A Reintroduction To Real Life

The philosophy I’ve been doing this term has been particularly pertinent for me because of its relation to real life. I submitted an essay yesterday entitled: “Is an ill person’s life different to a healthy person’s life? If so, in what ways?” Reading for and writing this was particularly interesting because it was untainted by the often cumbersome and complex philosophical jargon usually pervading academic philosophy – it was a step back to actually talking about real things, specifically illness, and how this can affect one’s being in the world. Reading first person accounts of the chronically ill was initially harrowing, but ultimately very illuminating. The application of such philosophy is furthermore pragmatic – a conclusion drawn is that there is lack of education in the first-person accounts of illness for health workers, and consequently a difficulty in empathising with the situation of the ill person. Further work in bridging the gap between the ill person and the doctor’s conceptions of illness will seemingly result in better treatment for the ill. It’s easy to see how such practical, relevant philosophy can be more rewarding than the more analytic side of things which often seems confined to academia.
It was a pleasure to work at the post offer visit days this term – it’s always very interesting to meet the kind of students which will be coming to Bristol to study philosophy. I never fail to be amazed at the philosophical educations of people who haven’t even begun their degrees yet! Conversations I had varied from enquiries about halls of residence recommendations to nuanced discussions of existentialism. One applicant even asked: “what is the mistake that you would say all students make?” I still haven’t managed to think of an answer to that one.
In other news, I got a job as a pot-washer at a restaurant just around the corner from my house – I’m hoping to save some money for the extensive summer which awaits me after this year. It’s been valuable, I think, to come into more frequent contact with non-students, something which inevitably awaits me after university – it’s easy to get caught up in the left-leaning, tolerant bubble of student life and forget there is an outside world!