... a line of flight is an immobile movement in situ, whi...

... a line of flight is an immobile movement in situ, which must be internal to the very life that one lives at this place and time, as long as one manages to be and not to be in the here and now, to be absent while present, to be perceptible and imperceptible at the same time. At its best, philosophy functions as a perfect manifestion of this impalpable form of life (maybe this is the reason that venues like the classroom and the conference rarely produce philosophy worthy of its name). [...]

Philosophy is, above all, a way of life in its own right. Until this elemental fact (which, as Pierre Hadot has shown, was an obvious one for the ancient Greeks) returns to inform current philosophical practice, it has no chance of getting out of the inconsequential mess in which it finds itself today. Luckily, when philosophy as a form of life devolves into philosophy as a profession, when friends degenerate into peers, the unique power that inheres in this strange mode of being does not become yet another one of those powers that dominate life (aside from the occasional stray student). Kierkegaard probably said it best: Instead of having any power whatsoever, today's philosophers seem to cheerfully 'speculate themselves out of their own skin'.

David Kishik, The Power of Life. Agamben and the Coming Politics