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We all need a philosophy to guide our lives.

Most of us have a philosophical outlook that includes the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I'm sure we were all taught that by our parents or a rabbi or other clergy person as a way to relate to people. My advice, however, if you want to maintain a belief you have had all your life, is: think twice before taking any course in philosophy.

I recently completed a semester and I know that a little formal education in the subject can be fun, but it can change your way of thinking.

Consider that Golden Rule. It seems simple enough. But philosophers like to examine every facet of a belief. "Wait," they say. "What if the people you do unto don't want you doing unto them as you would have them do unto you?"

I know all this two-way doing unto can be confusing, but as an example, consider an afternoon at Starbucks, where a generous Person A, say Fred, insists on doing unto a Person B, his friend Irwin, in the way that Fred himself would like to be done unto; in this case having someone buy him a cup of coffee. So he buys Irwin a nice 12-ounce cup of dark-roast coffee. But Irwin might not want any coffee, considering he only drinks Earl Grey tea. In fact, Irwin probably wishes Fred would just go away and do something unto some other Person B, so he, Irwin, can read his Anna Karenina in peace.

The golden rule is an ethical issue, of course, and ethics is a delicate garden where philosophers love to tread on the grass. In truth, it's an area where, for any belief you hold, some philosopher can invent a perfectly valid argument to undermine it. Not maliciously -- they're probably nice people. It's just what philosophers do.

Take the prohibition against lying. A famous philosopher said that to be a good person you must not lie. I don't know if he was taking into consideration the answer to Aunt Ida's question about whether these slacks make her look fat, but discounting that, to be a good person one must tell the truth. Unless -- and here comes that perfectly valid argument: suppose you're a married woman and a man shows up at your door brandishing a huge, mean-looking handgun. He says politely, "Good evening, Ma'am. I've been hired by your husband's business partner to resolve a squabble they've been having over a rather large contract. I'll be using this gun. Is your husband home?"

In fact, your husband is in the basement playing pool and drinking his third Budweiser of the night. Do you lie, good person, and say he's out visiting a sick friend, and thereby save his life? Or do you tell the truth -- "Come on in, he's just down those stairs."

Hmm. Your hesitation here is instructive. Perhaps you need to do some soul-searching. But let's ignore that and move on to another philosophical brainteaser.

We've seen that philosophers have a passion for asking awkward questions about things we have always taken for granted. Take the concept of "now," for example. (You didn't know "now" had a concept, did you?) There are philosophers who ask how long "now" lasts.

I don't mean "now," as in I'm sitting here writing now and will be doing so for a half-hour, so "now" lasts 30 minutes. No, that's too easy. Say you're sitting in that Starbucks wondering why you took a philosophy course to challenge your brain anyway, but nevertheless feel you want to reflect on what you recently learned.

You start to ask yourself how long you think "now" really lasts for you. Is "now" over as soon as you ask yourself that question and then you have moved on to another now? And another? It's a problem, but don't despair, help is at hand. Some philosophers have agreed that the "now" we perceive lasts two to three seconds. Then it becomes the past and we are on to a new now.

This makes it a little easier, but it's really hard to keep calm as the endless nows go zooming by like fast traffic. Personally, I was better off not having to worry about any of this, but it's too late, um, now.

I suppose differences of opinion among philosophers are unavoidable. On the other hand, if all the working philosophers agreed on everything, philosophy majors would have an even harder time finding a job.

Bernard Jacks is a freelance humor writer who lives in Marlboro.