Going down the theoretical rabbit hole

I have officially become so enmeshed in my chosen field that I spent a significant portion of one of today's classes arguing about the presence or absence of a an invisible syllable in verbs that is never and has never been pronounced but makes certain arguments about stress make more sense. To the outside observer, this would seem absurd I'm sure, like we wallow in trivialities and abstraction. In moments of cynicism, I also wonder that I sacrificed my social life in high school, time and money in college, and my emotional well-being in grad school, all to argue about invisible, unpronounceable syllables.