Less and less, as I become an adult, is the time that I spend pretending to be a philosopher.
Part of it surely comes down to the disillusionment that I felt studying actual philosophy for the last three years of high school. The whole subject and the way it was taught greatly disappointed me for many reasons, to the point when I started hating “deep thinking” as a whole and seeing it as something you do “just for the sake of it” when you have too much time to spare, not only pointless but also somewhat detrimental to your growth as a human being.
Today, my view on this is slightly more nuanced.
When I was 16, I became what you would call a “practical minded individual” (if that’s even a term…), meaning that I thought that all you need in order to become a happy, functional adult is just setting goals, achieving them, and improving. Learn, conquer, never stop doing. In short, be active. Productive, even. I know for a fact that there are many, many people who live by this vow.
On the other hand, we have the me from my early teenage years, who represents another very substantial group of people, who thinks that achievements are not a necessary part of life as long as you’re wise and happy… and that’s true, technically… but you’ll never become wise and happy unless you actually do something with your life, regardless of whether you care about external metrics or not.
Now, of course, as all things in life, we need balance. There are some problems that you just cannot solve by lying down on your bed and thinking about them over and over, and also some problems that you cannot solve just by doing and doing. And, I hope, most people recognize this already. Discipline can get you to many places, but not everywhere, just like pretending to be a full time philosopher cannot as well.
The hard part, is how to actually balance the two approaches. That’s why, when we get overwhelmed inside or outside our heads, we always end up making things worse in one way or another. We just act when we should instead slow down and let things sink in, and vice versa, and we do it because we cannot sense which one is the correct approach in a given situation.
Now, I’ve been going through a lot of private issues recently, and I have been struggling with how to live my life in the meanwhile. Again, that’s because I cannot balance the two things. I cannot just pretend to ignore my problems and keep doing my stuff as if nothing’s happening at all, but at the same time spending every waking second thinking about them only makes most of them worse. Way worse. And it has caused me to make mistakes I wholeheartedly regret… so, that got me thinking.
For any functional adult, this should be a basic skill: much like our body knows when to switch between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system or how to manage its various hormonal cycles (… and yet you still manage to make a mess out of it and have the worst sleep schedule ever recorded on earth), our body should just be able to develop a sixth sense of what approach to use. It’s just natural. It should be at least.
I’ll say the big thing: most of this generation has actually forgotten how to do it.
Aaaaaand… no, I don’t actually believe it. I said it just because it was cool. I used to say this kind of thing a lot, but now I’m this type of argument’s greatest hater. Let me explain.
Please bear with me, I’m going to start ranting about this kind ot statement and it will feel like I’m completely going off topic, but it will all make sense in a few paragraphs.
So, about the “our generation” thing.
As far as I know, I haven’t been around in the 1800s or at the time of the roman empire, so no, I won’t try to make any point on how life was different back then when we didn’t have phones or stuff like that. We’re in the big 2026 (almost 2027, huh.), that kind of discussion should have become obsolete by now. It’s just too simplistic and biased, and realistically speaking, you could make up just about any “fact” about how 20 year olds used to live in the Renaissance just to prove your point, because no one is there to prove you wrong. Because no one has ever been 20 in two different historical eras and no one will ever be.
No, by the way, old people’s opinion does not count, because everyone is biased, especially at that age. I myself rant about “the good old days” when I’m actually talking about just two months ago, and whenever I stop and think, I of course realize things actually weren’t any better than they are right now. I just had different problems, but memory always plays its own tricks at any age… and the more the brain loses its neuroplasticity, the more it becomes fossilized on made up outdated models that have nothing to do with reality anymore. I should write an essays about memories one day, why not. Anyway.
Even historians cannot prove you wrong, because yeah, they have records, but they’re not in the head of the person who wrote them. Who exactly are you to judge if that guy from 500 years ago who worked as an apprentice at a blacksmith’s shop had more or less emotional intelligence than your chronically online friend Mike? There weren’t even standardized tests or questionnaires at the time (as if the ones we have now were…), and even if there were any, the different culture would change the criteria with which people choose an answer instead of the other. Simply put, there is no real completely objective and scientific way to measure and compare emotional capabilities, as the criteria and parameters will always be arbitrary and dictated by some abstract concept of emotional intelligence which was made up in our culture-influenced heads in the first place. Maybe some ultra powerful brain imaging tool we will invent 80 years in the future will come close, but it will never be fully able to do that. But again, that will only maybe apply to two people alive at the same time… unless we also invent time travel or a technology that brings people back from the dead, that is.
But yeah. My point is that comparing our generation to others is just stupid.
“But come on, it’s just obvious that before the invention of…”
That’s a cognitive bias too. Get out.
Anyway. It is in fact true that there is something about our current environment and culture that somehow makes it harder to develop that kind of sixth sense I was initially talking about.
So, huh, yeah, about that… can we go back to the original topic? How do I become able to balance doing and thinking? How can I use it to become a proper, functional adult, stop getting stuck in life, make less mistakes I’ll regret, all that stuff?
Sure.
Just because I need to pretend like I wasn’t just going on a random unrelated tangent for a whopping five paragraphs, I’ll say that me trying to dismantle that entire argument was just an example of it.
