I remember the trusted Mormon’s leaders words to me clearly. He didn’t tell me not to study philosophy but rather said, “You don’t want to study philosophy. Philosophers are always poor.”
I can’t think of a statement more true, and yet with a lot missing. After studying philosophy I am over $100,000 in debt and possessed of a type of knowledge that only a few people in academia understand and are capable of talking about. This knowledge doesn’t help me find work. It doesn't make me marketable.
Personally, its like I found the pearl of great price; sociably it is hard to have a community when no one understands. I listen to Thus Spoke Zarathustra and hear my reflection in the mirror.
Philosophy excited me at one point until I realized that God was right—OR maybe it was Smith (it makes no difference)—its true:
And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none—and thus he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance. (2nd Nephi 28:22)
It was poststructualism that first flattered me away into the grasps of his “awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance.” I heard the trumpet of poststructualism calling me. It said: words are metaphors of perception: metaphors of metaphors. It seemed so logical. I was trying to understand how interpretation was possible. I knew that every time I would write about a text or read that same text over and over again the meaning just kept changing. Change was the only thing that seemed reliable. I could only trust change. And my Mormon community kept telling me for so long that God did no change he was the rock: the unchangeable rock. But there was something unique about Derrida. He made it through the noise. He found his way into my being. His words (and I only incipiently understood a few) caused me to feel the spirit of God. It was bizarre and holy.
And off to the temple to better understand until just like that: all that I thought was God, was me. And I had a choice. And I chose otherwise and found liberation— and anger, and I let it out and felt it. Tears became beautiful and I wish there was more tears then anger: but I was blood boiling mad—and worthlessly mad because it is oddly not an anger many people feel—an isolating anger.
And my teachers call this being liberated. Liberated into what? An ignorant society that sees a strong distinction between academia and religion. Everything I learned in school up until my last year of college supported my religious conversion. Oh, am I unique? Is my historical consciousness so different than the multitudes who KFC and Jay Leno and sports center to be the only true patriotic American? It may not be the dark ages but religion is still in control.
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