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Remember that inadequacy is not merely a hump, not merely something you confront and get over with. There are always reasons—and valid reasons, at that—to feel inadequate for someone or for something. But don’t let it torment the soul.

What matters is the journey. It is not only that you tried, and tried your best, but it is also, above all, that you can live it embracing the gift of human life that we’ve all been given. It is to be grateful, to be mindful, to be present, to realize that none of these games we play may even matter at all at the end of the day. There is so much that we don’t understand, so much that we mistakenly perceive as truth, so much undiscovered. To act like we’ve got it all figured out works just fine for achieving these goals we’ve set out for ourselves, until it just doesn’t.

We don’t have to let our circumstances define our story. We don’t have to let our emotions dictate whether or not we can find joy out of this existence. But if we don’t take steps to practice gratitude and mindfulness, we let it.

248

There are plenty of things that I do not understand, but nothing that I cannot understand in the bigger picture of the human condition.

I don’t worry about losing control when I know that there will always be things out of my control.

I don’t worry if I can achieve my goals, because if I simply try my best, that’s all that I can do.

I don’t worry about the injustice, the hate, the chaos, and the war that ensues in the world around me, because it’s nothing new, and nothing that I would have expected not to happen.

Being surprised and confused amidst suffering is the worst form of suffering.

At least now I can suffer and know why.

247

I do not worry about other people’s situations, as I would not my own.

I can be concerned, invested, and empathetic with a whole and heavy heart. But there is no reason to be worried for them—to torment myself over a future that neither they or I can know.

246

I know; it seems as though everyone out there has an agenda, a myriad of expectations, and a reason to further their own interests.

But I also know that at least some of us are trying—to find something better, trying to find real connection, trying to find truth.

And I have nothing to lose by pushing myself to try—to find those who seek such things.

It is what I’m called to do, after all.

245

Friendship—or perhaps love—is a fateful alignment of circumstance and a beautiful balance of human chemistry.

244

Does thinking divorce you from the moment, or does the moment divorce you from thinking?

The truth is that we can as easily fall into the trap of overthinking as we can falter because of our ignorance.

To live our life in absolutes is only misleading.

243

As I’ve discussed many times in this blog, it is in my nature to want to agree—to want peace above all, to shield myself from conflict, and to avert all emotional discomfort or tension from my interpersonal interactions. But don’t be mistaken in thinking that this is simply who I am; what I talk about far less on here is the ferocious, ruthless, and brutal side of me that has grown in recent years in response to the failures of this agreeable part of my personality.

As a stark deviation from how I normally write on this blog, I want to convey my thoughts in the way that is most representative of how I actually feel:

Don’t fucking tell me how to live my life.

Don’t fucking pretend you know who I am.

Most of all, don’t fucking tell me who I should be.

242

I’ve encountered many people in my life that use philosophy as a bludgeon to strongarm their way through difficult conversations to prove their own righteousness or intellectual worth.

I’ve also encountered many people that seem to think philosophy is an esoteric practice farfetched from either the harsh realities of life, an easy excuse to not take action or to delay action, or an unnecessary burden in our quest to find happiness or peace.

Lest we forget that we need philosophy because it is the only way to discern right from wrong. If we claim to study philosophy, but can never make any conclusions that will cause us to act differently in the world around us, we have failed. Conversely, if we dismiss it as something optional or dispensable, we also have failed.

Indeed, no one is stopping you from abdicating yourself from the responsibility of determining what is right from wrong, but don’t put to shame everyone who came before you that tried to. Do not take for granted all the fruits of good decision-making that came from leaders in the past who took responsibility to seriously contemplate the path they were going to take their people. It’s far too easy to say that philosophy isn’t necessary when you aren’t the one making the brutally difficult decisions—when you aren’t the one primarily responsible for countless human lives, for the fate of a nation, for ensuring good prevails against evil on this earth. And when the inevitable time comes—when those countless lives are lost, when a nation has crumbled into dust, when evil prevails—you should not have put yourself in a position where you have to apologize for your ignorance, for your complacency, and for your self-righteousness because you didn’t want to think about what’s right; at the very least, be grateful that someone beside you did.

241

The beauty of the human condition is that so much of our vacillation between struggle and redemption is both banal within the scope of history and endlessly novel to our personal experience.

The novelty—the childlike fascination with the peculiarity of life itself, the compulsion to propel ourselves towards the unknown, the need to solve things for the sake of solving them—is what ultimately drives us to live this life in the first place.

But the banality—the clichés, the recurring motifs, the persistent themes of what it means to live as a human—should serve to comfort us and keep us on the path we were meant to be on. It is a reminder that we were and are never alone, and no matter what path we actually end up on, we can rest easy, knowing that others have walked it before us.

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I’m starting to think at times that I have talker’s block, much in the same way as I once thought I had writer’s block.

But just as I’ve realized writer’s block is merely a fear of bad writing, perhaps all I have now is a fear of bad conversation.

At the end of the day, it all just requires courage—courage to shun the non-believers, courage to try your best when there isn’t enough effort in this world, courage to ignore those who judge without wanting to be judged themselves, courage to do the right thing despite being pulled in every wayward direction.

Stop trying to please everyone. As much as it’s in my agreeable nature to want to be on good terms with everyone that I come across, to succumb to such a nature would be a damning statement of my cowardice.

Walk your own path, and do not heed to distractions, to vapidity, to people who don’t understand a modicum of who you actually are.