A few years ago, my friend sent me a copy of Baltasar Gracián‘s The Art of Worldly Wisdom. It is, by the way, excellent reading. It calls to mind Marcus Aurelius and his Meditations, and I mean that in a very good way. I was reading it a bit last night, and of course, I was struck by just how damned smart and relevant the maxims still are today.
I was also struck by how I was reading them: as interesting bits of information. Not wisdom — interesting paragraphs. I thought that, perhaps, it was the text. Maybe it’s not as awesome as I thought. But I’ve noticed in recent months and years that I seem to gloss over even my favorites like Thoreau, the Buddha, Emerson, Nietzsche, et al. Am I getting dense? I don’t think so — though that is certainly a possibility, and there are certainly people who would say so. (Ahem.) I suspect that this is a result of studying philosophy for my entire adult life.
On the one hand, I think I might be somewhat numb to wisdom literature! I’ve read so many wise things that other people have written and acted on so little of it that it’s all just a bunch of clever words most of the time. When Aurelius reminds us that stupid people act stupidly and that we waste time and energy being upset about it, I still get upset when selfish people act that way. How else do selfish people act? Selfishly!
On the other hand, my philosophical undertakings have largely been academic ones. By that I mean that I also read and have read immense amounts of bullshit. We don’t act on philosophy; we write about it! And then we read about it and then write about that. And then read that and write about what’s been written about, etc. I think a part of me suspects that all wisdom and philosophy that we can read or learn from other people is just bullshit.
Am I claiming that a piece of philosophy that no one acts on is bullshit? Yes. Read some of my graduate papers that pissed off some of my professors (I was, after all, attacking their profession). I’ve felt that way for a long time, and that’s a large part of the reason I decided not to pursue a career in academic philosophy. Why, then, did I pursue a doctorate? I don’t know. You imagine that you might be a different case, that you can keep your integrity and still gitterdunn. Maybe I thought I would feel differently or that I might be wrong. Maybe I was just too stupid and stubborn to stop. That’s certainly the case now, where I’m finishing my PhD just to finish it and justify my time, energy and debt. (And, for the record, I got offered a spot teaching my own class at the exact school I always dreamed of teaching at just after my dissertation prospectus defense. So, ahem, for the record, I didn’t simply wimp out of the search for a job. I might have hurt the feelings of someone I care about who was looking out for me, too. I don’t know if I ever mentioned this.)
What’s my point? I don’t know. Maybe that the bullshit that gets forced on people in the academic discipline of philosophy poisons us against actually acting in a wiser fashion because the bullshit gets mixed in with the “real” wisdom (assuming that some of philosophy is actually wisdom literature, which I think is true). I have known tons and tons of philosophers, and only a scant few of them acted like wiser people for their study of philosophy. More likely, we just turn into snarky smartasses. I wish I could count myself among the people who have studied philosophy and thereby act wiser for it. Maybe it’s not philosophy. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s a flaw in the “type” of person who chooses to study philosophy for a living, since so few of us do anything about philosophy. But something’s amiss.
Interesting stuff to think about. I’ve never delved as deeply into philosophy as you have, though I spent much of my early 20′s as an armchair philosopher and did consider heading ‘cross country to study it in Seattle. If things had worked out financially, I might’ve ended up on the same path as you (though I probably wouldn’t have gotten past a Masters). But over the years I’ve found that, while I’m still enamored with the idea of it, I have less and less patience for reading philosophy.
While I used to love Thoreau and Emerson and trying to decipher Kant and Camus (never did grasp Nietzsche, unfortunately), at this point it strikes me much as you described it: a bunch of digressive babbling. Which is why I think I’ve ended up gravitating towards Zen Buddhism in my mid-life years — There’s less talk, more being and doing. Still appreciate Aurelius and the Stoics, though. Lots of similarities to Buddhist thought in that camp.
Perhaps you can find a middle ground in which you continue to explore philosophical readings purely for enjoyment, while keeping watch for the occasional nugget that will help you learn to live as wisely as you strive to.
I was starting to enjoy philosophy again after my coursework and exams were finished, but the whole “scholarship” for “scholarship”‘s sake thing gets me down. I think that, when this is all finished and done with, I might pick it back up in a few years.
I still totally plan to write my own Big Book of Philosophy when I’m an old man, likely dictated to my grown child, who will type it on my vintage portable typewriter. :)
Aw, man, if you wait that long, I might not be around to read it!