In 1991 I was the first from my upper secondary school to enter university to study theoretical philosophy. My best memory is definitely finding other thinkers of a similar spirit. During my student days this led to endless debates and the development of ideas in cafes, corridors and rooms in the Metsätalo building. Sometimes we ended up having ridiculous discussions, while respecting the dry humour of philosophers, and sometimes we arrived at really crucial insights.

This discursive way of developing ideas gave me a permanently different, dialogical way of thinking, although in the way of philosophers, it didn’t always matter even if my interlocutor was not quite on the same wavelength. Those times nevertheless gave me a way of more effectively developing ideas ­– through discussion with others. They also gave me a kind of “corridor leadership” theory that I use to this day. It seems like the best thoughts and ideas bubble up somewhere between organized, compulsory work – in the corridor, from ideas related to current affairs, even from tenacious discussions at the coffee table.

During my time at the University of Helsinki, there was perhaps an even greater opportunity than now to develop my own thinking, and I felt that the teaching gave broad-based support to this process. I seemed that I was discovering for myself the answers to the issues I had come to study, even to the extent that I felt that I had in practice solved my most important questions and I had moved on. At least for now.