Finding your way
I interrupt the four-part essay, Being wrong, being wrong, and forgiving, to voice my regret about the delay to part four’s release. Due to circumstances somewhat within my control (moving to the next town over), I was unable to dedicate the necessary time to satisfactorily edit the essay. In the meantime, please enjoy this brief and rough reflection about practicing philosophy as a way of life.
Some people, when they learn that I am a professional philosopher, ask me what my philosophy is. In graduate school my colleagues and I would have snobbishly rolled our eyes at these kinds of questions. But it’s sensible to ask, especially if you’re not privy to the formal study of philosophy and the self-important hand-wringing it now largely consists in. My charitable interpretation is that part of the frustration my colleagues’ and I feel when asked our philosophy for living is that we know we cannot offer the kind of answer that will satisfy the person asking. After reading so many philosophers who’d spent their lifetimes articulating a complex and often convoluted answer, it feels like the epitome of arrogance to voice one’s own philosophy for living with any authority—even when asked.
And yet… my answer today (not that anyone is asking) is that the practice of philosophy is about the way we search out the answer more than it is about the answer itself. This means, as Socrates, Buddha, Laozi, Nietzsche, Hegel, and so many others each taught in their respective ways, that life as we know it is a turbulent, ever-changing affair.
Being committed to some truth, some decided upon way of life, limits us to think about things from a certain fixed perspective that is demonstrably at odds with our experience of things. Doing this all but guarantees a limit to our understanding and is thereby not a very philosophical way of life.
Of course, there are many who would disagree. The study of the history of ideas is largely the study of a bunch of people (usually men) who were really, really convinced that their perspective was the right one. But the practice of philosophy is as a way of ongoing inquiry and radical openness to the unexpected. There needn’t be any commitment to the Truth of any idea or method—not even this one. It is not a static method; it is dynamic one that requires constantly reopening our minds to new ways of engaging with the mysteriousness of life. It is highly democratic in this way since we are all alike in our fundamental ignorance of exactly what’s going on here, and yet having the time and inclination to challenge our imaginations is such an incredible privilege. Fortunately, it is one that may be more freely available to people than most tools for living well. Time is money, sure. But spending some on a practice that helps us be more sensitive to the world and wise in our actions seems like a pretty safe investment to make. All we need is a moment to remember that we don’t know shit and then a moment more to appreciate how it feels to admit that to ourselves (again).
Many of us who are compelled and privileged enough to study philosophy in the professional sense are searching for the answer to what makes a life worth living. What we often find, however, is that not only is academic philosophy far from what we were initially searching for, but also, that it is the practice of finding our way that makes a life worth living, not actually finding it.
So, don’t stop searching and for help along the way, enlist a philosophical counselor!
Wishing that you never find the answer,
Nick