I'm fairly sure that I didn't set out to be an academic. I went to conservatory with the plan of making theatre from then on, and then when 'then on' didn't last nearly as long as I expected, I went to law school with the plan of practicing law from then on.
I suppose I made the first tentative steps in that direction when I sensed that I was not of a type with the tyro lawyers taking as few classes as they could and networking furiously (in the Midwest, in midwestern ways, in New York, in the ways of that place), and when I came to understand how far things had drifted from meritocracy. (That's not a controversial claim. It's quite openly discussed. Jobs are for the connected folks.) But I set out to find a place afterward, and came up empty, even after several years. (During which I was frequently reading and briefing every circuit slip opinion in the country).
Then I tried for a research doctorate in the field in which I had worked professionally for many years. Took as many courses across the university as I could, passed a peculiarly grueling week-long set of qualifying exams, and wrote a full dissertation shaped to the interests of the committee, all the while grading up to 4,000 undergraduate papers and projects a year -- and they refused to schedule a defense.
So. I'm left with what I'm able to do -- Now my credentials/charms are overthrown/ And what strength I have's my own... And after all these years of study, I've picked up a few things. Learning things has always made the world more complicated for me, not less. I'll start in a certain area, whether it's Pynchon at his most wide-ranging, or a certain line of modern philosophy, and just pugnaciously plow through the reading, and I find that after a while, sometimes after a long while, I have access to the thoughts, and the world is more complicated. One example -- several years ago, I saw a review in the NYT of a contemporary philosopher's book on Hegel. Went to the main room at NYPL and plowed through pugnaciously. I'm not sure what I thought I took from it, but I certainly didn't have access to the thoughts. Then, over the next several years, I made it a point to read that author's work and listen to his talks and seminars, and now I think I have access to his work, and it's useful.
Arguably the most important thing about life is that it's an ascending series. The box you're in tomorrow needs to be bigger than the box you're in today. Because if you start going in the other direction, everything will start to diminish. And with it, you.
Seek. Strive. Find. Don't yield.