Your Brain Is Not Logical—It’s Physiological

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One of the greatest things about the human mind is that it doesn't behave logically; it behaves physiologically. It doesn't really make sense that a daily morning run can suddenly solve most of your existential troubles; but it does.

Sometimes you worry about the inevitability of old age. Sometimes you question the meaning of life. Sometimes you're in such deep emotional trouble that it's hard to do anything at all. The logical method to address these problems would be to address them directly—try to live older, try to find objective meaning, try to solve whatever’s depressing you. But not only are these solutions unfeasible (i.e., you can’t prolong youthfulness forever)—they are not the correct way to address such concerns.

I fell into this rabbit hole the moment I began my summer holidays. After losing the sense of structure that college gave me, I started spiraling into these weird emotional concerns that didn't even make any sense. I started regretting the many things I didn't do in life, even though I am literally still in college and have my entire youth ahead of me. Naturally, I decided to address these concerns. I started wasting myself every day to make up for the fact that I hadn't really enjoyed life for the past few years. I ruined my sleep schedule because I somehow believed that it was causing me too much constraint and unhappiness. All of this only made my problems a million times worse, because my sleep schedule wrecked my mood, which wrecked my daily routines, which then wrecked everything else.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that your brain is not a philosopher; it's a biochemical machine. It doesn't matter what you think philosophically; the proper way to address any sort of emotional trouble is to do so from the right level of analysis. Sure, you could try to philosophically talk your way out of your problems—but you're just wasting your time. It’s not gonna work. I figured this out the hard way because I spent the entire summer trying to address my emotional problems directly, giving agency to whatever regrets, anxieties, or depressive thoughts I had at the time. It's very important that you don't give into any sort of emotional impulse, and that you don't let these emotional impulses dictate the path that you lead. They're very potent. They're very powerful. But as hard as it is to resist them, the proper way to get rid of them might not be to address them directly.