Just keep swimming, thank you. When I started reading your present post, and given that you started out saying you hadn't read the book, I had very low expectations so I was pleasantly surprised that your post was very helpful to me!

I don't know much about Voltaire, aside from that famous freedom of speech quote (which is presumably misattributed to him anyways). But I do know what you're talking about, about getting stuck somewhere mentally. It's like about about following a certain train of thought, and it's kind of like going on a journey, and people don't know where you are and don't know how to help, so they kind of tell you to come back home, and that's all the help they could offer. But then you you read a philosopher and you suddenly realized the guy has gone as far as you and did not stop! That there is a way forward! Like you say, he might have continued with, "Now what?"

So suddenly you don't feel alone, you don't feel lost either. And perhaps to read Voltaire say, "I have chosen to be happy because it is good for my health," is different than a regular therapist suggesting that to you, the assumption being that the T is unable or unwilling to take your mental journey but the philosopher has, and so his sayings come from a very different place, and are more meaningful and convincing to you.