Right to the deep end

Ever since I got my PhD, I have been somewhat ashamed of having a degree that implies that I know something of philosophy when I haven't taken one course in it. 

While studying, I was told that the degree called Doctor of Philosophy exists because all subjects were included in philosophy in the Middle Ages. When I check this now, you could back then get a PhD after completing a rigorous study of Theology, Medicine, or Laws. This all had to be preceded by the study of Arts which in those days included either Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic or Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy - hence the degree Master of Arts. 

So not much philosophy to write home about in the Middle Ages either, maybe just Logic.

When I was 14, I once borrowed a library book on Logic but only remember a simple anecdote that was told first in the book it to illustrate the topic, and I must have soon lost interest in what followed. The anecdote went something like this: There was a cocktail party for high society members. One of them was a bishop who was talking with another man of cloth and at some point told him that the first person whose confession he heard had committed a murder. A while later, a distinguished member of society saw the bishop and joined the two delighted, exclaiming to the companion: "Can you imagine that I was his first confessant?"

Despite having now and then been tempted by philosophy, I have never known from which angle to approach it. Some say you have to start with the ancient philosophers but whenever I have tried, life has either felt too busy or short. Maybe I went too far back, all the way to the Thales of Miletus, the father of philosophy.

Eastern philosophy seemed even more difficult to approach although some ideas of Buddhism have had appeal. 

However, I was intrigued when I recently bumped into Emil Cioran who relies on Western and Eastern philosophic traditions, and his deep end approach feels just right for this age of madness. 

I ordered Cioran's book "The Trouble With Being Born", in the comments of which someone characterized it as "raw and - yes - uplifting nihilism." 

It could be that this is the pivotal point where philosophy and I are finally destined to meet.  

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