I thought it was bullshit 'til I was in my 4th decade and joined
   this very group.

   I joined Philosophy groups twice before online, once in the
   early 00s and another time in the early 90s (Usenet omg)...

   ...and this is the FIRST TIME I hung around more than three
   months.

   Same flame wars. Same subjects. Same battles about the same
   things.

   The only difference now is: I have a concept of where it fits
   and how it's good and where it's bad. Plus, I have patience now.
   It's a system comprising multiple systems. Some get you from A
   --> B, some put you in that "woah" self-questioning /
   reality-questioning mode. Depends on your needs.
   One type of philosophy tends to dominate online discourse but
   there are many and yes, the love is there. Like marrying a
   cranky, persnickity wife, it took me many many years to love
   philosophy, even the parts I didn't care for for so long. But
   now, I do. Of course... what allows me to be here is it's all
   bullshit, including myself and my opines about things. By All..
   I mean... well... _all_... anything that gets us emotionally
   attached. Gets us mad. Frustrated. Happy. Whatever. Needing to
   prove something for some reason to someone else we've never seen
   and only know as an abstraction of a person.

   BUT... there's a lot of time before one dies and there are worse
   ways to fill up the time.

   And seeing things from an "it's all emotions because: amygdala
   duh" perspective allows me to interpret exchanges and
   participate in them, speaking the lingua franca if I must but
   generally, coming at things from my own strange perspective and
   seeing how it reflects, gets absrbed or thrown up back in my
   face by other people who are intelligent and can help broaden my
   view of the world.

   There's hazing in this club. But if you get past getting pantsed
   a few times in front of the pretty girl, and the occasional
   group smack-down, head-in the ropes, chair on head moments...
   you're quickly one-of-the-gang. I go back to ancient Usenet
   long-post days, when you composed long responses to things.
   Mailing lists, dialup. You composed, connected, uploaded.
   Twitter + txting changed it all and by '06 and everybody
   followed suit. So short became the new norm.

   I can do short. But I like to fill up space.

   Bullshit: Well, that doesn't mean ti's wrong. Bullshit doesn't
   mean wrong really. It means while there is a lot of good and
   true and wise and strong there's also equal amounts of
   hand-waving, perfectly valid logic that ends up with woefully
   wrong conclusions, and all of the normal trappings of all human
   communication: misunderstandings due to people speaking from
   different perspectives.

   But it's worth it. The gems make it worth it. It's not "all
   bullshit", no. But there's some wherever you go. It's a good
   thing, honestly. Any system that is too perfect has unseen flaws
   that aren't being looked at. But that's my bias. I could be
   wrong here.

   I still love it. I find identifying my biases helpful in
   reducing miscommunications. I don't yet believe in perfection.
   Tried. Wanted to. Never found it. Always a fatal flaw somewhere.
   I'm like that with everything. With myself. I walk on a concrete
   balcony that's 12 stories up and the first thing I notice is
   "how much is it vibrating? How thick is the concrete? How OLD is
   that rebar?" and I never allow myself to rest comfortably on any
   surface, no matter how perfect the engineering was.

   So it's my bias. Platonic ideals there's no much room for in me.
   I want them of course but there's always a crack somewhere and
   I'm always drawn to them.

   Philosophy - she doesn't have to be perfect for me to love it.
   Maybe she is and I'm inventing imaginary flaws that aren't
   really there based on a set of assumptions on my part. I don't
   know.

   But I'll back you up: Philosophy is not bullshit. Philosophy is
   a beautiful thing. And it is. I want to thank you though. Your
   encouragement got me to write, and one of my motives for such
   length writing (and participation) is to help clarify my
   thoughts on subjects by bouncing them off of people. So even if
   we are not soul-friends in fullest dedication to love of
   Philosophy, you have my deepest appreciation for teasing
   thoughts out of me I might not otherwise known I had. It helps
   me build my own Philosophy further and I save my writings for
   future use. Wouldn't have written it all if it wasn't for your
   presence. Thanks