What I actually think is, it’s not your specific culture that makes you unable to listen to your own body and needs, it’s just culture in general. Every culture in every era has always had the same “back in the days…” thing thrown into conversations like it’s some kind of jolly card that will always make your point valid no matter how laughable the rest of your argument is, that’s for sure. But. Most of the concepts vary. Still, I believe that no generation in no part of the world was truly full of people perfectly able to listen to their own needs. Most likely, the average score (again, if we even can give it a score) stays pretty stable.
Thing is, it’s true that our environment and culture gets in the way of us developing a proper level of emotional intelligence, but that’s true no matter what our environment is. There’s no specific cultural concept that makes you better or worse at something: it’s how you absorb it.
Meaning, how nuanced your take on it is.
Or how nuanced you are as a person in general.
And no, just saying “I disagree” is not enough. You need to actually have an opinion you can explain to someone else. It doesn’t need to be perfect. You don’t need to be able to win the world debate tournament (or any internet argument) with it, not needed. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. But you do need to have an opinion that’s yours.
Which is why I went on that rant earlier.
Most people are gullible, that’s it. I myself am most of the time. I could win an award for how gullible I am, actually.
So, to sum up, the more gullible you are, the lower your emotional intelligence is. The reason why most people cannot recognize when the situation requires to stop and think deeply and when not to, is that that ability goes hand in hand with the ability to think deeply itself.
Here’s a quote I made up on the spot: “Only the greatest philosophers always know when it’s time to stop thinking.”
Maybe some scientific paper will support my thesis, who knows… but I’m just writing whatever I have on my mind as a creative exercise (and to re-train myself to think deeply!), so just take it as bro science for now. Maybe I’ll do the research later. Maybe.
For now, let’s say I’m right. You need to have at least some kind of constant practice of deep thinking to be able to sense when the situation even requires it in the first place, just like regular physical exercise makes you better at interoception (“listening to your body”).
If you keep a good ratio of doing and thinking your whole life, that’s not an issue. But the truth is that not every phase of your life requires it.
You can genuinely be lucky enough to live in a situation that doesn’t require you to use your brain to deal with any drama or dilemmas for a while (and everyone wishes they could, of course), but as with anything in the human body, this skill is a “use it or lose it”. Live in peace enough, and you’ll forget how to protect yourself and your loved ones when danger comes. Or whatever, you got the idea.
So, since we all haven’t used our deep thinking capabilities for a while in our personal lives, we’ve all forgotten how to recognize when we are supposed to do it and when we’re not. Which means we don’t think even when we should. Or we do it too much when we aren’t supposed to, and we register it as a sign we should never do it again, at all.
The less you use it, the worse you get at it. The worse you get at it, the less you use it properly, meaning you end up never using it again, and you lose it fully.
So, uh… It’s a vicious cycle. Or, if you study medicine, a positive feedback loop.
That’s a bummer.
So, what’s the solution?
Exercise.
As much as I will sound like your grandparents now, it’s true. Of course you’ll get and stay stupid if you never challenge your mind, just like you’ll get and stay weak if you don’t challenge your body.
So, challenge both. Regularly.
Me getting angry at the “our generation forgot how to x and y” argument was a form of practice, for example.
Engage with and challenge complicated ideas. Debate with friends. Read hard books. Or do whatever.
Since I don’t feel like doing any of the three and I have nothing much to do in the real world as of right now, for me it’s taking long walks and writing these essays. Or poems, sometimes. Or whatever I feel like writing.
And whatever you choose, it’s fine. I don’t like debating, honestly. Maybe I’m just too salty, I don’t know. It’s good for your brain, yeah, but it’s not my thing. At the same time, there are debaters who don’t like writing essays. So, who’s better? No one.
You can’t compare a strongman to a marathoner. Or you can, if you arbitrarily decide what parameters to compare in order to make your favorite win while also making it sound like you’re using a reasonable logic. Every sport is good for the body in its own way, and whichever one you choose doesn’t determine anything and doesn’t make you better or worse than others, it’s just a form of self expression. Most of us in this day and age don’t need to be that athletic at the end of the day anyway, so why bother if not for the benefits that you personally prefer and for the skills that you find cool to learn? You can even choose multiple sports and forms of training at the same time, as I do. I won’t be the best at any of them, but who cares. Again, I do it because I like it, because it’s cool, and because of the benefits.
The same exact thing applies to different forms of deep thinking as well. Just do what you like, nobody really cares anyway.
At the end of the day, anything that comes out of your mind and body is but a form of self expression. So don’t bother with choosing the perfect brain training activity or whatever and just do what you feel like doing. What matters, is that it forces you to use your brain in some different way from how you regularly use it already.
Mind and body are the same thing, by the way, and that plays a role in emotional regulation as well. But that’s not for today’s discussion.
The point for today is: I’m taking long walks and writing stuff, both as a creative outlet and as a form of emotional regulation, I realized that I need to be doing it more and I think that’s a cool fact. That’s pretty much it.
Learn how to regulate your emotions, folks. You will need it every waking second of your life, and this is just the latest way to train it that I’ve discovered. So yeah, try it out. Or don’t.
I wrote this just because I felt like it anyway.
Peace 😛
