Like you told me, in American culture, they often say -what would Jesus do, would you be kind enough to tell me what would Schopenhauer do - if he had two choices - one he could try to become a professor of mathematics and second, he could try to become a civil servant.
What would Schopenhauer do?
What a terrible choice to have to make. First of all, I am not certain Schopenhauer would be inclined to become a professor of mathematics. I just don't see it. The subject is too vast, and one might spend a lifetime in a small area leaving very little impact. I sense that Schopenhauer wanted to leave some kind of mark, to make some kind of breakthrough, to present to the "West" a kind of secular Upanishads. Maybe he would prefer to be a civil servant, as long as his evenings were free for study - although, were he a civil servant, I suppose he wouldn't be Schopenhauer, but Kafka.
Aren't some math teachers civil servants?
Maybe he would have opted to be a math teacher, but not necessarily a mathematician. It's difficult to say what he would do.
I hardly even know what I would do! I mean, surely I would liked to have become a mathematician, but this will not happen. It does not mean I am forbidden from studying mathematics, computation, and calculation methods, developing estimation skills.
One of my major gripes about this world is specialization. Perhaps this is just an "industrialized civilization" thing where we have once gregarious primates living as we do as these hybrid insect-like mammals who specialize … workers, soldiers (law enforcement), entertainers, government clerks, farmers, engineers, managers, doctors, hocus-pocus priesthoods and hocus-pocus psychoanalytic therapists, "revolutionary" gurus selling salvation for a thousand dollar fee (for mediation classes, etc.
Then there are deadbeat bums like me draining the War Machine Economy.
What would Schopenhauer choose? Does it matter? It doesn't matter what Jesus of Nazareth would do either. What will YOU do? What will I do?
Fortunately, I do not possess the mind-set to be some kind of "mathematics professor" (and I don't think Schopenhauer did either). As for a civil service job, it depends, I suppose. Who can blame someone for taking a cush job with the government with health benefits and a 401-K retirement plan?
To each his own.
I just reread your wording, and you explicitly ask "what would he TRY to become."
That may be altogether different. In that case, I think he probably would rather TRY to become a mathematics professor (even if he failed) than to TRY to become an ass-licking yes-man for the goverment.
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An aside: I read a humorous T-shirt a black woman was wearing. I read it as I was leaving "the Dollar Store" picking up some scotch tape and super-glue:
Who says nothing is impossible? I've been doing nothing my whole life!