I relate to this pretty much everyday. Stuck between keeping busy but no energy or will to do so.

This is something that I should have clarified: I meant self-help books in that passage, not philosophy. I adore philosophy and aphorisms (I really like Kierkegaard’s), but the main thing I was trying to say is that self-help books fail in making philosophy accessible where literature succeeds. Thanks for reading!

This is great.

Especially the part about growing up under rampant capitalism,

>Global capitalism, with its imperative of productivity and growth,
cannot recognise this dimension of life. From its perspective, time and
resources that cannot be dedicated to these aims are considered wasted.

I'm not really a money driven person, but this still rings true. Any idea I have will very quickly enter the filter of productivity and growth - "how can I use this idea to improve my wealth/health/position."

Even the idea of rest, for me, is in aid of staying fit and healthy so I can go out and work harder, conquer more. It's not for rest itself.

Never saw it as anything other than a natural human instinct, but reading that is struck me that people growing up under different systems probably don't think this way... weird.

Sounds like a plan.

Same. Wanna do nothing together in our own rooms and not talk?

What if you find that doing nothing IS who you want to be, but you aren't enthused about being homeless?

I'm half-jokingly recommending smoking some weed and watching Rick and Morty.

Don't be so hard on yourself.

I think that this is interesting and can be valuable for people who are in a good place but perhaps obsessive in their workplace.

But let's face it a majority of people are enduring a overactive life because the labor class has been reduced of its power and people cannot afford basic amenities without overworking. They certainly would prefer to be working less.

Nothing, it's my favourite thing to do. I am exhausted by people that always need to do something.

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>Do you suggest that we don't come up with anything new, but just recite and study old wisdom?

No, not necessarily, but is the "new" still philosophy? Is it just science Of philosophy? Or intelligence, but not wisdom?

I identify with this idea very much. I was very much burned out in my career and quit in 2021. My time since has been a struggle between both of my 'drives' as I attempt to determine who I am, why I am, and why I feel as if I need to be constantly busy. Rediscovering the lost ability to fully commit to losing myself in a career is proving impossible so far, yet I still yearn for productivity.

Hell yeah dude. Audiobooks save me on long drives and busy days. They're easier to consume. Herder to concentrate on, but that's simple enough to work around.

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That weird uncle with all the photos stuffed in his billfold (who?) has become endless puppy pics

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I quickly relise i'm not smart enough for this conversation. Do you suggest that we don't come up with anything new, but just recite and study old wisdom?

Contemporary philosophy (at least the US university domain) can be almost entirely divided into two barely related and non-overlapping categories:

• Analytic philosophy: logicians who wish they were mathematicians or AI programmers

• Everything else: pedants who can do very little except endlessly reconsider what historical philosophers wrote and attempt to logically categorize their thoughts in an effort to derive a better system than analytic philosophy.

There are occasional exceptions, like Chalmers, who qualify as the historical philosophers the second group tries to dissect, except for the incidental fact they aren't dead yet. It takes a great amount of brilliance to be a Chalmers, and working (and hobbyist) philosophers need something to do that doesn't require that much fortune of talent.

Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

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Difficult to sell on Reddit, which seems to have the ability to eat up every spare moment of the day..

I just lived through a nde and have been bed ridden for a couple weeks. I’m usually an extremely active and burnt out person. I can relate to this a lot, and I think this period of forced nothingness has changed my life trajectory permanently and for the better

Broad take. Spare a thought for the visually impaired.

Audiobooks aren’t always a matter of preference, not that that should matter.