i took a philosophy class my first year at community college, and it was the funnest shit ever - prof gave us a powerpoint and told us to fight with him when we disagreed so we could have discussions, then gave us his steam username so we could play racing games together. one time, he told us this story about a prof he had in grad school - guy was tenured, and apparently a great teacher. but he had this time built into his schedule where other profs would be in labs, experimenting, doing research, where he stood in his empty classroom with a warm cup of tea and stared out the window. for these 1.5 hour schedule blocks. and the administration would come to him and be like “dude, we’re not paying you to stare out the window, why aren’t you working?” and he’d say, “i am working. i’m a philosopher, it’s my job to contemplate the world and life and that’s what I’m doing,” and they couldn’t do shit cause he was tenured. and then every handful of years he’d pop out a book that blew everybody’s tits off and they’d get a surge of new philosophy grads come to study with him and make the school a lot of money.
So yeah, i think that’s still what being a philosopher is like
