Dear Plotinus:

I re-read your original post and would like to understand your situation better. Here is my summary of your share there: you enrolled in the faculty of law, quit after a year and enrolled in the faculty of philosophy, earing an MA in philosophy. You then enrolled in a PhD program in philosophy. To finance your studies you worked as an administrative assistant in a law enforcement firm and later as a claims officer in an insurance company. You ended your PhD project in 2016 and aimed at becoming an independent insurance broker. You then quit the insurance world and now working as a customer service agent in a supermarket chain, long commute, at 29, living with your parents. You are considering restarting your PhD project, enrolling in a new study at the university (theology or classical languages perhaps), and finding a job closer to home.

Here is a key sentence for me, in your share: “I could also move closer to work… but even then things won’t be as perfect as they should or could be.”

Here are some of the imperfections you mentioned: your PhD project was approved not because of interest in the themes but rather to fill the faculty’s statistics, an insurance agent being a “puppet on a string” and agents being  “hollow businessman in black suits”, administrative red tape., quantative evaluations criteria, administrative tasks, rat race in the academic world.

If you enroll in a new study, such as theology, you will get to choose your classes, your schedule, your themes.. that is what you like. Problem is it doesn’t pay and you will have to work part time, and after you graduate, then what…

The imperfections in the working world, for you (and for everyone) is that you have to do things you don’t want to do and don’t feel like doing, and lots of those things, I fully agree, don’t make sense. But they are requirements nonetheless, the way things are, having been determined to be so before you came along. A lot of the time you will have to be that man in a suit, and somewhat of a puppet on a string.

We cannot be free or independent when it comes to making money. There are always requirements, always strings. Even entrepreneurs, employers having their own businesses, have to do things they don’t want to do, such as getting health insurance for their employees and going through certain legally required procedures when firing an employee they prefer to fire immediately.

anita