The field of aesthetics and the University of Helsinki entered the picture when I had already spent several years touring the world as a professional ice hockey player and returned to Finland motivated to study in addition to playing. Even though I recognised a natural philosophical inquisitiveness in myself, studying for me was free from self-interest and I didn’t expect my degree to lead to any particular job. It was a good counterbalance to ice hockey and helped me to form a new social network.

After I graduated and ended my sports career, I tried to find work, with little success. I was unemployed for a while and it looked like I might be unemployed for good. One experienced company consultant told me encouragingly that I was spreading myself too thin and was too full of ideas – just the kind of guy that firms didn’t want at the time – and that I would never get a job in Finland.

However, soon after an opportunity presented itself in London, and I moved my family there right away. At the Finnish Institute in London I was lucky enough to have Henrik Stenius as my boss, someone who believed in me and allowed me to realise some of my ideas. This has been my track ever since: my years at Helsinki University notwithstanding, I have spent my whole adult life as a Finnish emigrant.

I am grateful for the excellent education I had in the Faculty of Arts at the University. I studied between the ages of 26 to 30, the years when most of us are at our intellectual peak. Although I regarded myself as a brilliant thinker, I realised what a long way I had to go to catch up with people at the University who were genuinely intelligent and deeply learned.