The Philosopher is Not a Doctor
Epictetus said the philosopher is a doctor of the soul.
That lecture rooms are like hospitals.
If wisdom healed by being heard, the world would already be cured.
Everyone knows what’s good for them.
Everyone knows what destroys them.
And yet they keep doing it.
People don’t change because they know.
They change because something breaks,
because they hit a wall,
because reality corners them until the old tricks stop working.
I’ve worked in mental hospitals, with kids no one wanted.
With criminals, suicidals, people who burned every bridge.
If philosophy were medicine, they’d all be fine by now.
But life isn’t a classroom.
It’s a forge.
The philosopher isn’t a doctor.
He’s the one who looks at the sickness and beauty
around him and within him
and refuses to lie about what he sees.