Dear Coquette,

I consider my really good friend one of the smartest people I’ve met. He is an aspiring poet and right now is teaching for a few years before getting his MFA. He told me recently that he intentionally tries to avoid learning (or at least any formal or in-depth learning) about both economics and philosophy, because he thinks ignorance in those fields will lead him to live a happier life. I think he might be right, but I can’t help think he is missing out on a lot of knowledge and truth about the world, even if it might make him unhappier. I guess he is free to do what he wants — do you have any thoughts about his choice?

An aspiring poet? What a gigantic asshole.

Listen, there’s nothing wrong with not being smart. We’re all born into this world with a certain amount of brains, and it’s perfectly fine not having the intellectual capacity to study economics or philosophy.

There’s also nothing wrong with having no interest in those fields, but that’s not what’s happening here. This guy is deliberately being lazy, and it’s disgusting for someone to intentionally avoid learning truths about the world because he thinks ignorance is bliss — especially someone with the brass balls to call himself a poet.

It’s bad enough when willful ignorance is the byproduct of some dogmatic belief system, but it’s absolutely repulsive when it’s a voluntary act by an intelligent person who just can’t be bothered.

Sure, he’s free to do what he wants, but this guy is an intellectual sloth not worthy of your respect.

Do you really believe in endings? I’m starting to think that there’s no such thing. What we consider an ending is actually just a transition into something different.

Of course I believe in endings. Life ends, my friend. One day yours will too, and as far as you’re concerned, it won’t matter much what happens to the rest of the universe after that, because there will be no “you” to experience it.

It’s fine if you want to incorporate conservation laws of mass and energy into your metaphysical belief system, and it’s fine if you want to imagine some sort of nebulous universal eternity, but you’re fooling yourself if you think it applies to you or your consciousness.

When it’s all said and done, dead is dead, and the only thing you’ll transition into is worm food.

I’m 21, and I feel like every time I think I get closer to “knowing myself better,” I’m actually wrong, and I need to start all over again. Why is my own identity so difficult to be understood by my own self?

You’re never starting all over again. It only feels that way because you think knowing yourself and acknowledging an identity are the same thing.