The Truth About Tigers

I once pursued a degree in philosophy
but didn’t finish, which, in hindsight,
might’ve been the most philosophical decision
I ever made.

The syllabus read like a price tag on secondhand wisdom,
enough zeros to prop up a small island economy.

Somewhere between Aristotle’s ethics
and a lecture on infinite regress,
I started to wonder how anyone gets past the Cynics
without questioning why we’re paying tuition
to master the art of uncertainty—

a credential that mostly qualifies you to explain determinism
to a coworker on a smoke break
while your wages barely cover the cost of survival.

By then it seemed obvious—
a better choice might be living naked in a barrel,
lobbing a few well-placed insults,
and telling the occasional king
to get out of your light.