One of the quiet costs of achievement culture is that we start measuring our worth by what we produce instead of who we're becoming. Success is valuable, but when every activity has to justify itself with an outcome, we lose something deeply human which is curiosity.

I have been working since 13 and dropped out of highschool so I have no real education beyond the basics. I'm 46 now and working as an unlicensed plumber (can't get a license without school, not going back to school, dont care for it)  for the last 18 years with many  short carrerrs before that as well but have always had an affinity for philosophy, psychology and science despite not being able to sit still and learn in the traditional way. With the advent of modern tech I now spend about 6 hours a day listening to audio books, lectures and videos/podcasts on these subjects and it has really helped me find meaning in the boredom and drudgery of my daily toils. I want to work with my hands and my brain. Balance is key.

I'm very glad that there is no music trying to gussy this up.

I feel so seen listening to this. I’m a single mother raising three autistic children, two of whom are severely autistic and non-speaking. I’ve been largely isolated from the world since I became a parent 16 years ago. It has been painful and tough, but I am at ease with myself and have genuinely enjoyed the quiet richness of that time—reading hundreds of books across a wide range of subjects, thinking, learning, and reflecting. I had to leave my career path behind and step away from many of the things society uses to measure a person’s worth—career, status, achievement, and participation in the outside world.

But within that isolation, I’ve developed a very deep intellectual life. I read, listen, think, and write about disability, law, justice, human nature, and the systems that shape our lives. So much of what Zena Hitz is saying reflects things I’ve already been thinking and writing about. This conversation helped me recognize that intellectual life doesn’t belong only to academics or people with credentials. It can also belong to prisoners, labourers, caregivers, disabled people, and anyone whose life places them outside the usual structures of society.

I’m now in midlife and looking at returning to work outside my caregiving duties. My biggest concern is how I’ll fit in. For 16 years, I haven’t had to perform a professional identity or wear the masks that people often put on to participate in the world. I’ve simply been who I am. I wonder what it will feel like to re-enter a world where so much can depend upon performance, status, and how other people evaluate you. My challenge now is learning how to be comfortable out in the world again, after becoming so grounded and at ease in the quiet, contained world I’ve built with my children.

The idea of an “inner refuge” especially moved me. My isolation has been painful, and I don’t want to romanticize it, but it has also given me space to think deeply in a way that probably wouldn’t have been possible if I had remained in the conventional rat race. I’m beginning to see that this experience may have been a gift, not a sentence.

I’ve just purchased Zena Hitz’s book, as well as Midlife: A Philosophical Guide. Thank you for giving language and dignity to an experience I’ve struggled to explain.

I will be washing dishes with renewed enthusiasm.

School isn't about learning, it's about teaching people how to follow instructions and where they fit in the labor market.

"There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust."

-Henry David Thoreau, 1854

Did my postgrad in software engineering, worked in the software development field for over 10 years and now I've been roasting coffee, making sourdough bread and running a cafe for 8 years, I feel good I get to feed people tangible food that they eat

"Language doesn't fight back in the way that reality does!"  Nice

My opinion about University might be weird but this is what I preached to my kids: People in general change job 5 times in life. What you learn at College might not be what you eventually retired in career wise. But treat university as a special time to get your brain exercised like in a gym. You choose the area of studies, take courses of your interest and others that are required, you will read a lot and write and present a lot. What you are marked on is your ability to gather information, analyze them and present in your own way. Learn to read patiently, collaborate with people who are not your best friends, be exposed to ideas you don't care for but other people holds. If meeting people in the same area with similar values and enjoy their company, hold them dear as potential long term friends. Enjoy 4 more years of being student, pe practical and know that the degree doesn't guarantee a cushy job but will help you become a better thinker. They all work and study, and take their studies seriously. I never told them to go and become intellectuals. I told them to get their brain further developed in the gym and enjoy a few more years as students. All my kids are doing well.

People like her give me hope for humanity.

Understanding that identities are not permanent can really help an individual

I am a coal miner and high school drop out. I am currently trying to get my book on the hard questions, philosophy and how these questions belong to every person, at some level regardless of credentials.
Not the property of ivy league institutes or on marble adorned hilltops in Greece. How i came through illness and hardship. Academia just gave us the vocabulary for questions everyone owns and everyone asks.

Some of the smartest people I’ve known were avid readers with a trade like fishing or woodwork or farming. College is a great environment (or was when I went) but reading and thinking can be done anywhere.

Being able to observe the world thoughtfully may actually be hindered by academia. I’ve met a few academics who didn’t know what they didn’t know about their apparent mastered area, but a fisherman or someone who spent more time in the field had a deeper wisdom. Curiosity, humility and experience often best academic study.

What she said about the acheivement society was very resonate. I often confuse getting good grades for actual learning.

Ambition is one of the subtlest tricks of the ego thinking happiness lies somewhere in the future, anywhere but now. It is a carrot that is always just a little out of reach.

Ambition fueled by the creative, expressive quality of who we are actually are at our core is a completely different story. The funny paradox is is that some of humanity’s more impressive art, inventions, idea’s, etc were born from this type of ambition. Think of the artist who paints all day knowing nobody will ever view their work but maybe a friend or two but still pours their soul into it.

Something to ponder I guess!

Another issue with learning is that public education teachers in the US, in the name of optimization, are forced to used pre-approved learning management systems with mapped out curriculum to perfect data collection. Many teachers aren’t allowed to create their own relationships with what they teach their students. This waters down intellectual thinking from both teacher and student.

Philosophy is important because it is an explicit representation of consciousness. Consciousness is important because it has the potential to both generate and eliminate future possibilities. In this sense, consciousness is causal, if not fully physical. Many people fail to see this connection. Thinking or lack of thinking always precedes physical manifestation. Intellect, therefore, is valuable because it helps direct our attention to things that matter. The more intellectual thought we put into something, the more others can see our knowledge and intentions. And transparent knowledge and intentions are necessary for a healthy society.

I starting working in my teens, and  through my years of college.  I went to law school, and worked in various for positions for my career.  Looking back, I have to say my favorite job was washing dishes.  It was a strangely satisfying job, because you knew it was necessary and people appreciate your work.  Who doesn't like a clean dish?  It 's repetitive work and not intellectually draining, so I could just let my wander and think about other things.  I'm both intellectual and an introvert, so it was perfect for me.  Of course, it didn't pay very well, which is a real drawback.

Elites are not intellectuals. You cannot buy intelligence.