A slave to fickle interests
Despite my continued sporting of a lab coat, I am not a scientist and am not a huge adherent to the scientific method (theory, experience, counter-theory etc.). At present I am incredibly into philosophy, and I continue to appreciate maths and abstract similar practices such as logic puzzles, if not formal logic of which I have very little experience. Why am I into philosophy so much? Some would say I simply do it because it makes me the happiest as compared to others, I would try to defend the view that I do it because it is fundamental and deals with the assumptions other subjects take for granted. Yet a few short years ago I saw no value in the even vaguely artistic subjects and thought that maths and science were the only worthwhile practices. Until work experience I even wanted to be a computer programmer. The fact that such things seem to change so frequently concerns me when I am making decisions about the rest of my life.
My maths teacher pointed out to me the other day that I was basing career choices one one year of A level philosophy which barely represents the subject at degree level anyway. I’m a great critic of the assumption that decisions made at an older stage of life (e.g. senior citizenship vs. middle age vs. adulthood) are automatically or even generally superior to previous stages based on this alone: they might well be better due to having had more time to consider, of course. I much prefer to rationally look at the strength of arguments. So I can try and rectify this situation by arguing that I’ve argued for longer and talked to more people and read more books. But then, surely I’m likely to do that again in future years? Right now of course it feels like I’ve reached a fundamental point with a choice of philosophy. But I can see that could change.
It’s worth considering here the issue of future vocational career options. I’ve been aiming for a good while to do a law conversion course after university, and then become at some point a barrister. But while I could definately see myself doing that, I no longer think I could be competative or driven enough to be a successful lawyer. I haven’t done work experience or shadowed to the degree those who will be successful have. I merely see it as a way of using my skills of public speaking and argument to help others. But could I avoid corruption into the traditional painting of the law profession? I’m not sure. So one can see here how my interest has changed so dramatically.
On the other hand, I am still very enthusiastic about maths and philosophy when I can clearly see others are not to the same degree or at all. When someone says ‘let’s try and prove that god exists [or not]‘ I leap into the fray. But then, I used to do this with regard to interesting parts of physics, a subject which while interesting is merely a sideshow A-level now. However, I’m proud of the fact that I love to learn, and had so many A level subjects I would have taken if I wasn’t of course constrained by good old time or simple space in my head, and this seems to suggest that I’m not going to find myself seriously unhappy with degree choice. I can only hope that my judgements about present interests will hold for the next five years (Y13 plus four years at University minimum).
But then, I love a subject when I am being reasonably successful in it, and find that (in many ways like most, but perhaps more so) I can be put off suddenly and devastatingly by not understanding something pretty quickly. I have tendencies towards lazyness and lack of perseverance and *at times* I can find it very difficult to apply myself to a real challenge, even though I would like to say I relish such opportunities. And of course as usual I am either very uncompetative (when I am like that I am happiest) or very so, and since I’m not generally top in ability at things, this sets me down into losing interest. But then, what choice do I have but to go for what I seem to be cut out for (philosophy, and to a lesser extent maths)? I’ll just have to hope I haven’t made a mistake.
As I said to someone recently, I am most alive, happy, content or whatever you want to say, when thinking successfully and not in circles and debating this with others. What else have we humans got to aspire to?
The most worrying thing here is that I have a requirement of interest to do something that is worthwhile. Worrying, but not surprising.