I took a philosophy course once, Bill. At first I was intrigued and quite interested by the classical philosophers such as Plato and Socrates. Then I became increasingly disenchanted with the whole discipline as we moved into the more modern philosophers, until finally I felt a revulsion for the entire subject. It seemed to be that in their quest to be intellectually and verbally brilliant the modern masters of philosophy had succeeded only in losing what is at the heart of life, losing what makes life worth living, and that humanity in general had somehow lost their souls in their supposed search for knowledge and "rationality", "objectivity" or whatever you might call it. I found it horrifying, in fact, in its moral and emotional emptiness.

It seemed to me like a sort of mental masturbation...with none of the pleasure of the physical act, but similarly repetitious and ultimately exhausting...sheer intellectual pride for its own sake, but devoid of love.

I have since read many books I found wonderfully meaningful, but you probably wouldn't find most of them on a university philosophy reading list.