I grew up around more horses and cattle, than people, so reading was an entertainment, not an obligation.
I guess beyond the philosophy, Western culture seems obsessed with finding this thing called "meaning" in life.
While Eastern philosophy/culture seemed more about the connections, the network, as well as the nodes.
As I also like to say, life is like a sentence. The end is just punctuation. what matters is how well you tie the rest of the story together.
The problem with "meaning" is that it just becomes one more unattainable goal, like a horizon line or ideal beauty. Given the inherent circularity of reality, the effect is more running in circles. Puppy chasing its tail. Which then becomes a feedback loop and centripetal. So spiraling inward and the larger context is lost. Then the fanatics take over and it becomes religious, as each tries to out meaning the other.
As Israel is showing, the line between cult and culture is one of degree.
One is the node, oneness is the network. Whether it's between nations and cultures, people and societies, or the cells making up your body.
"Entangled particles" wouldn't be such a mystery, if modern physics came from an Eastern background.
The positive of the West spiraling into this abyss, is that it is forcing the countries of the Old World to network in ways they never would have, otherwise.
Having that Hegemon boogieman, financial siphon is focusing the rest of the planet and forcing them to work as a network against the threat to the global ecosystem.
So it's that pessimism really isn't a factor, unless one has some particular belief system that is threatened. Yes, a lot of people are being chewed up and spit out, but this is part of the growing pains. Humanity is more at the end of the beginning, than the beginning of the end.
Here is something that sat in my drafts a little too long last summer, as an unmentioned someone suggested they might publish something, but didn't happen;
https://medium.com/@johnbrodixmerrymanjr/why-culture-is-not-reality-7cb4f0867a4d
