I left academia in the summer of 2022. Since then, I do philosophy in the world

Many of us experience aimlessness or a lack of meaning at various points in our lives. We might be able to talk about things that once excited us in the past, but when we look around at our lives and the choices available to us in the present, we don't actually feel a sense of vitality or enthusiasm.

Kierkegaard once summarized the question that these graduates are really asking: “What I really need to be clear about is what am I to do, not about what I must know …. It is a question of finding a truth that is truth for me, of finding the idea for which I am willing to live and die. … It is for this my soul thirsts, as the deserts of Africa thir

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“Yes, I’m ambitious,” a friend told me recently, “but climbing the corporate ladder does not interest me like it used to. A title, a bump in pay—it’s not satisfying. What I need to feel successful and fulfilled is completely different. Am I doing something that brings satisfaction? Do I feel like I’m learning? Do I feel like I’m contributing? Do I ... See more