I had always loved philosophy because of what I thought philosophy was – thinking critically about what things mean and how we should live.

Then I did a few courses at university and it made no sense.

The content — what philosopher wrote — made sense, but I didn’t understand why the lessons where about who wrote what and who that influenced, rather than about how to do philosophy.

And all of the people who “loved philosophy” and wanted to become “philosophers” seemed to just love talking about other philosophers and about their inscrutable writings.

Naturally this led me to think I didn’t want to be a philosopher.

But I did, I just didn’t want to be only a student of philosophy and never do any of my own thinking.

Socrates was one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived and all he did was walk around in a robe questioning ideas and asking people to explain themselves.

That’s all I want to do, because that’s what I think it means to be a real philosopher — to go out into the world and question ideas, consider how to live, and educate others in better ways of thinking.

I'm glad some true philosophers have managed to escape the padded walls of the Ivory Tower.