Knowledge
I was a nerd. The kind who'd remember Ramanujan # and throw it around randomly in conversations to seem smart.
At some point in college I realized this nerdiness was not rewarded. And there's nothing I like more than being liked. I have this compulsive need to be liked.
So I stopped acquiring knowledge. You realize how most of the word is shallow. If you are in a group of non-nerds you are more likely to impress someone by calling our suffering a side effect of capitalism than having a nuanced argument about it. Who has time for nuance? People want to repeat the headlines they read, and increasingly the tiktoks they say.
And I still think that knowledge itself is not desired if you are trying to impress women in a club.
But what I missed was knowledge was all I had. So, in pursuit of social popularity I let of whatever I had to the point I now I nothing.