By having a formal process of academic philosophy, we can all enjoy logically produced structure that explains the reality we live in. Lay philosophy is fantastic. It should be encouraged. But some people waste whole stretches of their lives trying to figure out questions that were resolved hundreds of years ago.

So, let’s not dismiss the philosophy majors so quickly. We kind of need them.

Could it be that you’re making a (apparently popular) mistake? Being a philosopher isn’t a profession to live on, but a state of mind. An author can be a philosopher as much as a banker or a postman.

I think we agree that a lot of people (maybe the majority, not everyone though) with a degree in philosophy are douchebags who try to look sophisticated, but that doesn’t make philosophers useless people, it just means THEY don’t qualify as philosophers. Get my point?

Eva

I’m all for creative thinking, but I don’t think philosophers have a monopoly on it, and thus, their field of study is pratically useless.

In ‘Atlas shrugged’ though (I must admit, I haven’t read it, just about it) I couln’t quite find any striking parallels. Those who left Plato’s cave are gifted, having caught a glimpse of what is true and perfect, but cursed, for being neither capable of entirely comprehending that other world and staying there, nor returning to the cave and fit in again (those who have been in the light can’t see as well in the dark as those who didn’t leave). Much less they will be able to persuade others to free themselves from the bonds that keep them in the cave, because such a journey obviously brings only misfortune.

Comparing this to my impression of the ‘gulchers’ (which probably isn’t that accurate), these people seem to my like they actually threw their bonds of, but did not turn around to look at the light and rather used their freedom to crawl deeper into the safety of the cave.

About whether there ought to be more people coming back and trying to open the others’ eyes; I’m not quite sure about that. Even if we’re past the persecution of free thinking (at least in most parts of the world), I think it’s still a miserable place to live in for people of true genius (just think about the Bunny-quote in your list). To know that no one can fully understand you, and that you can’t force your knowledge upon someone, because it is something everyone has to see for themselves and will see it, if the have the ability for it and don’t try to deny it because it’s easier.

Eva

You won’t understand because you don’t get as much of it as I do, but people LOVE to shit on young people who are going places. Because if they can nip you in the bud, they diminish their chances of feeling envious and outdone later on. They like to project the feelings that held them back because it makes them real instead of limited only to them. I get these comments and emails all the time.

Not that this guy is that. But I got that vibe. At least he’s nice. Most of the time, it’s accompanied by bitterness and loathing (see: the fight earlier in the week)

I appreciate the comment but at this point, I’m not ready to take advice from someone rationalizing “throwing in the towel.” Euphemism or not, it is not something I agree with.

Frankly, your comments were a lot better than I expected. I tend to get a lot of “well this is the path I took and failed, so you’re ought not take a path at all. Everything is meaningless.”

But dude, go back and look at what you wrote. That you didn’t ever consider quitting before doesn’t make it right now. And that you’re quitting now doesn’t mean you were wrong now. I don’t know your circumstances obviously, but you sound like a broken old man. You’re 40. Unless you have terminal cancer, what could possibly be so bad? Is it not more likely that YOU are wrong, rather than idealism being wrong?

Given the way the messages were given and responded to, I don’t think the content of the messages mattered much at all.

This isn’t deep. This is beyond superficial.

Look, I thought Ayn Rand was extraordinary when I read her in high school and these days I just want to say “oh please.” Life is funny sometimes, isn’t it?

But seriously, I don’t think I missed his point at all. He asked for the thoughts of others, I gave him mine, he pronounced me to be speaking “like a true jaded person who hates what they do.” Rather, I think he (or perhaps you, or perhaps both of you) missed my point.

No offense to you because of your youth, but the reality is that few (if any) of us, regardless of our respective ages, know how we’re going to be looking at the world, or at what we’re doing in it, after another twenty years has passed. Whatever we think/feel/believe now is exactly that and subject to change.

I assure you that the I of twenty years ago would never have imagined myself making the choice to throw in the towel in 2007 — it would have gone against everything I believed in at the time. On multiple levels.

Now not only did I throw in the towel (theoretically an unheroic act), but I’m going on to the next phase of my life with absolutely no concrete plans for the future beyond the next three to six months, which is the amount of time it will take me to make the move I’m in process of. It’s a little odd in that I’ve never (not even in childhood) not had the next ten years or so mapped out, but it’s kind of interesting.

Please note that “absolutely no concrete plans” does not equate to “absolutely no sense of purpose.”

I think you’re both confusing “how long someone has worked” with “the amount of someone’s life experience.” (They’re intertwined up to a point, perhaps especially if we’re speaking of meaningful work mindfully performed, but they’re not the same thing.) Childhood and adolescence, while providing the foundation for what happens once one has Gone Out Into The World, don’t qualify as life experience on the same level as the life experience acquired once one has completed the process of adolescing. A person who’s been at the business of adult life for, say, twenty years is likely to be at least a bit more knowledgeable about adult life than a person who’s been alive for twenty years. That’s simple reality.

It’s also simple reality that often the person who’s been alive for twenty years finds it easy to dismiss the thoughts of someone who says “get back to me when you’ve been at it for a while,” especially if he thinks he himself is being dismissed for being a kid.

But that pesky “it” isn’t just one’s work history, and there are some aspects of living for which time, and what can be learned and accomplished in that time, is absolutely a requirement.

Whew! It’s getting kind of deep in here. I’d like to think some more about the other part of your post before responding to it.