I agree. My father was a historian and philosopher, and I used to love arguing philosophy as a teen at the dinner table. This was because I hadn't read anything yet, and so was approaching with an entirely naive and empty mind.
I then studied a fair bit of philosophy at university, and while I could certainly appreciate the value of actually reading many great thinkers, the idea of spending my life studying them was absurd to me. I could think of nothing more horrifying than being proud to say that someone was one of the world's "top Heidegger scholars." (I recall the movie Little Miss Sunshine where a character was obsessed about his rival being only the "second" highest regarded Proust scholar.) Writing book after book about someone else's philosophy seemed utterly pointless.
To (ironically) quote Seneca: "'Hoc Zenon dixit': tu quid?" What do you have to say?
I then studied a fair bit of philosophy at university, and while I could certainly appreciate the value of actually reading many great thinkers, the idea of spending my life studying them was absurd to me. I could think of nothing more horrifying than being proud to say that someone was one of the world's "top Heidegger scholars." (I recall the movie Little Miss Sunshine where a character was obsessed about his rival being only the "second" highest regarded Proust scholar.) Writing book after book about someone else's philosophy seemed utterly pointless.
To (ironically) quote Seneca: "'Hoc Zenon dixit': tu quid?" What do you have to say?