On YouTube, there's a right-wing extremism funnel. You start by watching a college student ranting about how dumb feminism is. It's wrong, but it's not especially sinister. And then, three suggested videos later, you're hearing about why we need a white ethno-state to save the race from a third-world invasion.

When I was a prepubescent child, I never really had experiences of gender dysphoria. This is not something that started until adolescence.

That's one thing I learned in my philosophy training - if you're writing a paper on Aristotle, you have to first show that you understand him. Then you can make your counterargument.

I dropped out of my Ph.D. philosophy program at Northwestern in the summer of 2015, in my mid-20s. I kind of had the idea of writing fiction, and so I was working on that for a year but without ever having very much success at it.

I think the whole mission of being here on Earth is to accept what you have, and my journey was to accept my own life and not pretend anything else. I think that's what we all struggle with.

I'm really, really enjoying myself, I seem to have a lot of purpose in my life. I'm enjoying what I'm doing, you know, and people are liking it. So, it's great, you know.

My biggest bits of advice are, write as much as you can, finish what you start, get a thick skin, don't take crap from anyone, but also live your life and have fun. The stereotype of a writer holed up alone all day is really unhelpful. You can't write real people and real emotion if you don't let yourself experience them.

It is possible to experience an awakening in this life through realising just how precious each moment, each mental process, and each breath truly is.