I've met a lot of data vacuums in life. Absorbing words off the pages of philosophy books and most likely better at math than me.
I've met a lot of travelers who have been to the Nile, over-layed in Stockholm, and experienced coffee culture in France but still cannot say thank you in any language let alone their own. You've read the classics. You've seen movies from Svankmajer to Jodorowsky. You're reluctant to volunteer a topic unless it's tailored to a big name. Reluctant to accept a rebuttal unless it's backed up with ethos. Every poem you write is on symbolism and identity. And if the struggle isn't real enough, you manufacture one.
Every sunrise has some hidden meaning for you to get introspective about. Everyone and everything that passes you by is up for your critique.
You think shrooms have enlightened you. I am not undermining you, but I will say, I hear way too many young folk double dutching with the word "enlightenment" these days and yet still all too prone to missing the point in any topic of conversation. It doesn't take a 12 hour trip to understand the cosmological principle.
I hear too many people frowning on public and home schoolers who's education has "failed " them or the high school/ college drop outs who "gave up". Too many drop-outs dishing on college students. Those who chose to be sedentary, or had no means to travel leisurely deemed close-minded. Those who listen to one genre of music labeled dull. Those who follow trends deemed followers...maybe. Not for me to call. I dress pretty weird, but that don't make me special.
I love astrophysics and respect quantum mechanics but I proudly own up to the fact that I haven't memorized the light-year formula (yet). I'm just as close to knowing how far Kepler 186f is from planet Earth, as I am to knowing where my degree in painting and my Chinese minor will get me in life.
But there is a difference between "education" and "foundation". A fine line between "data" and "realness". I will say that none of my college years amounted to the one I spent working 2-3 jobs and 16 hour shifts too busy to pick up Bill Bryson books, chat about Milan Kundera, too broke to go back-packing in Laos or swimming in the Sea of Stars.
Whatever Kierkegaard passage you've memorized for cocktail hour won't mean a Thang until the words echo inside of you. I readGibran's the Prophet 3 times before I actually got over it's cryptic poetry, and allowed his words to move me. I never took hallucinogens to reach "enlightenment" but Life gave me too many Ego Deaths to allow you to pass judgement. I smoked a ton of spliffs but I was always sober when reality checked me.
Sorry world for my personal contradiction, but I find Nietzsche just okay, and I still can't spell his name right without Google. I've skimmed enough philosophy and studied enough religions to know I'm just as close to knowing whatever dharmic steps ensure I reach my purpose as Gadamer was. I make up my own philosophy through my foundational truths and that's only if I got one to tout. I may have not traveled the globe fully but I can say thank you in over 15 languages, and that I learned from bussing tables and closing out tabs at 2am in the morning.
I am not perfect and I am not better, or smarter, or anything ending in the suffix "er". What I am is hip to what I am.
So take what I'm about to say as the grain of Yes Organic salt that it is:
Data is not cache. Big words don't mean big ideas. Accolades don't make you more credible. DMT won't make you more "enlightened". Travel don't make you more worldly. Philosophy won't make you more cultured and understanding. Your tier of education or lack thereof won't guarantee your success. Clothes don't make you more special. Over-analysis don't make you deep. Ambiguity don't make you more avante-garde. Music won't make you cooler. Stop missing the point in every conversation. It's you that makes you, you.
*Glances up from computer screen and remembers this song*