afraid of myself.

I'm afraid that if I suddenly came around a corner and saw one, I'd panic and do exactly what you're not supposed to do. Run, scream, freeze, who knows.

Then I realized this isn't just about bears. I think it's one of the reasons I sometimes avoid certain people too. It's not always because I'm afraid of them. It's because I don't like who I become around some difficult people. I don't like the anxiety I feel, the frustration that builds inside me, or wondering if I'll say something I'll regret.

It made me wonder how often this is true in other parts of life. Maybe we're not always afraid of the thing itself. Maybe we're afraid of how we'll react if we have to face it.

This is Henry Ford, one of the hundred people who changed the world. I like him personally - with an exception for how he treated his son, but that's another story.

Why don't people believe they can do things? I've watched for the pattern in people around me, and it's always the same one: they believe being great is something you're born with. I've caught myself believing it too.

But when I look at my own achievements, honestly, none of them came from talent, luck, or timing. They came from consistent practice. I think everybody would find the same if they looked. Everyone is great at something, and that something is always the thing they practiced a lot - not the thing they were born gifted at. Talent does matter, but here's how I see it: being born with talent means being born with a good engine. A good engine helps you move faster. It doesn't drive anywhere on its own.

So the first step to believing you can do anything is breaking the belief that greatness is innate. Belief can be trained. But - and this is the part people miss - it has to be trained logically. If something realistically takes a week, don't lie to yourself that you'll finish it in a day. That's a fake belief, and fake beliefs are harmful: when you inevitably fail, you won't blame the ridiculous deadline. You'll start doubting your belief, your strength, your ability, everything. Instead, set a milestone you can actually hit, hit it, and let the win strengthen your belief. Then set the next one. Belief is a muscle, and this is how you train it without tearing it.

When you find something you're afraid to master, look back at what you've already achieved and how. It was practice, every time. So go do the thing. You can.

Someday I'll be thankful to myself for writing this down now.

We are the children of the world. When we see what is happening on our planet, we do not understand. Why is there war, people needlessly killing each other, rather than peace where everyone lives together in harmony? Why is there prejudice, judging others who look, believe, or act differently than we do; is not every life, regardless of our differences, equally important?

Why is there hunger when we have the ability and technology now to feed everyone alive? Why is there inequity with some people having much, while others struggle every day just to survive? Why are the adults ruining our environment, when we have the ability today to use green alternatives to end this senseless destruction?

Why do we kill animals for food when we have alternate sources we may use instead of eating meat? When you look into the eyes of an animal, do you not see their soul within? Why do adults accept living in a world of greed, prejudice, and fear, rather than in a world of love, accepting everyone as equal, important, and worthwhile?

Though our elders have chosen to live in such a world, we do not accept their choices. Instead, we, the children of the world, choose to live in a world of unconditional love, rather than hate, allowing all who live on our planet to live in peace and harmony.

feces are the result of consumption, what the earth gives us the earth takes back, an exchange of energy beetween us and the planet we live on, a rabbit eats grass and defecates, the feces fertilize the earth so that more grass can grow. Garbage is the opposite, we throw away what was not consumed. Garbage is an amalgamation of the excess, what we did not consume and we cannot find use to goes in the trash, sometimes even things that we could have given purpose to but didnt consume in time. All that had an ephemeral purpose gets thrown away without regard. Food packaging, spoiled foods and objects of all kinds are waste without actually changing what they were in the beginning.

What makes consumed food waste is its transformation into feces, while the package that held the food was waste since its creation.

This is a spontaneous thought. English is not my first language and I do not care much about structure. Meaning is important and I try to convey it. Thanks for reading.

Civilization demands so much from a single individual through the active reproduction and sustaining society, that all kindness is faster drained, then a harmonious society needs to exist.

The act of raising children in modern times, aka after we stopped being hunters and gatherers, is so demanding, that all kindness is mostly spent on them. If there is also social pressure added - like status and physical resources -, then there is not enough left. Energy/Kindness is also limited, so there is not enough left for harmony in society. What also adds a lot to it, is, that we have the resources and means to fix it, but we do not!

We do not, because there is just not enough time left to do so, if children are added to the mix. And that creates a swarm of zombies, who can barely "work" in society and few will "thinkers = scientists = academic = politicians = bankers = merchants = leader = kings".

A lot work to death, so few can direct the masses. Which makes sense, but often the "thinkers" forget that they are only a few and a wipe has happened very often in our brief existence of 300.000 years. It is always so unfortunate and so much unnecessary destruction.

