Delusions Are Exhausting (Not Me)

#FirstCoffeeThoughts

One consistent experience I have had across all stages of my life, from childhood through to adulthood, is the reaction people have to truth and reality being either anger or indifference.

All the people who have ever found me annoying, exhausting, tedious, or were threatened by me have all stated, in some way shape or form, that what they are most bothered by is how my presence forces them to handle too much of a mental load when they are already exhausted.

I understand that sentiment well not just as someone who struggles with chronic illness and has to be very careful about mental load, but also as someone who has grown up surrounded by people who hated knowledge, who were threated by truth, who despised intelligence primarily because it took away their ability to control, gaslight, and manipulate those around them. The smarter I seemed (because I wasn’t really) the more that threatened someone else’s continued existence as my oppressor.

Those who are too exhausted for truth, or knowledge of truth, tend to react with indifference and sometimes anger because the exhaustion with their own life and struggles leads to unbalance and emotional dysregulation.

Those who feel indifference towards truth, or knowledge of truth, tend to feel that because there is nothing they can do to change reality, there is no need for them to care or process the truth especially if it interferes with their necessity for control and delusion.

Stuff people have said to me:

• Why should I care about something I cannot change?

• Why should I care about something when all I need it to do is entertain me?

• Truth is too complicated and requires too much mental load to process.

• I don’t have the strength to deal with much more than my day to day needs, asking me to be more educated or focus on larger issues is way too much.

• Things are not that deep.

• It must be nice to have so much free time to have an opinion on everything.

All of those statements were in response to me sharing knowledge, reality, or truth with someone who was opposed to it for whatever reason.

I have heard this from family, from friends, from acquaintances.

99% of my relationships with people end over this issue … the issue being that people only like me when they feel they can control me, turn me on or off when needed, limit the kind of communication process I use, or ignore the logic and reason I use to navigate the world.

Many people who don’t know me well and don’t understand stoicism expect me to behave a certain way or not have feelings or whatever strangeness they have in their minds.

They don’t understand stoicism and on social media stoicism is little more than mansplaining wrapped in a toga. It’s cosplay, it’s watered down philosophy that amounts to only a few famous quotes that have mostly been simplified to the point where they lose meaning or are deeply condensed because of character limits.

Many people, including some modern stoics, don’t understand the difference between stoicism and indifference.

Stoicism is about what I’ll call ACTIVE VIRTUES and indifference is more about PASSIVE APATHY.

Indifference WITHDRAWS INVESTMENT. Stoicism REALLOCATES INVESTMENT.

Indifference says “this thing doesn’t matter”. Stoicism says “this thing matters but I will not be ruined by it and I will learn to grow stronger through it and because of it.”

That’s as simple as I can explain it.

Stoicism has 4 virtues, and only one of them; temperance, is about restraint. The other three are outward and active: courage, practical wisdom, and justice.

In stoicism virtue is an ACTIVITY. Virtue is something that is an active aspect of how you live your life.

Virtues aren’t qualities you gather up like Pokemon and hold on for self satisfaction. They are things that you DO. They are actions you TAKE every moment of your life.

Self. Family. Community.

That is true stoicism.

These days people consider this ACTIVE focus tedious, annoying, pushy, overwhelming, egotistical, one-upsmanship, and “well actually”ing.

… 𝙩𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨, 𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙥𝙪𝙨𝙝𝙮, 𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜, 𝙚𝙜𝙤𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡

These are all words from a culture that ABHORS being asked for anything. i.e. if the virtue of justice means obligation, and obligation is inconvenient, then the person who acts on it becomes the problem.

“𝙒𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮”-𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙣𝙚-𝙪𝙥𝙨𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥 are specific actions that describe “correction” or “education” where the reward IS the correcting and how the ability to correct serves one person’s ego.

That is NOT stoicism or active virtue.

Epictetus was very clear on his disgust for this kind of ego serving behavior. It was not education or knowledge sharing.

It’s called 𝙤𝙞𝙚𝙨𝙞𝙨 or 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦. Think of it as mansplaining in the stoic era.

Epictetus said that most people who study philosophy mostly end up DISPLAYING rather than LIVING it … and I think that is mostly true these days.

True stoics are focused on sharing knowledge and wisdom to help better the larger community not to serve themselves or their egos.

The problem is the larger community rejects anything that interferes with their willful delusion and pushes back or responds with violence or indifference.

The result is I have learned to mind my own business and stay out of other people’s delusions. I post my thoughts on MY OWN FEED and I don’t inject it into other people’s.

I have learned not to engage with people whose egos have been harmed or who seek only to rebuild some foundation they feel my words or my existence has shattered.

This means also that I have very few friends and very few relationships because everyone has conditions that I can’t abide.

Primarily that I need to change everything about myself, keep my mouth shut, never express my opinions, and tailor my opinions to suit the dysregulation, exhaustion, or fragility of others around me.

I don’t think any relationship is worth abandoning my morals, my virtues, my beliefs, or my sense of self … so I chose to simply cease to exist in people’s lives.

As I said at the beginning of this thread: 𝘼𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙧 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙞𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙣𝙡𝙮 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙚𝙨 𝙄 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙚𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 solely to protect their delusions.

For white people, being Black and existing is enough to disrupt their precarious foundations which are built on lies and ignorance. It is why they respond with anger at Black people JUST existing. It is why they cannot mind their own business. It is why their obsession with Black people fills them with so much conflict.

When people keep saying “it’s not that deep”, I know they think this because it’s too complicated for them to wrestle with and if things really were that deep it would force them to realize how deeply they have been brainwashed and how long they have been enslaved.

As I keep saying: 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨𝙣’𝙩 𝙨𝙚𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙛𝙧𝙚𝙚. 𝙄𝙩 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙞𝙣 𝙖 𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙨𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙣𝙚𝙬 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮. And for some people it’s too much to bear so they reject it.

People ARE EXHAUSTED and that is, as I keep explaining, BY DESIGN.

“By design” implies coordination and most people cannot handle the idea that they are enslaved.

These same people don’t read, don’t know or understand history, and have no idea about ALL the playbooks on how to control entire populations.

The thing is your oppressors DO read and many of them ARE educated.

𝙆𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙣 𝙍𝙤𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙩𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙨 3 𝙙𝙚𝙜𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙝𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙞𝙨 𝙖 𝙋𝙝.𝘿. 𝙃𝙚 𝙖𝙡𝙨𝙤 𝙬𝙧𝙤𝙩𝙚 2 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝙚𝙣𝙨𝙡𝙖𝙫𝙚𝙙 𝘽𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙛𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙮 𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚𝙨. 𝙃𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙧𝙪𝙣𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙧𝙜𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙯𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙗𝙚𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙙 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙟𝙚𝙘𝙩 2025.

He studied specifically how enslaved people maintained family structures under a system designed to destroy them and how they survived. Then he went on to lead the institution that produced a blueprint for dismantling and destroying them and other marginalized people.

So yes it IS by design and yes it IS that deep.

Believing that it isn’t is willful ignorance and delusion 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙏𝙃𝘼𝙏 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙚𝙭𝙝𝙖𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚. 𝙉𝙤𝙩 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝.

Each collision of hope and reality demands emotional, mental, and even physical labor. People would rather do all that MENTAL LABOR to DENY truth than expend mental energy to ACCEPT and MANAGE truth.

This is why people find me exhausting. I don’t think my existence or speech is adding labor. I think it threatens the machinery they have setup to maintain their delusions.

IMO it takes more effort to maintain lies than it does to accept and live within truth.

Denial is cheap but not effortless.