I am certainly glad to know that you have made an honest living. LOL ;-)
<><><><><
My advisor lo those many years ago suggested that not all of those who graduated with a degree in philosophy need teach or philosophize for a living. He knew I just wasn’t that deep, nor that into philosophy for philosophy’s sake. I studied it just to get girls. Until I fugured that I misheard the conversation I was eavesdropping on - I should have been a guitar player (although I am and was back then and that never got me girls either).
There is a school of British philosophy (those wacky linquistic philosophers) who suggest that a discussion of mental event (thoughts, feelings, ideas) is simply a discussion about electro chemical processes in the brain. That mind/body dualism is thought to be the case due to the lack of the proper terminology about which to speak of these mental events.
Some who study the philosophy of science are in the same boat, and that our resistance to the notion of monism is that ideas and electro chemical processes just seem different.
My advisor would be so proud right now :-)
I'm not sure what you mean by 'monism.' From the context it sounds like the view that mind and thought are just products of the brain. Not that a scientist should discard that possibility but that view certainly excludes the concept of life after death. It also makes other somewhat common experiences more difficult to explain.