/lit/ - Literature

How do you get to be actually smart? Sometimes I read threads on french thinkers, accelerationist thought, or even just plain old german idealism and I just get really lost. I get lost because I look up the writers and the context in which they're forming their ideas, and I see Ph D's, journals, and this overwhelming sense of involvement. How do people get into this stuff? How have there been people working on weird thought philosophies for over a decade now?

More importantly, how can I start contributing? Without becoming a meme academic, of course. Pic sort of related. They talk about fancy things but it seems like the real experts are so fancy word-game wise they're just undeniably out of my league intellectually, and it makes me feel bad.

Also sort of accelerationist thread but more meta on the hidden academy of today's internet philosophers