Everything Is F*cked

feels good for what is good.
The  metaphorical  Clown  Car  is  what  inspired  ancient  philosophers  to
warn against the overindulgence and worship of feelings.
20
It was the fear of
the  Clown  Car  that  inspired  the  Greeks  and  Romans  to  teach  of  the  virtues
and,  later,  the  Christian  Church  to  push  a  message  of  abstinence  and  self-
denial.
21
Both classical philosophers and the Church had seen the destruction
wrought  by  narcissistic  and  megalomaniacal  men  in  power.  And  they  all
believed that the only way to manage the Feeling Brain was to deprive it, to
give  it  as  little  oxygen  as  possible,  thus  preventing  it  from  exploding  and
destroying  the  world  around  it.  This  thinking  gave  birth  to  the  Classic
Assumption: that the only way to be a good person is through dominance of
the  Thinking  Brain  over  the  Feeling  Brain,  the  championing  of  reason  over
emotion, duty over desire.
For  most  of  human  history,  people  have  been  brutal,  superstitious,  and
uneducated. People in the Middle Ages used to torture cats for sport and take
their  kids  to  watch  the  local  burglar  get  his  nuts  chopped  off  in  the  town

---

square.
22
 People  were  sadistic,  impulsive  fuckers.  For  most  of  history,  the
world  has  not  been  a  pleasant  place  to  live,  and  that  was  largely  because
everyone’s Feeling Brains were running amok.
23
The Classic Assumption was
often the only thing that stood between civilization and total anarchy.
Then  something  happened  in  the  last  couple  of  hundred  years.  People
built  trains  and  cars  and  invented  central  heating  and  stuff.  Economic
prosperity outran human impulses. People were no longer worried about not
being able to eat or about being killed for insulting the king. Life was more
comfortable and easier. People now had a ton of free time to sit and think and
worry about all sorts of existential shit that they had never considered before.
As  a  result,  several  movements  arose  in  the  late  twentieth  century
championing  the  Feeling  Brain.
24
 And  indeed,  liberating  the  Feeling  Brain
from the Thinking Brain’s suppression was incredibly therapeutic for millions
of people (and continues to be so today).
The problem was that people began to go too far the other way. They went
from recognizing and honoring their feelings to the other extreme of believing
that their feelings were the only thing that mattered. This has been particularly
true  for  white,  middle-class  yuppies  who  were  raised  under  the  Classic
Assumption,  grew  up  miserable,  and  then  got  in  touch  with  their  Feeling
Brains at a much later age. Because these people never had any real problems
in  their  lives  other  than  feeling  bad,  they  erroneously  came  to  believe  that
feelings  were  all  that  mattered  and  that  the  Thinking  Brain’s  maps  were
merely  inconvenient  distractions  from  those  feelings.  Many  of  these  people
called  this  shutting  off  of  their  Thinking  Brains  in  favor  of  their  Feeling
Brains “spiritual growth,” and convinced themselves that being self-absorbed
twats  brought  them  closer  to  enlightenment,
25
 when,  really,  they  were
indulging the old Feeling Brain. It was the same old Clown Car with a new,
spiritual-looking paint job.
26
The  overindulgence  of  emotion  leads  to  a  crisis  of  hope,  but  so  does  the
repression of emotion.
27
The  person  who  denies  his  Feeling  Brain  numbs  himself  to  the  world
around  him.  By  rejecting  his  emotions,  he  rejects  making  value  judgments,
that is, deciding that one thing is better than another. As a result, he becomes
indifferent to life and the results of his decisions. He struggles to engage with
others. His relationships suffer. And eventually, his chronic indifference leads
him to an unpleasant visit with the Uncomfortable Truth. After all, if nothing
is more or less important, then there’s no reason to do anything. And if there’s
no reason to do anything, then why live at all?
Meanwhile, the person who denies his Thinking Brain becomes impulsive

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and  selfish,  warping  reality  to  conform  to  his  whims  and  fancies,  which  are
then  never  satiated.  His  crisis  of  hope  is  that  no  matter  how  much  he  eats,
drinks,  dominates,  or  fucks,  it  will  never  be  enough—it  will  never  matter
enough,  it  will  never  feel  significant  enough.  He  will  be  on  a  perpetual
treadmill of desperation, always running, though never moving. And if at any
point he stops, the Uncomfortable Truth immediately catches up to him.
I  know.  I’m  being  dramatic  again.  But  I  have  to  be,  Thinking  Brain.
Otherwise, the Feeling Brain will get bored and close this book. Ever wonder
why a page-turner is a page-turner? It’s not you turning those pages, idiot; it’s
your  Feeling  Brain.  It’s  the  anticipation  and  suspense;  the  joy  of  discovery
and the satisfaction of resolution. Good writing is writing that is able to speak
to and stimulate both brains at the same time.
And  this  is  the  whole  problem:  speaking  to  both  brains,  integrating  our
brains into a cooperative, coordinated, unified whole. Because if self-control
is  an  illusion  of  the  Thinking  Brain’s  overblown  self-regard,  then  it’s  self-
acceptance that will save us—accepting our emotions and working with them
rather than against them. But to develop that self-acceptance, we have to do
some work, Thinking Brain. Let’s talk. Meet me in the next section.