As I grow, I realize that useful philosophies are really more like myths. They are simple, direct, and can easily be visualized symbolically.
My own creed was born of necessity. I was desperately depressed and angry and sad and confused. The whole mess, mixed together; and alone. It is seemingly my destiny to be fully misunderstood by many, largely misunderstood by most, and completely understood by none.
But: don’t feel sorry for yourself, never quit, keep learning. It works. I can attest to it.
But as I say from time to time, what we call philosphy–Kant, Hume, Nietzsche, Locke, etc–is largely useless. POLITICAL philosophy is useful, but what I would argue is that by taking morality out of the realm of the visceral, the obvious–at least by fully detaching from sensation–what has happened is that it has self destructed, by becoming unhuman.
The games the deconstructionists/poststructuralists–and ponder those terms on their own merits, from a common sense perspective–play are purely cerebral. Foucault apparently like being whipped, to feel alive.
The philosophy that is useful, the animals have. Life lived is the love of truth, the love of the search for truth.
Perhaps that is true. Perhaps not. Perhaps both. I will have to go and see.