![]() ![]() I was still looking for ideas on how to live the best life. I also traveled a lot, usually lugging along a few philosophy books. In the following years I dropped in and out of a couple of graduate schools of philosophy and supported myself by writing quiz questions and stunts for TV game shows, routines for stand-up comedians, and mystery novels. But in the meantime graduation was swiftly approaching, my adult life was about to begin in earnest, and I was desperate for some hints on what to do next. ![]() Other questions needed to be answered first, such as, How can we know what is true? and, Is there a rational basis for ethical principles? and, What is the meaning of ‘meaning’? After all, it made no sense to wonder about the meaning of life, mine or anybody else’s, if I didn’t know what meaning meant. Tips on how to live were few and far between in the philosophy texts I read as a student. Did I really think I could learn how to live my life from philosophers, many of whom had lived thousands of years ago? What could I have been thinking? My first reaction when I leafed through the notebook these decades later was to cringe at how naïve I had been. Under it I had scribbled, Now you tell me! I must have been in my mid-thirties when I closed the book on Pithies. I figured studying philosophy would be just the ticket to give me direction.Ībout halfway through that notebook, my notations switched to ballpoint pen and my comments on the philosophers’ quotes dwindled to just a few words, like There’s got to be a better way and Help! The final entry was from the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: Every time I find the meaning of life, they change it. At the time, I didn’t have a clue as to what I wanted to do after university basically all I knew was that I didn’t want to be a doctor, lawyer, or businessman, eliminations that put me in a distinct minority of my classmates. The reason for that decision-and for this notebook-was that I had hoped to find some guidance from the great philosophers on how best to live my life. ![]() I must have been nineteen or twenty then and had just decided to study philosophy at university. The first entries bore the unmistakable blots and smudges of ink from a fountain pen-notes to myself written some fifty years ago with the pen given to me by my parents as a secondary school graduation gift. I had almost forgotten about this little collection of mine. Inside were short quotes from philosophers that I had jotted down, one per page, most with barely legible comments scribbled below them. NOT LONG AGO WHILE PACKING AWAY SOME BOOKS, I CAME ACROSS an old notebook labeled Pithies. ![]()
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