Or: What 18 Years of Downloading Philosophy Taught Me About Who I Am

ALAN WATTS sits at the top. ŽIŽEK at the bottom. Between them: KANT, HEIDEGGER, KAFKA, CAMUS, someone called OTTO WEININGER, and something I created at 3 AM called "INTERNAL STOREGE-PAPYRUS" which I'm now afraid to open.

Here's what nobody tells you about collecting philosophy books: you're not collecting books. You're collecting possible versions of yourself.

Every folder is a bookmark—not in a book, but in my life. And somehow, I've read about 70% of what I've downloaded. This is my story of how my digital hoarding became my self-discovery, and why your unread folders might be more valuable than you think. Keep reading, my good readers!

The Detonation: 2006

It started with four words.

"You should read Nietzsche."

I was sixteen, reading Osho, when he casually dropped this recommendation. I Googled it that night. I found a PDF (poorly scanned, margins cut off) of Thus Spoke Zarathustra on some forum that doesn't exist anymore. Created a folder called NIETZSCHE.

Then didn't touch it for five years.

That folder just sat there. Patient zero. The original sin. And here's the thing: for a second I thought I was procrastinating. I wasn't. I was marinating my deep PDFs.

Because when I finally opened Nietzsche in 2011, I was ready. My soul actually dragged me to that folder unknowingly. And Zarathustra going on about camels and lions and children—I understood maybe 30% of it, but that 30% felt like Nietzsche finally got me. Like someone handed me a secret code to reality.

The folder had been waiting. I had been becoming.

The Cascade: How One Book Demands Ten More

Once you start reading philosophy, you discover its dirty secret: every book points to ten other books you "should" read first.

Nietzsche referenced Schopenhauer. But you can't understand Schopenhauer without Kant. And Kant requires the empiricists—Hume, Berkeley, Locke.

Within a year I had twenty folders. Within five years, over a hundred.

My D: drive looked like a small library. I felt accomplished just seeing them there. Funny thing—I never minded that I had opened Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, read two pages about transcendental aesthetics, experienced immediate regret, and closed it forever (have you fallen for my jest?).

The folder stayed.

And here's what I learned: folders aren't failures. They're maps. And by the end of that year I finished that Mr. Kant. From that moment on I have never actually recovered from his philosophy.

2012: When Camus Grabbed Me By The Throat

Someone mentioned Camus. "He writes about the absurd," they said. "About finding meaning in a meaningless world."

I downloaded everything he ever wrote. 2GB of content. Created a folder called ALBERT CAMUS.

Then I actually read The Stranger. Three days. Or five. I don't recall now. But I went through his words. Meursault shoots a man because the sun is in his eyes, and this felt like the most honest thing I'd ever encountered.

I felt seen. I even made Meursault my character in one of my early stories.

This is what folders do: they wait for the right moment. You don't find books. Books find you when you're ready.

So I downloaded more existentialists. SARTRE. KIERKEGAARD. HEIDEGGER (though I wouldn't touch Heidegger for another decade—some intimidation is sacred).

Each folder marking a moment when I thought: this is what I need.

The Eastern Detour: 2013

By 2013, I'd burned out on Germanic density. All that systematic reasoning. I desperately needed something that felt less like philosophy and more like breathing.

Once, lazily browsing for Gomez's new song, Alan Watts appeared in a YouTube video suggestion list. His warm British accent made philosophy sound like a cosmic joke we were all in on.

I downloaded everything. Created an ALAN WATTS folder. Listened to his lectures falling asleep.

Then came more: Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads. Folders for LAO TZU and BUDDHA and something pretentiously labeled EASTERN PHILOSOPHY.

Now, seeing back and writing about this, the pattern was clear: I wasn't collecting PDFs. I was building escape routes. Each folder a door to a different way of thinking when the current way stopped working.

Literature As Life: 2013-2014

Around 2013, I realized I had been reading about life, about existence, more than actually living it. My solution? Read fiction—because I thought I needed something that looks real or close to real.

But not just any fiction. I needed LITERATURE. Capital letters. The "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" kind.

Downloaded Kafka. Dostoyevsky. Joyce. Proust.

Ulysses sits in my JAMES JOYCE folder like a sleeping dragon. I've opened it maybe four times in twelve years. Each time: read first paragraph, feel brain melting, close it forever.

The folder remains. And the dragon sleeps well.

But Dostoyevsky? I demolished him. Read Notes from Underground and felt personally attacked. The Underground Man's neurotic spiral, his rambling, his close-felt existential darkness, felt like reading my own diary I hadn't written yet.

So I read Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Demons—all of it.

Here's the revelation: Some folders you open immediately. Some you never open. Both are teaching you something.

