Hey, fair enough, and if you feel the article helped you reflect on your life, great.

However, the reason the lack of depth and engagement bothers me is that it is its own (perhaps unintentional) form of intellectual gatekeeping. By failing to seriously engage with much of the literary tradition, paul effectively avoids helping his readers discover this tradition, allowing them to further their reflections and develop their own ideas through further exploration. This is why I call the writing lazy specifically—it stops practically before it begins. If it's unintentional, this is laziness—deciding that a half-baked, isolated musing is worth sharing. If it's intentional, it's more malicious. A sophist benefits from ignorance. The less his audience knows the more novel or insightful his empty ideas appear.

I think the accusation of superiority is fair, I am engaging in some rhetoric myself. But the stakes are different. A comment on a community forum is not of equal potential impact as knowingly, intentionally publishing a work when you are aware that you have an audience and influence. Furthermore, it's not like pg is engaging with this particular thread of discussion or my accusation, or many for that manner. It's mostly a monologue these days.

We should demand and ask for more of leaders with influence, not less. Why set the bar lower for people we know have popularity and pull? That have platforms through which they can shape the public consciousness?

I'll also note that I only "name dropped" because someone asked. People really need to get over their emotive attachments to intelligence. I'm not saying I'm smarter than anyone else on this forum, or even pg for that matter because I don't think questions about degrees of intelligence even make sense unless you narrowly prescribe the notion and context. Stop being insecure.