Very high quality content, @spetey and perfect timing for me and I'm sure many others who have to decide this summer if they want to try a career in Academia. I've decided against it, because
1) I enjoy researching lots of different topics very intensely for a short period of time, max 6 months, before I get bored and move on to the next exciting subject. This is not a good personality for an academic, but more suitable for a journalist or writer.
2) I don't agree with the politics of academia. It was hard getting decent grades when my professor was an outspoken socialist and the course was in the soft sciences. This was a sign that philosophy is not a discipline where I can be as rigorous as I'd like to be without having to be afraid of stepping on toes, unless I go the logic/philosophy of language route, for which I'm not nearly smart enough [I know because I'm married to someone who is].
3) I can be exceptional at other things I like better and that are in higher demand.
Now my goal is to just graduate with honors and get a publication out of my MA thesis, so that the tuition money wasn't completely wasted.
Thanks @andreaspeijerb, I'm so glad to hear this was helpful to at least one person! (I also plan to refer my future students to it, so it's useful to me I guess even if no one else reads it.) And congrats on making a hard decision with what sounds like a lot of honest soul-searching. (3) sounds like an especially decisive factor.
And I'm sorry to hear you ran into academic politics. I've heard similar anecdotes about the "soft sciences".