“feeding teh cancer of my intellect.” -amy ray (loves recovery, indigo girls)
When does intellectually actually become cancerous to your soul or to your mind?
When and how can it turn against you?
Does anyone have any personal suggestions on how to avoid this?
I see this happening at times to me, where the quality of my life can actually decrease w/ too much objective intellectuality.
Assuming you mean intellectuality, when it is closing off more of your potential that it is opening up to you.
It can become a circular obsession, based in the endless navel gazing of existentialists with no interest in other people.
Keep your ideas fresh by using lots of different sources and having lots of different interests. I’ve barely read any formal philosophy in the last 12 months, but I’ve read a lot of history and literary criticism, to which I’ve taken a (broadly speaking) philosophical approach.
‘Objective’ - ah whatever, I’m not going to screw with you over what you mean by that. The point is that ideas can be as limiting as they are liberating, depending on the imagination and situation. One can become so obsessed with certain ideas, make them parts of our individual and collective identities, and thus worship ourselves in worshipping them. Which is circular and arrogant, i.e. both logically and ethically dubious.
As with any obsession, intellect has an event horizon beyond which you are sucked into a black hole of despair and depression.
Sounds like you need a change of direction, or maybe just a distraction to pull you away from the edge you are teetering on.
Drugs and booze and sex are good for that.