At this moment, we are at a point in our history, where never so many people as of now, can realize that and did so. Because reproduction is going down in developed countries. That is good. The young and able, who have finished school or universities, or just are able to do good, go into the world. As close as you want to be or where you are right now and try to do better. The previous generations don't know it better, they suffered physically and mentally so much, their view and hearts are clouded.

The knowledge of this world is in your hands right now, but use it wisely and be critical with AIs answers. Check the sources and communicate in kindness with each other. The hive knows more than just one.

Don't be scared, there is nothing to fear. The end is always approaching, either by our own hand or fate. There were never as many humans, as there are now. History through us, that human rights are the correct choice, demand them.

Remember:

No destruction! If something is destroyed, we will need to rebuild it.

And unfortunately: Human rights are only given to someone, as long as this someone is respecting them. Please no violence.

I wish us all the best. In kindness and good will.

Who are we to live, if we simply are created to die, thats what my mind thinks about a lot, I recently have been just thinking about the future and with that death, me 18(M) is up and coming in life, ive got a great opportunity at trade school, im planning on doing so many things, but when life gets to be too good, no not even that, when I start to have a plan for the future, I automatically bring it to death, what is the point of me doing anything, me building in life, if when I die, its blank, theres nothing there, the me after wont even recognize that the me before has died, he just seizes to exist, the man typing this right now, wont remember this once im dead, all my personal thoughts, every special memory, every boring memory, they are all with me and nowhere else, and thats terrifying to me, I wont exist anymore, I wont struggle with my 36 year old car anymore, I wont race other cars, I wont do anything, I will be gone, so what reason is there to do anything if I wont even know any of it, Im not saying there has to be a purpose in life by any means, I believe that life is meant to be lived and purposes by whatever means you see fit, but Ive essentially come to the point where I feel life since it has an end and since it wont be anything after, nothing matters anymore, I dont want to do anything, I just want to sleep and sleep, But I dont want to die. I just feel so tired of everything, just a day where i can just sleep and rest, but even that never helps, sorry for the rant.

You don’t actually have 100% control over whether you get to keep living or not, and when you really break that down, it’s lowkey horrifying.

Think about the ultimate worst-case scenario: if someone kidnaps you, incapacitates you, and decides to keep you alive and force-feeding you, hooking you up to an IV, and torturing you for decades

You, as a human being, have zero built-in mechanism to just shut yourself down. You can't mechanically force yourself to stop breathing and suffocate; if you try holding your breath, your brainstem takes over, forces you to pass out, and automatically starts breathing for you again. You can’t consciously stop your stomach from digesting nutrients if they’re pushed into your system. Your conscious mind is basically just a passenger in an organic machine that refuses to give you administrative privileges. Evolution didn't give us a "shut-off switch" because it prioritizes survival above all else, meaning your own autonomous nervous system will aggressively fight to prolong your existence, completely indifferent to your suffering or your desire to end it. This total lack of an instant, mechanical kill-switch is pure biological horror.

Have you ever felt this?

I believe that the only way to escape depression is to feel again. When we look at people who suffer from depression, many of them seem to have weak social connections, to become isolated, to grow up in oppressive or loveless families, and to gradually fall into a monotonous life. Their lives can become trapped in repetitive cycles: waking up, going to school or work, coming home, doing chores, sleeping, and repeating the same routine the next day. When every day begins to feel exactly the same, a person can slowly become disconnected from the world and even from themselves. There is little novelty, little excitement, and sometimes nothing that gives them a reason to truly look forward to tomorrow. Eventually, nothing seems to truly matter anymore. They begin to feel as if they are losing their emotions, and a deep emptiness starts to grow inside them.
I believe that one of the strongest things that can stand against this emptiness is to feel something intensely.
Human beings do not live only through happiness and peace. Pain, fear, excitement, struggle, and risk are also parts of the human experience. When someone has never truly experienced pain, perhaps they cannot fully understand the meaning of happiness or gratitude either. Sometimes, in order to feel alive again, a person needs to come face to face with the intensity of life.
This is why experiences that create fear and adrenaline can be important. It does not necessarily have to be fighting or physical violence. It can be anything that carries real risk, pushes a person beyond their comfort zone, and forces them to experience intense emotions. When a person is truly afraid, their attention becomes completely focused on the present moment. For a while, the past and the future disappear. There is only the present.
Perhaps this is one of the greatest problems of modern life. As people build safer and more comfortable lives, they gradually distance themselves from the intensity of existence. When everything is under control, a person may feel safe, but at the same time, they may begin to feel as though they are no longer truly feeling anything. Monotony can slowly numb a person.
This is where I find Nietzsche’s Dionysian philosophy particularly relevant. The Dionysian is about embracing the uncontrollable and chaotic side of life. It means accepting fear, pain, passion, ecstasy, and struggle not as enemies of life, but as parts of life itself. Instead of living a life consisting only of order and security, a person should experience the full intensity of existence.
Perhaps what human beings need is not to suffer, but to feel something.
To be afraid, to become excited, to struggle, to experience joy, to lose, to win… All of these things can remind us that we are alive. Sometimes, a person may find meaning in life not by thinking about it, but by actually living it with intensity.
Because perhaps the greatest fear a human being can have is not suffering, but living without ever feeling anything at all.

