I was quite enamoured of the life of the intellect once. Now more than a decade since departing the halls of academia, a small part of me thrives still in the world of study and ideas, a not quite articulated longing for the quiet, neatly stacked shelves of empty libraries, and their books of carefully reasoned arguments with clear, cleanly structured writing.

Like all idle wishes, this one for me at least needs only a small drop of the real life experiences' cold water to be shattered forever, and thankfully so. My years at University were the worst years of my life. Despite a reasonably effortless success in the world of reason and the intellect, I was miserable almost beyond description, and the further I followed what I would now call the path of the mind, the more so I became.

Read more: Needle in a Haystack