I think maybe Wallace wasn’t really giving advice to those graduating students in that commencement address. It seems possible that he was pleading for mercy: “You might not understand specifically why I am how I am, but please allow your misunderstanding to be a compassionate story…”

Maybe philosophy is nothing other than a practical, factical attempt to make the fragile people at home in this world with us. We can make the world tough and habitable only for the tough… but then we will be surrounded by tough people and we might wonder why the world is so dull and flat and devoid of possibility. The best beauty is delicate. Enlightened strength is moved by fragility and sacrifices to it.

(By the way, do women understand that if they gain ascendancy in the world, men will become the beautiful ones? Women will have to learn the art of human connoisseurship. Until then they will be insufferable tyrants. Look at the ERA parades, and look at the average modern wife: Hell on Earth. This transition to female dominance has sucked and will continue to suck until it resolves and women know how to love from a position of strength.)