diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | website/src/content/blog/2025/06/23/work.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | website/src/content/blog/2025/09/18/starting_msc.md | 88 |
2 files changed, 88 insertions, 2 deletions
diff --git a/website/src/content/blog/2025/06/23/work.md b/website/src/content/blog/2025/06/23/work.md index e2794a0..83f4b19 100644 --- a/website/src/content/blog/2025/06/23/work.md +++ b/website/src/content/blog/2025/06/23/work.md @@ -5,8 +5,6 @@ description: pubDate: 2025-06-23 --- -# Figuring things out - 'You could always do a Panic Masters.' In my last year of undergraduate studies, that was often the sort of advice we liked to console one another with. A lucky few people in my year had a clear sense of vocation, but most of us felt diff --git a/website/src/content/blog/2025/09/18/starting_msc.md b/website/src/content/blog/2025/09/18/starting_msc.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb4e59f --- /dev/null +++ b/website/src/content/blog/2025/09/18/starting_msc.md @@ -0,0 +1,88 @@ +--- +title: Changing my ambitions +description: >- + When I started my first degree, I had unrealistic and unhelpful ambitions. For + my second degree, I'm setting my sights on different targets. +pubDate: 2025-09-18 +--- + +Is 'virtue' a terribly old-fashioned word? I don't mind either way. If I've run +into you for more than three seconds in the last couple of weeks, you'll know +that I've just started my second degree, and I'm very happy about it. I'm having +a great deal of fun, and expect my studies to continue to be fun. But fun is not +my goal. My goal is virtue. + +In particular, the virtues I'm striving after in my degree are a greater ability +to ask questions well, and to answer them well; to write well, and to dispute -- +that is, speak with, listen, reason, discuss -- well. Insightfully, sensitively, +humanely, intelligently, informedly, fluently: well. + +But what about all the starving children! I hear you cry. In the past, I myself +have got myself stuck fearing that doing another degree would be ignoring some +more immediate duty to do something about all the evil in the world. So, is my +degree selfish? Or how can it not be? How can this be good? + +I believe it's precisely by abandoning that restrictive sense of public duty +which has freed me at last to do something good. Let me explain. + +During my first degree, I had a great deal of ambition. I was genuinely +convinced that I could find robust answers to big questions if I thought about +them hard enough. I thought I was clever enough to make progress, or at least +contribute. I thought I could, if I wanted to, get into a PhD programme and end +up employed as Dean of Philosophy of Oxford, paid to smoke from a pipe all day +in a tweed jacket with leather patches while quietly resolving all the world's +burning intellectual issues. + +What's changed? If I were a pessimist, I might mention my encounter with that +devil, reality. It turns out that I'm not actually the cleverest person in the +room, that the biggest philosophical problems are pretty intractable, and that I +can't get into Oxford -- and even if I could, it wouldn't necessarily be right +to uproot myself from my friends, family and church community to pursue my dream +career. + +All this did matter a great deal. It's what slowly convinced me to finally drop +those unrealistic philosophical ambitions. It's why, a year and a half ago, I +turned down the offer of a Master's in Philosophy at a excellent university +(albeit not Oxford). + +But that's not the whole story. I'm not sat here with a sob story of broken +dreams. After I turned down that PhD, I didn't feel deflated, I felt liberated. +I haven't just dropped those ambitions, I've found new ones. + +My friends, family and church community ought to matter far more to me, I +realised, than my career. So, turning away from academia, I turned towards love. + +This is what the gospel does. It's the most good story, beautifully true, which +says to the human heart: since God so loved us, so also we ought to love one +another. + +When I'm targeting virtue, I find it helpful to imagine a character who displays +the virtues I'm after. So picture Helpful John. He's an encouragement. Whenever +you talk to Helpful John, you come away feeling emotionally mature and +intellectually confident, because his overwhelming respect wipes away your +anxiety. He listens to you carefully, and insists on understanding you at more +than a superficial level. When it's appropriate to do so, he can ask devious +questions which unlock new possibilities you hadn't considered before. He knows +lots of relevant and often surprising facts. He can compare your perspective +with that of strange and subversive alternative perspectives. He doesn't like to +tell people what to think, but when he speaks or when he writes, you pay +attention, because you know he is capable of profound insight. + +Helpful John sounds great. A model to replicate, right? Not in every respect, +necessarily. Helpful John might not be the life and soul of the party. He might +not be the first person you go to for comfort in times of trouble. He might not +be the most reliable person in the world, or the best with children, or the best +with hand tools. Helpful John is a character, but he doesn't have to be good at +everything. + +Helpful John is roughly my north star. I don't expect to become Helpful John. +But with the Spirit's help, with me continuing to lean in to the process, I do +intend for Useless Joe to become more like Helpful John in his most enviable +respects. + +Is this selfish? Is this a shortage of ambition? Wouldn't you love to have a +Helpful John as a friend? A brother? Across the table at small group at church? +In your workplace? + +So forgive me if I'm old-fashioned: I believe virtue is a virtue. A better world +is one full of better people. |