{∅, {∅}, {∅, {∅}}}

Holden,

I appreciate the update on your important philosophical conclusions, especially this proclamation to cease looking for salvation and coming to terms with the possibility that Existence may not have a beginning or an end.

… feeling depressed/angry/fearful is not that bad, that is when I do most of my writing. It just really makes me to write a lot.  So, like I was saying-two things are clear to me:1. Existence is terrible .2. Existence may never  end.

I have noticed that every now and then I become a little depressed about the apparent futility of my endeavors, when I suspect that any progress I am making is an illusion, that I retain very little of what I learn, or that there is a possibility that I am quite insane, only imagining that "studying math is never a waste of time," that is, that it may very well be a waste of time, a total and complete waste of time.

This can be considered a kind of fear or anxiety.  What I do when feeling this way is that I stubbornly refuse to care (about wasting time).   I allow myself to embrace "wasting my life studying math".   I would not care if my obsession with working through mathematics texts were diagnosed as a symptom of some kind of psychiatric "mood disorder". 

I was doing research about "disability benefits for mental illness" in India, and only found a couple documents.  I can fully appreciate why someone experiencing extreme moods and psychological pain would be hesitant to seek a "professional psychiatric diagnosis" since these "disabilities" are grouped as "mental disabilities" which might mistakenly be perceived as similar to some kind of cognitive disability, as in actual retardation.   This is an unfortunate consequence built into the taxonomy of categorizing mental disorders.   Myself, I am highly functioning, and I have often suspected something sinister behind the practice of psychiatric diagnoses, maybe even as a strategy for discrediting an honest and intelligent individual.   Depending on how one looks at it, the diagnosis might even be political in nature if we broaden our definition of politics.   We are political animals.

To seek a psychiatric diagnosis for the purpose of being granted a monetary allowance so as to decrease the pressures to seek employment, when employment can cause distress, well, some may question the ethics of this kind of consenting to being categorized as disabled.   Here in the United States, it has become a widespread phenomenon for huge segments of the population to receive monthly payments due to such psychiatric diagnoses as mood disorders.   It would appear that many prefer the degradation, low social status, and potential to be perceived as "lazy," than to just accept willy-nilly the economics of wage-slavery.

I wonder if you would ever prefer to accept such a diagnosis as an alternative to continuing to endure the harassment and psychological torture that seems to run rampant in the workforce.

I understand that, from what you say here, that this would be viewed as disgraceful by your family.

Perhaps what I mean by the term, evil, when I suggest a need to become ever-so-slightly more evil, is not the common meaning, as in causing others harm for your own gain, but merely just evil enough to overcome the tyranny of public opinion and look for a way out of the 12-hour day hamster wheel you are trapped running on.

My entire perspective toward studying mathematics is radically divorced from any notion of professionalism or becoming useful brain-power for some kind of high-tech software company.  In fact, I am pefectly content to allow the world to view me as a useless "retarded genius."

As long as you are running on that hamster wheel, you will continue to live that Kafkaesque nightmare.   On the other hand, since, as you have pointed out that there may be no salvation, even after removing the demand to report to a job you hate, there is still the discomfort of existence, with all the mood swings and opportunities for experiencing extreme anxiety and existential fear.

I try to defy that anxiety (about the future, concerns about the threat of homelessness, wandering in the street imagining all my books and notebooks getting mercilessly devoured by the rains, that is, destroyed by Nature) by just continuing to study as though I haven't got a care in the world.

I allow myself to be "mentally ill."

I know that the term is nausiatingly "medical" and "official".

I prefer the old fashioned terminology.  I'm nuts ... I'm out there ...  I, I, I, me, me, me?

The big joke is that our entire global civilization is insane, and those of us who are honest enough to come to terms with our own personal "mental illness" could very simply be the least deluded about our general predicament.   This is another case where "Nothing that is so, is so."

The true pyschopaths may climb the ladder to reach high positions of social status and "power".

Not only this, but those who do as they are coached, those who "keep their eye on the ball," are forever distracted, may never be inclined to inspect the contents of their own minds.  They may know the score of the game and all the statistics, but they do not know themselves.