Weak! Weak!

The paragraduates will see us for what we are.

And what are we?

Weak! Weak! Undeserving of help.

We need to show them. To prove it to them.

What?

That we’re worth saving! That we’re good for something! That it matters whether we live or die.

If we die, there’ll be no philosophy department.

Do you think they care about philosophy departments?

But they were a philosophy department.

Were – yes. But not now. They’ve long since left that behind. A philosophy department! As if that could mean anything to them. Philosophy as a way of life … that’s different. Philosophy as a spiritual practice … that’s more their kind of thing. It’s as though they were reviving one of those ancient Greek schools of philosophy. The Stoics, the Epicureans, and so on. Where it wasn’t about academia and all that, but about living a certain way.