True adult life is the gradual weaning of yourself away from the social ties of friends and even family, and…

True adult life is the gradual weaning of yourself away from the social ties of friends and even family, and towards pursuing where knowledge says we need to go. The two cannot exist comfortably side-by-side. Knowledge will always betray social relations, eventually. /1

That doesn’t mean be a hermit. It does mean sociality is a stage that you’re supposed to try to move beyond. And that’s life’s toughest challenge. It’s easy to see this challenge when it’s the ‘enemies’ on opposing teams. It’s much tougher when it’s those closest to you. /2

For those who see this as some sort of alarming pessimism, it isn’t any form of -ism. Just confronting the truth of our lives head-on. It’s much more ridiculous to think human social relations are more important than reality. Reality literally kills those who think that. /3

Both individually and collectively. As those who train young drivers know, one of the clearest things you can do to keep them alive is to separate their driving from their social lives. They’re not permitted where I live to carry friends in the car in certain situations. /4

We know that sociality is dangerous. That the right thing is never the most popular thing. It’s almost the most reliable test of the truth of something, its popularity. The truth isn’t unpopular either It’s neither popular or unpopular. It creates total incomprehension. /5

Genuine truth-tellers are not admired or reviled. They’re simply ignored, what they say doesn’t even register amongst our social teams. They’re using an entirely different currency for life. Knowledge. Don’t think for one second science or other fields escape this either. /6

If anything the social team sports is even stronger there. I spent a lot of years helping to govern academic work. It’s brutal team sports. If you choose the path of actual knowledge, it will be mostly a solitary life. Why this remains the picture I decorate my profile with. /7 https://t.co/QQ14t4PXUu

Spinoza’s life was that. He was excommunicated from his entire community. He wasn’t a contrarian or polemicist. He had no interest in team sports at all. Only in knowledge. We don’t understand just how anti-social that really is. /8 https://t.co/ragpdECkp4

Unavoidably and necessarily so. The truth cannot survive the imitative rivalry of team sports, at some point you’re always forced to make concessions, to keep group unity. Only very, very few people can truly live in a way where that doesn’t matter to them. /9

Even those we champion as leaders of thought, in any age, are usually deeply involved in social group dynamics. We don’t see truth because those dynamics are the bedrock of human life. Spinoza said only the feeling of true joy reveals truth. Everything else is team sports. /10

The feeling of actual revelation, of the truth of a situation. It will always be joyful. Nietzsche sensed this too, writing brilliantly of the resentment that dominates most of what we call knowledge. The bitter rivalries. /11

Right now in a pandemic, for example, you are certainly closer to the truth if you’re avoiding infection, wearing a mask and taking other mitigations. But that’s become teams too, injected into the team sports. We’re such fundamentally social creatures that we don’t notice. /12

Most who follow that path are not experiencing much joy, in my experience. (And I’m following that path.) They’re absolutely doing the right thing. But it means the truth of our current situation is still hidden. We’ll know we’ve found it when we feel joy at the revelation. /13

The truth always sets you free. It’s the only thing that will. All the other war cries around freedom today are just more team sports. I feel genuine joy in my life, even in these ridiculous times. Persisting with thinking through our situation has done that. /14

To go well beyond the public health framings, into understanding why what we’re living is some pretty basic social dynamics shared across all ages of history. Once you know that, you can’t see things the same way again, in my experience. It brings actual joy. /15

It doesn’t resolve things in the here and now, straight away. But the truth will, eventually. Because it’s reality speaking. And nothing can beat reality. If you play the long game. That’s another joy-giving truth, the humility of understanding the long game. /16

Of genuinely not caring as this or that person or group has their petty little teams sports victory in the here and now. Yes people are harmed or even killed by the team sports. There are no utopias, ever. But in the long run, only reality ever wins. /17

If you align yourself with what I call reality politics, you always win. Even when it looks like you’re losing. Time will correct the ledger. The humility of playing the long game. There’s real joy in that. Because reality is on your side. /end