My theory of mental stages

They don't really exist

Nietzsche hypothesized that there were three stages of human life: the camel, the lion, and the child. If I understand correctly, the camel tries his hardest to work, improve, and conform to social norms.

If they are able to, they transform into a lion that forces its will upon the world, creates its own values, and fights against social values. Then, it transforms into a child that no longer feels the need to oppose social values, wills its own will, and takes a lighthearted approach to life.

Perhaps I misunderstand the three stages. But I find this process quite unrelatable.

Anecdotally, this was my subjective mental transformation:

ages 0-12 (ZOG slave — analogous to the camel): I believed most of what I was told at school/home, and even if I didn’t, I didn’t know what not to believe. Little self control and maturity. Like all kids, of course. But not a great life.

12-16 (Emergence stage): children don’t vary that much in mental ability. But as they grow older, the differences start to become more obvious. As I started growing in terms of mental ability, I began using the internet for basically everything — writing fanfiction, browsing forums, playing games, and whatnot. It was here that I started first researching major questions (e.g. religion, free will, politics), and then around 14-15 I stopped being religious.

Which then got me into philosophy — I researched the main questions and came to believe basically the opposite of what I believe now: I supported deontology, compatibilism, and stoicism. Even if I believed in this at the time, these beliefs were largely dead ends.

On a side note, most people I know formed their serious and fundamental political views as young adults or even later. People who adopt lifelong and confident ideological views before 20 tend to be either really smart or lacking in rigour or self-awareness. Your average 115-140 IQ dilletante, even with a strong personality, is not going to be able to make sense of the world as a teenager.

17-21 (Gaming dead end): I gave up on philosophy/politics/4chan eventually. And got really, really into gaming. Skip.

21 - ? (current phase, analogous to Lion): I gave up on the delusions of getting into the gaming industry, and started getting into politics again. I eventually got to Ryan Faulk and Sean Last, who showed me the way of race realism. I had heard about this stuff before, but wasn’t confident and knowledgeable enough to evaluate it, but now I had changed. Once I got into that, I realized there were things about the world that were clearly true, that had a lot of supporting evidence for them, but that were believed only by a small fraction of the population. So what came after that? Nothing too spicy or unique — just hereditarianism, moral anti-realism, irrationalism, nihilism (the “there is no universal meaning to life” kind), determinism, and atheism.

So, I have now formed my worldview, gotten pretty good at “rationalism” (as a philosophical irrationalist), and even become an “internet microcelebrity”, but that has appeared to be a bit of a dead end too. So, I’m basically back to square one, but with much more knowledge than I previously have. On paper my life looks pretty good, but my long term life goals (forming a family and creating a great work of art or science) are nowhere near complete.

Don’t get me wrong. Doing cutting edge race science is fun (and true), but I don’t get much of a kick out of money or fame, so despite my conscientious personality I can’t progress much from here. And I can’t put that kind of stuff on my CV.

What comes now is… Something else. All I will say is that I don’t plan on committing suicide or retreating to a normal life.

Getting to the point

My personal evolution (which is infant → independent, but pretentious and unconfident teenager → gamer dead end → polymath race scientist) would be most consistent with a camel who slowly progressed to being a child. But I never was a Lion.

Actually getting to the point

I don’t think there are universal mental phase changes because humans differ, and because of that, their paths of personal progression and change will not be the same.

A person who is born disagreeable and unconscientious will find it easy to oppose societies bad values, but difficult to come to a good alternative — a mental progression for them might be coming to a more consistent mental framework. They are born Lions with the potential of being children.

Somebody who is agreeable and conscientious, they might take in their environment’s bad ideas and have to realize later in life that they need to change, perhaps never. They are born camels, and turn into children if they have the potential.

Somebody who is unintelligent but physically capable might appreciate the important, superficial things in life but avoid the important and deeper ones.

Somebody who is intelligent and physically stunted might adopt the nerd mentality as a child, and have to break out of it later in life.

Also, a funny snapshot from several months ago: