Old Habits

I now have two entirely different philosophy focused podcasts that I listen to, The Philosopher's Zone and Philosophy Bites. The first one is a bit longer-form, but the interviewers are better in the second one, which I just stumbled upon this morning.

From my teenage years through until a few years ago, the only thing I ever wanted to be was a philosopher. More precisely, I wanted to be a guru, whose "job" entailed thinking about big, profound questions and wowing people with the profundity of my thoughts. And that's almost what I did! Well, I don't know about the wowing part, but I almost made a career out of being "the guy" in people's lives who was responsible for helping them deal with ethics, meaning, value, and big ideas. I would have had a variety of other tasks, too, like keeping a church operating as a viable, solvent organization.

There are times where I think, "why the fuck did I abandon that career path?" Times like this morning, actually, when I was listening to Philosophy Bites and relishing that questions about God, the meaning of life, morality, and the nature of consciousness.

Then there are times when I remember some of the reasons I left that field. Times like later on in the morning, after listening to Philosophy Bites for a couple of hours or so. I remember that most of my keen interest in ideas boiled down to my need to answer a couple of questions. Well, one really. Is it good that I'm alive?

And I remembered that thinking too much about this question tends to fill me with some anxiety, because both "yes" and "no" can plausibly be posited as answers.

Man....maybe I should blow of this PhD idea and go back to Divinity School, or grad school in philosophy? Any thoughts?

Part of the problem is that one of my reasons for getting into public policy was to acquire power so that I might change the world and make it a better place. I'm much, much, much less interested in doing that now than I used to be, and I'm much, much, much more skeptical that I would be able to do it even if I pursued it with all my might.

Advise me, dear readers. What say you?