Hi, I'm a bit of an eccentric who teaches my brand of philosophy, spirituality, and mental health here on Reddit. I normally call myself a transcendental post-zen alchemist, mainly for marketing reasons, but recently, as I've been mass posting to reach people who might like my content, I've been getting some comments telling me I'm very stoic. I confess, due to mental disabilities, I stopped my formal studies of philosophy years ago, and the medication I'm on makes it a chore to read lengthy texts, so I ask you forgive me for asking such a basic question here. I'm just going to spill my beliefs and give insight with my story, and if anyone opts to read what I'm sharing, I'll be grateful for any inputs you have.

Alright, the core of my beliefs is centered around the idea that free will is a skill. It seems obvious to me that if you walk down a new road everyday, eventually you'll be able to navigate to any destination. In other words, your harvest depends on what you plant. This means, because the devil known as entropy is constantly licking our heels, that we each have a duty to invest in ourselves, so we can grow the garden at our feet and assist others with the fruits of our labors.

Now, this comes with a caveat: if the gardener does not take care of themselves, who takes care of the garden? Our first love must be self-love, but this is not a call for selfishness. Truly, kindness, compassion, and selfless service must be paramount in our society if we are to thrive. But, as John Nash mathematically proved with game theory and governing dynamics, there exists a ratio of giving to the self and giving to the whole that maximizes the growth of the self and the growth of the whole. This means there is a time to give and a time to receive, and we being masters of ourselves must discern that ratio in real time, using our senses and intuition to know what time it is at any given moment, being honest with ourselves and friends.

This naturally leads to trying to develop a game plan for your life. Knowing what we do about developmental and behavioral psychology, it becomes paramount that we take serious our personal growth with regards to our personal limitations and boundaries. As a vine grapples with its environment, looking for something to cling to to in order to pull it up, we must consciously try to craft experiences that grow us into our best selves.

Now a metaphor: the mind is like a pile of sand. Every grain is an experience we have had, with a constant stream of sand always falling on top. Now, we can perturb the outside of this pile easily, but the inner core, or our personality, is tough and slow to move. That's why we must give ourselves routine novel and profound experiences to shake all we know loose.

This is what a pilgrimage used to do. By traveling far and continuously reintegrating into foreign communities, you learned the relativity of your own operating system. Now, we can't really do this in the modern day, but we can still travel to different cultures to get a jolting experience. Likewise, we can simulate the trials of the journey by continuously learning new skills and languages, which increase neuroplasticity. Making and consuming art is another way to loosen the ego's grip on your mind. And the last thing I will simply mention are psychedelics, which have a good track record for expanding one's consciousness.

Now, I will tell you that I was once a very broken woman. Plagued with schizoaffective (bipolar type), autism, ADHD, PTSD, social anxiety and more than one cluster b personality disorder, I felt hopeless after I had to leave college. I collapsed into a pit of despair, but something in me refused to give up. After a powerful acid trip, I decided I would learn to juggle and at least fix my social anxiety through exposure therapy. I did that, and in six months I went out and juggled in public. Starting completely terrified, I soon learned there was nothing to fear. I kept it up for over a year, eventually branching out to other performance arts.

A couple years passed. Another acid trip got me to believe that joining this environmental nonprofit across the country was a good idea. Well, turns out they were a cult. I'll save you the details, but I was effectively brainwashed into becoming a willing slave working sixty hours a week for no pay. Sounds like hell right? Well, it honestly wasn't that bad. See, they gradually rolled me out into the position I was in. Like a frog that doesn't jump out of water that's slowly brought to a boil, I learned that I was far more capable than I thought I was. I devoted myself to my spiritual growth for several months before deciding I could do better than this.

That's when I decided to become voluntarily homeless. I was out there on the concrete for three years. There were bad moments, but I got used to them, and I never stopped trying to improve myself. I would pick up trash, exercise, network, write, juggle, and do performance arts on a daily basis, all while living out of trash cans. It was hard, but I was harder. Still, it pushed me so far out of my comfort zone that I couldn't help but change. And when I did finally get comfortable, I would pick up and ride a bus across the country to start over in a new city with only a backpack to my name.

It was a little extreme, but I cannot emphasize how much better I am in every regard. I'm more socialized, more kind, more skillful, more moral, and I have more willpower than ever. Likewise, my cluster b personality disorders have disappeared, and the bipolar aspect of my schizoaffective has been mitigated greatly. I'm happy now, and things keep looking up, and I want to teach this wisdom I have gained.

So, that's the abridged version of myself and my philosophy. I'm writing a book to tell my tale and to teach the importance of unconditional love. But, that's still a ways down the line still. In the present, it would please me to know if I am a stoic, or if I'm something else. I'm still going to call myself a transcendental post-zen alchemist, but knowing what I relate to will only further assist in my ability to market myself. Thank you if you've read all this. I appreciate the acknowledgement. Until next time, love and be free.