It’s amazing that we are still at a point in history where most people don't seem to agree that there is an absolute objective nature to how the field of economics works. But that’s the evolution that every field of study must go through on its historical journey toward mass understanding and acceptance. Every area of science and philosophy undergoes a progression where, for the longest time, everyone fights amongst themselves about how it works. In the early days of physics (presently our most developed science), we didn't even know the answer to such basic questions as if the sun revolved around the Earth or the Earth around the sun. We didn’t know if the heavenly bodies were perfect spheres upon the firmament of the night sky. We didn’t even know if heavy objects fell faster than light ones.

The first thing to understand is that there isn't a universal approach that works for every man with every woman in every situation. No one could write a worthwhile manual that says, "Touch a woman here, here, and here to give her the best sex of her life. Compliment her in exactly this way. Wear exactly this and do these four things to impress her.” As in all domains, there are only principles that generally describe how things work.

The sexual impulse sits at the foundation of our animalistic selves. Therefore, its repression is incredibly harmful to people and society. Under healthy conditions of self-exploration and -expression, every individual would be free to determine for themselves what part this biological drive and everything that comes from it will play in their life.

There are few people who will ever be unfortunate enough to witness someone they love, someone they care about, and someone they think they know intimately, behave in ways that are incompatible with what is known about them. At first, you deny it. This cannot be coming from the person I know and love because that is not who they are. The only way for you to process what is happening is to eventually start perceiving them as two entirely different people: the beautiful one you know and love and the one who has replaced them with something ugly and the opposite of everything you loved about them.

Understanding this, it becomes a lot easier to increase the rate at which you are right about the things you think and to have the confidence that you are right even when most others disagree with you. You develop a standard for checking the thoughts that enter your head for internal consistency. You don’t open your mouth until you’ve gone through a fairly lengthy process of ensuring that they fit together on the map in your head.

The first set of rules (what we might call the “real rules”) is what’s physically possible. These rules do not need to be enforced by anyone because it is not possible to break them. The second set of rules (what we might call the “fake rules”) is what’s socially permissible. These rules have to be enforced with the threat of punishment for breaking them because – spoiler alert – it is possible to break them.

Anything that goes unexamined too long in any mind is potentially monstrous. So long as it is painful for us to think differently about what we prefer to believe, we are monsters in waiting. Passion and the demand for truth in all things must supersede the comfort of illusion, however innocuous that illusion might seem on the surface. Illusion forces all analysis to awkwardly work its way around it, to contort and disfigure itself to fit a sacred “truth” that will never budge in the face of superior evidence or reason. The ego and identity are too built up in it, so to remove or alter any part of it feels, quite literally, like one is being tortured or dying.

For the paragon, there is no separation between the concept of self and the mission they identify with. There is no difference between the ego they own and what they value. To exist is to act in service of those values as an outcome. The only way to stop serving them is to cease existing, which means either to literally die or be rendered incapable of consciousness, choice, and action.

To be born a romantic man in this unromantic world is often excruciating. Your presence awakens the half-hearted but hidden romantic spirit in the open-minded women around you. But because their inclination is not strong on its own, there is always a conflict waiting to erupt. There is a breaking point you are always approaching with the women who come into your life because they cannot embrace the truth about their ambition. And when their spirit breaks, they rush to return to normality as if nothing extraordinary ever happened. But you keep carrying the weight of it long after they do.  

Mopping is a thing that people do. Like all those other things they do. And every time they do those things they do, they just know what to do. The picture is fully formed and accessible without backtracking or analysis.

There exists an invisible enemy. I’ve been fighting it my whole life. It’s taken everything I’ve ever cared about. It threatens to do the same again now. No one else even seems to sense it. But I know that it’s always been there. It exists everywhere there are people, thinking and feeling minds for it to lurk in. It’s always looking, waiting for its opportunity to strike.

People always seem surprised when I show them this side of myself. It’s unsettling for them. I let my veil slip a little. I reveal glimpses of the truth that I have been suicidal for a long time and that I struggle to justify living and acting in the world. They see me as a thoughtful, engaging, and infinitely resourceful man. I am someone who doesn’t let conventional obstacles stop him from pursuing what he values. How is it even possible for such a person to be depressed, especially to the degree that they consider ending their own life?

The idea of finding someone that I could always want to share everything about my experience of the world with has seemed inherently absurd. As a rational man, I know I should not waste energy pursuing the absurd. I seek someone I can stand to be around, someone I will always look forward to being with, whose company I will always prefer to my own because it improves every aspect of the experience of life. I look for someone who shows me the good of the world I am reluctantly still part of because I simply don’t see it on my own. I am blind as a result of my condition, and she is the only cure. She activates my potential and makes all the disparate pieces go back to where they should be.

The greatest cat I’ve ever known has died. And reality is worse now.