I am dead

>>9998253
(You) adjust your perspective. Many expect 'the world' to yield them what it can in actual fact yield no one, and once their expectations are dashed, become desperate, or weary. Here's a little homework project. Read Chekhov's very short story Gooseberries. Rarely does so little say (and potentially 'yield') so much. Bonne chance.

In the same boat right now...

read:

ernst junger's forest passage

julius evola's ride the tiger

and huxley's perennial philosophy

become one of the few who keeps humanity's humanity alive in a dark time

>>9998366
>Many expect 'the world' to yield them what it can in actual fact yield no one, and once their expectations are dashed, become desperate, or weary.

Great story. Ivan was the real loser of Gooseberries. He's a useless hypocrite – denouncing personal happiness as vain, fleeting and fetishized according to an idiosyncratic illusory ideal, he propounds servitude to a higher cause instead.

Yet, like his eccentric brother who kept exclaiming "how delicious!" at his mediocre gooseberries, so does Ivan exclaim "delicious!" while taking a swim. Even though Aliokhin hasn't showered in a long time, Ivan enjoys it much more so than he.

He's a pessimistic idealist who pretends to be above the pleasures of this world he so despises, exhorting Bourkin to do the same – his pipe smoke, the unsettling morale of the story, kept poor Bourkin awake at night. Nor did Ivan do any good to his audience by telling his story, as they didn't enjoy it. He knows this very well, which is why he asks for forgiveness from God as a wicked sinner.

Aliokhin is the real winner here. He is a man of practical affairs, a man of the people, a simple farmer who doesn't care for Ivan's idealism – but still, he enjoys the story, as the only one among it's audience at that, not because Ivan is clever or right, but rather as an amusing escape from the toil of his everyday affairs.

>>9998253
You need a philosophy that consciously steers away from Utopian daydreaming and the endlessly captivating wonders of potentiality, something that is specifically dealing with the actual instead.

The Unique and It's Property by Max Stirner comes immediatly to mind. It's great for taking responsibility of own your life, demolishing any disillusioned servitude to anything outside yourself. It is the very antithesis of Ivan's philosophy – personal happiness is the only thing you have control over. Just avoid /lit/'s horribly caricatured memes of his thought and you should be good to go.

The Prince by Machiavelli is also great for it's raw treatment of human nature, robing it off any pretentious idealism it may be vested in.