I feel like I’m at a crossroads today. I haven’t done any philosophy for the last 3 weeks. Looking at my calendar, I have been busy, and I did get sick for almost a week. But I also felt tired and like I needed to take some time off philosophy.
I’m at a point where I need to make a decision whether to continue tutoring into the next month, or whether I take a longer break. I’ve been avoidant and left this decision to the last minute, which is probably bad, because I missed an opportunity for some feedback.
Some things I think about regarding this decision:
I think about the money that I would save, but then I think about the fact that I don’t have a much better plan for what to use that money for anyway. It would take some financial pressure off, but I can afford it currently.
I worry that if I stop tutoring, I will stop doing philosophy for a while, and that I might find it hard or find myself resistant to getting back into it. I don’t like the idea of that, but just making myself do tutoring doesn’t seem like a good solution to that problem. But I don’t have to stop doing philosophy if I stop tutoring.
I think about what Elliot said here in Eternity’s thread:
I’ve thought about this numerous times since reading it. It makes sense that understanding things is important to being motivated to do them. I wonder if this is part of my issue with philosophy. That I don’t know enough about what it can do for me and what I can achieve. I remember getting motivated to learn grammar after I saw Elliot’s Pinker Paragraph grammar analysis video. I had no idea you could break down what people had written in that way and analyse it. It seemed really cool and helpful. And now I feel like I’ve learned some cool grammar stuff and I can use it somewhat. Like I often find myself thinking of the grammar of things I’m saying and reading. I guess I don’t know what might be next for me in philosophy. I think if I could learn more about what to work on, that would be motivating.
I read the article Curiosity – Learning Philosophy and Tutoring
I can give some reasons that philosophical goals are appealing and some candidate goals, which people may find persuasive or not. I can talk about what I like about philosophy.
Maybe we could talk about what you like about philosophy? Some candidate goals? Would a tutoring project about investigating what’s to like about philosophy be plausible?
I thought I’d do pro con lists for both my options. (Cool how these tables rendered perfectly after copy/pasting from Obsidian):
Stop Tutoring Pro/Con list:
| Pro | Con |
|---|---|
| Less time pressure to do philosophy because I’m concerned about getting value for money | No longer receive special philosophy help and guidance |
| One less thing to do (?) | Will cost more to start tutoring back up again after break, rather than continuing on. |
| Perhaps I don’t like it and should have different goals (?) | Lowered self-esteem from feeling like I’ve given up or something (?) |
| I don’t waste money on something that perhaps I shouldn’t be doing right now. Like maybe I should work on doing philosophy myself and motivating myself and finding goals myself, and then get expert help once I’m better at managing the interest myself (?) |
Continue Tutoring Pro/Con list:
| Pro | Con |
|---|---|
| Can hopefully continue to learn | might be avoidant due to conflicts and consequently not get enough value out of it |
| Can perhaps learn more about my problems | have less time for other goals |
| Might find my problems are simpler than I think and I find something fun to work on in short order | |
| Maybe it’s fine and I just feel bad/guilt because I’ve been away from it for a little while (?) | |
| Increased self-esteem from trying instead of giving up |
I’m feeling like of the two options, continuing feels better to me. I need to actually see myself try and be more active with philosophy though. The potential downsides (that I can see) for continuing seem not as bad as the potential downsides of stopping.
Moving forward with tutoring, what projects could I work on that sound fun?
- Reading through something and posting about my understanding and getting feedback? I feel like reading through Goldratt could be cool. Like maybe The Choice like you did with Max.
- Learning/practising evaporating clouds? (I have the links already)