I shared a post on X.com recently about Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. If you missed it, here’s the heart of it: Siddhartha is a novel about self-discovery and inner freedom. Written after a string of crises in Hesse’s life, drawing from Indian philosophy and the Upanishads, it threatened the Nazis enough to get banned for “radical independence” from outside control. See the X post, with a striking image of Nazi censorship beside Alan Watts (who called the book “sacred”) and Steve Jobs (who reread it yearly), here: View the X post.
Hesse wrote Siddhartha in 1922. Europe was raw: disillusioned by war, desperate for answers, piling rules on top of chaos to feel safe. Hesse was himself rootless, stripped of certainty, braced against relentless change. He watched a culture obsessed with order demand soul-level obedience. Siddhartha’s answer? Stop following, stop conforming. Start looking in the one place nobody can dictate – within.
The fact that the Nazis burned it tells you everything you need to know about the threat in honest self-inquiry. If people start trusting themselves, systems built on obedience collapse. That’s why, even now, Siddhartha matters. It’s not about rejecting the world; it’s about refusing to let it fill you up with noise until there’s nothing left that’s really you.
Take a look at now. We live in the age of infinite advice and “hot takes.” There’s always a new framework for “how to live well.” AI is plugging us into bigger, faster, and more omnipresent information streams, one more expert, one more system, one endless scroll of instructions promising shortcuts to clarity, meaning, identity. The problem: all these tools can only ever serve as invitations. Doorways. Not replacements for the only step that works – looking at yourself, honestly, outside the algorithm.
Here’s what lands with me:
- No outside system, ideology, or latest hot tech is going to tell you who you are.
- Psychology gives you a map of hidden drives but doesn’t walk for you.
- Philosophy offers the tools for an examined life, but not the courage.
- Ancient wisdom points you inward, which is where all real answers begin.
- Lifemap exists for one reason: to put the mirror into your hand, and guide you to actually look – deeply, beyond the surface.
If you want something solid to hold onto as reality speeds up, don’t chase speed. Anchor to depth.
- Stop optimizing. Start asking the questions only you can answer.
- Stop following. Start listening – to yourself, even (especially) when the world is loud.
- Don’t let frameworks calcify into dogma. Use them as portals.
- Know that clarity isn’t something you stumble across; it’s a choice you make, over and over.
Siddhartha matters more now, not less. The hero’s journey is not a travel blog or somebody else’s YouTube highlight reel. It’s here, every time you admit you don’t know, and go searching.
You are the hero of your own legend, not a background character tasked with following someone else’s program. Every real path begins when you close your eyes, drop the script, and take yourself seriously enough to go deeper.
What question are you refusing to ask yourself right now? Start there.
