In the musical Rent, Tom Collins, an impoverished homosexual philosophy PhD in New York City, sings about leaving it all behind, retreating to Santa Fe. I have been feeling a similar pull, but opposite side of North America. I have decided that while being in Canada is fun and all, I cannot help but romanticize about opportunities never afforded to my slighted perception. As an American, there is no reason I cannot just pick up and move to New York. Part of me just wants to up and leave. Retreat, never come back!
Philosophy grows more and more consuming. I am at ease with it though. I am finding more and more reprogramming happening to my mind as I anticipate grading student papers for a "decent argument." I have accepted the analytic idea of a good argument as a pedagogical aim of philosophy itself, substituting what I once held stood for philosophy in terms of phenomenology. Once, I regarded philosophy the task of thinking prompted by wonder itself.
Retreating to NYC or hiking in the forests of the low mountains of the Eastern US is where I want to be now.
Just wishing for another world,
Ed
