Jordan Peterson talked about this very interesting phenomenon of defensive aggression as a part of neurotic withdrawal.
I realized this morning that intellectualism, for me, and likely for many others, is a form of pushing people away, and in effect withdrawing from the moment.
This would instantly create an obvious correlate that most academics are high in neuroticism.
And I realize that my daily going to bad news–if it’s news, it’s pretty much always bad news of one sort or another–is a steadying of, and reaffirmation of the fear I use to keep the world at arm’s length.
This realization, in turn, can only represent a sort of thawing of frozen energy. You don’t see things when you are in them, so if you see them, you have to at least some small extent passed out of them.