Philosophy: Neo-Hedonism
Self-declared in March 2020, during the first COVID lockdown, in what reads as a mid-journal revelation:
“Well, well, well… I AM A NEO-HEDONIST.”
The declaration arrives without elaborate definition. It is a recognition more than a construction. He has been living it, and he is now naming it.
What it encompasses
Neo-hedonism in Steven’s usage is not a simple pleasure principle. It is a framework for navigating a reality he describes as both realistic and paradoxical, as in “mon avis sur le monde est réaliste et paradoxal.” It involves:
Experiential primacy: living in the present moment, taking pleasure seriously as a value, not deferring enjoyment for a future that may not arrive.
Process over destination: “Life is a journey, not a destination.” Explicit in the July 2019 entry and the March 2020 entry. Contrasted against his earlier goal-maximizing orientation.
Substance use as legitimate: the decision to “enlever le voile péjoratif que la société peut mettre sur la drogue, pour la considérer comme un sujet d’étude et d’expérimentation.” Drugs are not a moral problem; they are a domain of human experience to be explored intelligently.
Counter-normative orientation: enjoying transgression, going against “les normes sociales standards.” Not nihilism. He frames his ambitions as meaningful and world-improving, but rejects inherited frameworks for what a good life looks like.
Historical context of the declaration
March 2020: France is in its first lockdown. Steven had just quit Ipso, the city is frozen, and his Paris life has paused. The afters he had been attending, described partly as “l’expression d’un désespoir face au non-sens politique et au chaos mondial, ainsi qu’aux confinements à répétition”, had their own nihilistic dimension.
Neo-hedonism in this context is both a philosophical position and a response to catastrophe. If the world might touch its end, pleasure is not a distraction from meaning. It is one of the remaining available meanings.
The quantum mental state
Adjacent to the neo-hedonism declaration: “Mon état mental est passé de caméléon à quantique.” He describes his mental state as being in superposition, not fixed, existing in multiple possible states simultaneously, only resolved when observed. He would need to journal constantly across all states to produce a partial account.
This framing is consistent with the autism and ADHD experience of a distributed internal state that is difficult to represent as a single narrative. The quantum metaphor is doing psychological work here, not just philosophical work.
Tensions
Neo-hedonism coexists with his ambitions and self-discipline aspirations in ways that are not always comfortable. The January 2018 ideal of being ultra-productive, wealthy, healthy, and waking at 6am is explicitly not hedonist in the easy sense. His resolution is that pleasure and ambition are not opposed. Substances can augment productivity, and enjoyment can be part of larger goals.
When this resolution breaks down, when pleasure stops enabling ambition and starts consuming it, the neo-hedonism framing becomes a liability. The March 2023 crisis is the most extreme case.
2025–2026 update
Neo-hedonism remains present in the later chronicles, but it is quieter. The focus is more on function than on philosophy. The substances are calibration tools, not celebrations. “Je suis dans une dette neurologique énorme. Je sais que la MDPHP a besoin d’être maîtrisée, que la voie est étroite.”