I get a smirk and a roll of the eyes when I tell people my major.
“Philosophy,” I say, smiling, all the while anticipating the question: “What in the world are you going to do with that?”
I know, I know – philosophy is for those people who have nothing better to do with their lives except mentally cogitate about otherworldly ideals and floating intellectual castles.
Philosophers are suppose to mull over ponderous questions for hours on end, until finally they’ve either come full circle or have thought so long that they forget where they started.
When I told my college coach that philosophy was to be my major, he blanched, fearing I would turn out like one of my crazy college philosophy professors. Fortunately, I thought that the “crazy” philosophy professor was pretty cool, so I was quite happy about my coach’s statement.
Years later, I’m still waiting to see if his prediction was true. If you ask me, I’d say I’m fairly normal. Of course, my assessment of myself might be subject to error, because turning into a crazy philosopher is something that happens so slowly that I myself might not recognize the change.
Be that as it may, since I am a philosophy major, I suppose it’s appropriate for and expected of me to provide an air-tight, logically constructed argument for why I chose the major that I did. (Sounds pretty exciting. In fact, I can feel the suspense building already.)
Truth be told, however, I have no good reason. My best explanation is that my interests, in terms of potential careers, seem to change sporadically, so I thought that picking a major applicable to any job or endeavor would be my best bet.
There’s a statistic out there that says most people will have seven different careers, many of which are not really related to one another. That’s kind of intimidating, at least when trying to decide what in the world your major should be.
Picking a field of study that would broaden my horizons, question my assumptions and force me to think seemed to be the safe way to go.
Philosophy it was.
Invariably, I was forecasting a career as a college professor. That’s what most philosophy majors seem to do, anyway. You don’t see many ads in the business section asking for philosophers. “Looking for man who wants to sit in chair all day and think. Will provide chair. Must provide self. $12/hr. Will train. No exp. necessary.” I don’t think so. The closest you’ll come to that is maybe a librarian or, in a long shot, a baseball outfielder.
But I’m not too concerned. Research has shown me that you can major in philosophy and still be rather practical, if not entertaining. Check out this impressive list of some of the people who also received a degree in philosophy: Jay Leno, Pope John Paul II, Steve Allen, Bruce Lee, Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Gene Siskel, Alex Trebeck, Susan Sontag, George Carlin, David Foster Wallace, Carl Icahn, Bruce Lee, William Jefferson Clinton, John Elway, George Soros and Harrison Ford.
So there you have it – an allegedly useless major making its way into the practical world of entertainment, sports, religion and business. There appears to be hope after all.
And, really, how could I fret? Leno is simply too funny to be wrong.
Nick Nordstrom (nxixcxk@gmail.com) is a part-time massage therapist and a full-time student at Metropolitan State College of Denver majoring in philosophy.