The Self-Help Mistake: 2015-2016

By 2015, exhausted by philosophy and one so-called friend suggesting it, making me more confused instead of less, I turned to self-help.

Tim Ferriss. Malcolm Gladwell. A folder embarrassingly titled "PRODUCTIVITY." Which I later deleted.

Lasted six months. Self-help books all say the same thing: wake up early, meditate, make lists. Useful advice I've never once followed.

Because if I could follow advice, I wouldn't need the advice. This is the paradox nobody mentions.

So I went back to philosophy. Downloaded HEIDEGGER. Actually read Being and Time. All of it. Did I understand it? Questionable. But I finished it.

The Failed Organization: 2017-2018

In 2017, I realized my folders were chaos. Authors mixed with topics. No organizational logic.

I spent an entire weekend reorganizing everything.

Created new folders: WESTERN PHILOSOPHY. EASTERN PHILOSOPHY. EXISTENTIALISM. ABSURDISM. LITERATURE. ESSAYS.

Then made a folder called WESTERN PHILOSOPHY TRANSLATED. Put something in there. I still don't know what or from what language.

Also created: DOCUMENTS AND GUIDES. RESEARCH PAPER (I'm not in academia). INTERNAL STOREGE-PAPYRUS (genuinely don't remember).

The system lasted one week. Downloaded something new, couldn't categorize it, created another author folder.

The lesson: Organization is a fantasy. Chaos is honest.

The Pandemic: 2020

Then 2020 happened. Everyone trapped inside.

I looked at my folders with excitement. This was it! Finally, time to read everything!

Reader, I did not read the books.

I downloaded more books. Created a folder called PLAGUE LITERATURE. Camus, Defoe, medieval Black Death texts.

Read maybe two.

What I did do: scroll through folders late at night, experiencing comfort and shame. Comfort from possessing knowledge. Shame because I possessed it like a dragon hoards gold—sitting on it, never using it, just knowing it's there.

Acceptance: 2021-2022

By 2021, I stopped lying to myself.

I accepted I'd never read most of these folders.

And weirdly, that felt liberating.

The folders weren't a reading list anymore. They were something else. A map of intellectual curiosity. A diary of aspirations. A museum of people I'd thought about becoming.

What This Actually Means

Here's what 125 folders and eighteen years taught me:

The collection isn't about reading. It's about identity.

Every time I download a book and create a folder, I'm claiming a possibility. "I could be the kind of person who reads Heidegger." The option exists. Schrödinger's reading list—I both have and haven't read these books.

The folders are intellectual FOMO.

Every recommendation triggers panic: What if this is the book that changes everything? Better download it. Better create a folder.

Organizing feels like learning.

There's a dopamine hit when you create a folder. Your desktop looks clean. You feel smart without reading anything.

The guilt is optional.

For years I felt guilty. Now I do not. If I deleted these folders, I would lose the constant reminder that I'm supposed to be better. That guilt means I haven't given up.

The Truth

I've read maybe 70% of what I downloaded. But I've engaged with 100% of it.

Even just downloading a book plants a seed. I know Heidegger exists. I know roughly what he's about. I know where to find him.

The folders are less like a library and more like a map. They show me where the territory is, even if I haven't visited it.

And maybe that's enough.

Maybe the point isn't reading everything. Maybe it's knowing what's out there. Having options.

"Oh yeah, Kierkegaard—I've got him. Right between KAFKA and KRISHNAMURTI."

For Fellow Hoarders

If you have a hard drive full of good intentions and unread PDFs: Stop feeling guilty.

Your folders aren't failure. They're a map of your curiosity. Every download is a moment when you thought, "This matters."

Keep your folders. All 125 of them, or 50, or 300. Let them sit there, organized or chaotic, read or unread.

They're not just books. They're possibilities. They're bookmarks in your intellectual history. They're proof you're still searching, still believing in becoming someone better.

And if HEIDEGGER sits unread for another eighteen years? He'll wait. He's been dead since 1976. He's got time.

So do you.

P.S. Tomorrow I'll probably download another book. Someone will mention a philosopher I haven't heard of. I'll create folder number 126. Won't read it immediately. Maybe not ever. But I'll know it's there.

P.P.S. I just checked—I have TWO folders: "WESTERN PHILOSOPHY" and "WESTERN PHILOSOPHY TRANSLATED." Both in English. I still don't know what Past Me was translating. This is what I mean about 2 AM decisions.

P.P.P.S. I opened INTERNAL STOREGE-PAPYRUS. Three PDFs about ancient Egyptian philosophy. Zero memory of downloading them. Past Me is a mystery Present Me will never solve.