and I guess you're dropped in repeatedly, its a good enough analogy lol

honestly, the most you start to realize this, the more EVERYTHING starts to make more sense. Suddenly you start to see how silly a lot of common thought processes are, most usually coming from a place of ego and the belief that you're above the forces of the universe. That your brain is any less deterministic than a ball falling to the ground when dropped, just more complicated.

that's how I see it at least.

Once, my sister ordered some snacks for me as a surprise (I live alone) and had them delivered to my address. When the delivery driver called, I told him I hadn't ordered anything and that there must have been some mistake, so I ignored it. A little later, my sister called me and started talking about random things. Eventually, she revealed that she had sent the snacks, and somehow I requested the delivery guy to come back, and everything got sorted out.

After the call, I found myself sitting there thinking about what had happened. I realized that I'm so used to not expecting people to go out of their way for me that I genuinely couldn't believe someone had made the effort to surprise me. It didn't even occur to me that it could be a gift. I'm so used to being in denial that someone would think of me or do something loving for me. It brought back a little hope, but sadly, hope also brings expectations.

~ Living in an Insane World ~

We live in a world in which we accept the senseless death of innocents from war, starvation, random violence, as a normal part of life. This world is self-centered; its inhabitants are insane, only concerned about themselves.

Humanity has the ability today to end hunger, homelessness, climate change; to mitigate inequity, greed, prejudice. These and all other of humanity’s self-inflicted problems and negative emotions result from living in an indifferent world that cares little about its harmful actions toward others.

We may only begin to alleviate our insanity by realizing we are alive to selflessly help, not harm each other, and that regardless of our differences, every life is equally important. We must no longer pretend we do not see. Only then may we not only begin to mitigate humanity’s insanity, but discover the path to its spiritual evolution as well.

If we are all atoms as-well as energy and energy cannot be destroyed nor created, does that mean we’re stuck here, forced to being rearranged into different forms of matter forever?

I understand that we won’t have consciousness but the atoms that created us will be here forever right? It just seems like an existence is a prison no matter what we are or become and that there is no escape from it even after death.

I have been thinking about why humans have desires. In my opinion, desires are not separate from instinct. In fact, I think it is more accurate to say that we have artificially separated the two concepts when they are really part of the same system. Instinct is a set of biological drives or instructions whose ultimate purpose is to ensure survival and reproduction.

But how can my desire for a nice car be derived from instinct? A simple explanation is that a nice car represents status and wealth. Throughout evolution, higher status within a tribe increased the chances of being accepted, valued, and not abandoned. The object itself is modern, but the underlying desire comes from an ancient instinct.

What about the desire to play video games? That is more complicated. Games imitate many activities that were once essential for survival, such as overcoming challenges, hunting, gathering resources, and experiencing the satisfaction of achieving a goal. Competitive games also reflect the drive to outperform other members of the tribe, creating a sense of competence, security, and social value that would have increased one's chances of survival.

My point is that, at some stage in our evolution, instinct functioned like a basic program that became increasingly complex as the human brain grew in size and formed more connections than that of any other species. We still possess the same fundamental survival instincts—food, reproduction, social connection, and so on—but what distinguishes humans is that our instincts became vastly more sophisticated, supported by a brain that evolved specifically to process them. In this view, self-awareness is not something separate from instinct, but rather the result of an extraordinarily complex instinct operating through a brain specialized to support it.

Passion isn't always something you just find. It is just interest sustained over time. And since you can become interested in almost anything by spending time on it, passion can be built rather than discovered. A good way to approach life in my opinion. Of course there is nuance.