To be a philosopher...

To be a philosopher is not a profession and is not a calling, it does not necessarily require a special training, although it is very desirable; Socrates did not have one. It is a mode of existence, and the only one in which philosophers are able to exist. It is also a curse, but a sweet curse. The need, and the all compelling need to try to question and to understand everything and everyone and to search for the truth inevitably brings, most often, the deepest pains:

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"For in much wisdom is much grief; and he who increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow." - (Ecclesiastes 1:17-18); and, very rarely, the most sublime pleasures.
It is the road without an end and without a definitive purpose; it is a scream in the void, a lonely speck in the ocean, a momentous ray of lightning illuminating the Being and the World.