la vie philosophique, goddamnit

My new daily affirmation. Thanks to Katie for gleaning these words of wisdom from Ed Abbey.


"You heard me, Lightcap. Do you really want to be a professor of philosophy?"

"I certainly want to be a philosopher, sir, and to live la vie philosophique, goddamnit."

"Answer my question."

Henry reflected. A fork in his road of life had most suddenly appeard dead ahead. To the right, the right way, a broad and shining highway led upward beyond the master of arts toward the Ph.D.--the tenured leisurely life of overpaid, underworked professerhood. A respectable life. Anyone who is paid much for doing little is regarded with obligatory admiration.

To the left a dingy path littered with beer cans and used toilet paper led downward in darkness to a life of shame, of part time and seasonal work and unemployment compensation, of domestic strife, jug wine, uncertainty, shady deals, naive realism, stud poker, furtive philanderings, skeptical nominalism, pick-up trucks, a gross and unalembicated nineteenth-century eight-ball materialism.

He called his shot. I will not tell a lie. Looking at his three Inquisitors looking at him, he answered them collectively:

"Not really, he said."