I was doing well in my doctoral program in Spanish literature before I withdrew in 2013.

(I was lucky to be on fellowship. They had been paying me to teach undergrads and covered my tuition, so I didn’t have any loans).

I had finished my coursework but still had to take oral exams and write a dissertation. I was going to focus on picaresque literature (What is a pícaro? See here.)

I was at a place where I felt miserable. I was also at a critical point in the program. It was the perfect moment to make a choice: either commit to gritting my teeth and finishing out for the sake of the degree-a degree I wasn’t sure I would or wanted to use–or call it quits before investing further time and energy into it.

I left to focus on my fiction. I left because even though I had an article published in a peer review journal, academia was leaving my soul empty. I didn’t feel a sense of purpose there.

But today, I saw “After Virtue” by Alasdair Macintyre on my bookshelf.

It’s the one academic book I still have at this point. I read a good chunk of it for academic research: it’s about ethics in the modern world, and what we’ve lost, and why, and what a solid social ethical system must be based on.

I have always been interested in religion and ethics, and my dissertation was going to focus largely on ethics/morality in picaresque literature. (Pícaros are classic rogues in a lot of ways.)

Anyways, I’m realizing that I miss that about academia: deep conversations and deep reading about the big questions. This is also something I miss about the monastery.

While I didn’t ALWAYS get that, I had some space to explore that in both environments.

Well, I’m realizing I can still read more academic/philosophical texts about issues that I care about. There is no reason at all not to.

So I think I’m going to read “After Virtue” next and challenge myself a bit. Reactivate that part of my mind.

Who knows? Maybe it’ll help me make sense to some degree of the cultural chaos all around us–or at least put it some kind of context or frame.