Riddle

I have some friends - doctoral students in philosophy - who have at times mentioned to me that their parents and friends initially found their idea of "doing" philosophy as a major or at the graduate level, quite ridiculous. They were looked at as if they were cyclops, or as if their third-eye had gone blind. "Why has our dear X lost interest in life?" they thought -"Strange asceticism at such a young age!" But doesn't this bewilderment hide a deeper psychological truth? This situation is similar to the one we have with respect to religion in modern times. One now looks strangely at someone who says "I live my life as my religious Bible wants me to!" or "Even your 'science' needs my God!" One looks at this person and wonders if he is not in tune with his present-day reality. One is presented with a psychological absurdity, a riddle, that is hard to fathom. "Why" one thinks "the self-deception, the self-reproach and retrogression?" Perhaps then philosophy too has met a similar fate - it has outlived its own death, it has become the derision of common sense. What else is the meaning of "doing" philosophy in a technological culture, if not nostalgia for a bygone era, a romanticism, a cheap mask behind which to hide oneself, a sun-screen for those gloomy ones? Fair enough. However, one has to ask now: has anyone actually lived his life in this modern, post-modern world?