C.S. Lewis, specifically The Screwtape Letters. I had been raised very conservative Catholic, and this book was my introduction to moral philosophy, as odd as that may sound given the overtly religious nature of it. The idea that morality has nuance, that an action can be wrong and still not damning, or ‘virtuous’ and still evil, was a new idea to me in my early teens.

While it would take me several more years to really start learning more definite philosophical concepts, that book was the first one that actually challenged me to ask myself why I believed the things I did, and made the case that blind, unchallenged faith was not faith at all. I started paying more attention to the things I had previously accepted at face value, and that examination would lead to me leaving the church and Christianity entirely later on. I still have faith of a sort, but it is more a faith in humanity and an undying and unifying spirit of community than a religion.

Now I have read quite a bit more in terms of philosophy, though not as much as I would like. All thanks to one book about demons trying to send a man to hell.

Dean of the philosophy department asked me that when I said I wanted to major in it. My reply was ‘well I was going to major in business…’

But seriously I think it was reading. I read a lot, Dostoyevsky, Joseph Campbell, Siddhartha, Sartre. Funny how I ended up in computers with a philosophy degree. My other friend with a philosophy degree is a data scientist at a large blue chip.

Smort!

I never outgrew the incessantly asking questions childhood phase; I only eventually mostly internalized it.

My journey into it started as I was getting out of religion. Listening to debates about religion had several general philosophy references, so I read about those topics. I had some conversations with a buddy claiming “that’s Marxist, that’s Socialist” whatevers, and I wanted to learn what those things actually meant and why they scared so many people etc. Basically me not meshing with the ideological beliefs of my peers sent me down some deep rabbit holes lol.

I can’t really remember a time before; I was reading theology and religious philosophy from a young age. I do remember when I first started reading philosophy outside my religion, however: I found a book on Buddhist meditation and really enjoyed it. I tried some of the meditative practices in the book and found them really useful, and started seeking out more books on meditation, which led to me reading “Meditations” (the Marcus Aurelius one) and finding that most of the personal practices I already had were hallmarks of Stoicism.

In college I was exposed to a bunch I hadn’t yet come across on my own, Plato and Kant and Augustine and Nietzsche; and started reading more fiction with a philosophical bent: Eco, Dick, Hesse… mostly to impress girls. I also got to take formal logic classes in the Philosophy Department as part of my CS degree. I continued to be involved in religious philosophy and theology, too, volunteering with the Interfaith Alliance to organize guest speakers and working as a student leader in the campus chapel. This was back when “social justice” was really gaining ground as a guiding philosophy among the more progressive Christian denominations, and we were all thinking and talking about it a lot.

Since college, I’ve continued to work through my personal beliefs and practices, but Stoicism, meditation, and Christian theology are still at the core. I’ve spent a lot more time thinking about political and civic philosophy the last decade, as well. Halfway through my life, I’ve got a handful of philosophical points I wholeheartedly champuon, and a vast sea of possibilities I’m happy to both critique and defend depending on my interlocutor.

I took a philosophy class in college with a really interesting concept. We read a book about philosophies around the world, then choose one and created a d&d character from what we learned and researched on a specific philosophy. It was pretty chaotic to play d&d at the end, but it was such a great way to learn the real world applications of various philosophies.

Depression and Marxism

Marxism, reading theory brought me to Historical and Dialectical Materialism, which also brought me to researching the foundations that led up to Marxism that Marx built off of.

Well, philosophy is the study of knowledge, so if you’re interested in knowing stuff, you might as well go to the origin.

I got interested in Philosophy around the same time I started getting really interested in Psychology and Spirituality.

Got into those to try to understand the mindset that’s lead to our hyper divided political landscape here in the States.