Figuring Things Out

There’s this fun little branch of philosophy called Epistemology - the study of knowledge and belief.

I call it fun because it’s one of those subjects that at first glance seems so simple that it’s hard to believe there’s a whole field of study around it.

Then you get into the weeds of it, and you realize that not only is it NOT simple, but ultimately, there might not be any such thing as knowledge. Indeed, we might be floating through the cosmos in a never-ending state of pure unknowing! See? Fun!

I’ve been thinking about what I want my life to be like. In doing so, I’m confronted with the fact that I really don’t know much about myself (though from an epistemological standpoint, it might not be possible to know anything about myself… so that should make me feel better… right?).

I know the basics:

• Where I’m from
• What I consider fun
• Who I like hanging out with (shoutout to my wife and kids… and secondary shoutout to my siblings and parents… and tertiary shoutout to my need for making friends who aren’t related to me)

However, when it comes to what I want my day-to-day life to be like, I’m at a loss.

There are things that I think I want, like owning my own successful business, but there are things that appear to be in direct conflict with that goal.

Things I don’t want to do (but seem necessary for business):

• Sales
• Customer support
• Long Hours
• All the other seemingly required parts of running a business

So if I don’t want to do any of the things that are required to run a business, do I really want to own a business?

Then again, perhaps I’ve allowed my preconceived notions about what a business is to alter my expectations of what’s required to run one. Is there a way to run a business without having to do any of the things that I don’t want to do? Do I actually know those things are required? Maybe they are. How would I go about testing that?

I guess the thing I’m most sure of is that my current path isn’t working. Building something for 6 months without talking to anyone isn’t working, but then again, the businesses that did require me to talk to people also failed, because I didn’t do it.

Ugh, I don’t want to talk to people. I don’t know why I’m so afraid of it.

Maybe I’m just in another round of seasonal depression. Maybe things will be better in the spring. How would I know otherwise?