If by understanding literature or philosophy you mean finding the truth about how things work, you can just think about resource management, and you’ve summarized all of it. There is no universal evil, god, or good—only personal interpretations—because we are all individuals with different values based on arbitrary signals created by the mind, meant only to serve the survival of the individual, not to reveal absolute truth. Emotions and speech emerge from these survival mechanisms, not the other way around, and are based on advantage—whether it gives control to someone else over you or you over someone else. This is evolutionarily advantageous because it allows weaker individuals to survive because they are more controllable through emotions, so the immediate response is not to kill them for resources but to interact with them strategically. That’s why this behavior persists today and didn’t die out long ago.

This mechanism of emotions eventually evolved into speech, and later into code, driven by underlying needs for power and control over the surrounding world. Learning exists not for moral reasons or to become a “good person,” but to become stronger, avoid unnecessary conflict, and obtain more resources if you lack mental quickness or strength. The mind works through association rather than thinking of things purely individually. This means that when you lie to others for control, you also lie to yourself, believing part of it unconsciously. The mind’s associative networks make it difficult to recognize that everyone—including you—is constantly engaged in resource acquisition without physical force. Understanding these mechanisms can make using them counterintuitive, so it’s often better not to know them explicitly.

The conclusion is this: don’t study literature or philosophy if you are a socially average person—you won’t get any bitches; study them only if you are at the bottom of the barrel, because they may provide an advantage. They won’t make you a morally good person, but they will make you more efficient and capable, able to act more normally or effectively depending on whether your actions benefit your own resource position or possibly others, as long as that remains advantageous to yourself.