What if philosophy isn’t the problem? I mean, how can I question a practice that goes back thousands of years? What if it’s me who’s at fault?
The latter is a question I have considered – in some form or another – many times over the past few years. But this week, in particular, I have been experiencing a ‘crisis’. What sort of crisis? An existential crisis? A moral crisis? An epistemological crisis? I think it’s a bit of all three, and it’s left me exhausted, both mentally and physically. It’s left me unable to function properly; unable to think properly.
I said that the problem with philosophy was that it’s too objective, and I struggle to keep such a distance, as subjectivity always creeps in. To be a philosopher, you need to be apathetic, as empathy can warp your perspective, and lead to thinking that may not be conceived as truly rational. I think, therefore, that it’s me who needs to change, rather than philosophy itself. I need to show less empathy if I really want to get anywhere as a philosopher. Prima facie that seems like a really bad idea; after all, emotions are good, right? They’re what make us human! As things stand, though, being empathetic isn’t really ‘getting me anywhere’. All I’m finding, to be honest, is that I’m slowly losing my mind. I put myself in situations that I really shouldn’t put myself in – that people tell me not to put myself in – and then I screw things up. In that regard, my life is like a broken record, as I keep on making the same mistakes.
Maybe I’m just really unfortunate? I think that comes into it slightly, as the other day I was considering all of the negative things that have happened to me over the last few months – since I first came to university – and the list is surprisingly long. Because they happened one at a time, I just got on and dealt with them, but looking back at them all together, it’s rather scary! The amount of stuff I have to deal with is quite… disturbing, I guess. If I were to extend the list to cover my entire life so far, it would simply be horrific. When enough ‘bad’ stuff happens to you, you sort-of learn to deal with it. It’s not the case that you don’t hurt inside, but rather you tend to just keep it all inside, and carry on. Why? Because that’s what you have to do to keep going; to keep living.
The amount of stuff going on inside my mind right now is just incredible. There are so many emotions whizzing around that it’s difficult to keep up with them all. There are so many thoughts, also; so many things that I need to do, or choose, or overcome, or simply get over. I don’t think philosophy is the problem; I think I’m the problem.
