Letter 84: On gathering ideas
The journeys to which you refer—journeys that shake the laziness out of my system—I hold to be profitable both for my health and for my studies. You see why they benefit my health: since my passion for literature makes me lazy and careless about my body, I can take exercise by deputy; as for my studies, I shall show you why my journeys help them, for I have not stopped my reading in the slightest degree.
And reading, I hold, is indispensable—primarily, to keep me from being satisfied with myself alone, and besides, after I have learned what others have found out by their studies, to enable me to pass judgment on their discoveries and reflect upon discoveries that remain to be made.
Reading nourishes the mind and refreshes it when it is wearied with study; nevertheless, this refreshment is not obtained without study. We ought not to confine ourselves either to writing or to reading; the one, continuous writing, will cast a gloom over our strength, and exhaust it; the other will make our strength flabby and watery.
It is better to have recourse to them alternately, and to blend one with the other, so that the fruits of one’s reading may be reduced to concrete form by the pen.
The journeys to which you refer—journeys that shake the laziness out of my system—I hold to be profitable both for my health and for my studies. You see why they benefit my health: since my passion for literature makes me lazy and careless about my body, I can take exercise by deputy; as for my studies, I shall show you why my journeys help them, for I have not stopped my reading in the slightest degree.
And reading, I hold, is indispensable—primarily, to keep me from being satisfied with myself alone, and besides, after I have learned what others have found out by their studies, to enable me to pass judgment on their discoveries and reflect upon discoveries that remain to be made.
Reading nourishes the mind and refreshes it when it is wearied with study; nevertheless, this refreshment is not obtained without study. We ought not to confine ourselves either to writing or to reading; the one, continuous writing, will cast a gloom over our strength, and exhaust it; the other will make our strength flabby and watery.
It is better to have recourse to them alternately, and to blend one with the other, so that the fruits of one’s reading may be reduced to concrete form by the pen.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 84
I have an intense love both for travel and for reading, though I fear it is not for the usual reasons; I try not to treat a journey or a book as a form of escape, but rather as a challenge to deeper engagement.
Far too often, we go on trips because we believe our problems come from where we are, not from who we are. Far too often, we hide away in libraries because we seek a diversion from the world, when what we really need is a readjustment within ourselves.
No, the Eifel Tower will not make me fall in love, and a gripping tale about mystic unicorns will not bring me enlightenment. As much as I embrace sentimentality, it should never be a replacement for sanity.
I know that both traveling and reading have done their proper work when I feel like I have just been knocked about by some arduous yet dignified task, an odd combination of exhaustion and satisfaction.
In my own quirky manner, burying my nose in a book is inevitably followed by a brisk walk, as if the body needs to catch up to the mind, and the further I journey from home, the more books I somehow manage to consume, as if the new surroundings have spurred my curiosity all the more.
While I have heard some people say that they read for the sake of solitude, I have always found the opposite to be true: the text becomes the vehicle for a spirited conversation. From the outside, it may look like I am doing nothing at all, but on the inside, I am in constant motion.
“We read to know we’re not alone.” That I cannot find a page where C.S. Lewis actually said this, but I can trace the quote back to Shadowlands, a brilliant film about Lewis, suggests that I sometimes read a bit too much.
The dull man, concerned with timetables and balance sheets, views reading as a merely passive state, just as he takes leisure to be the act of switching off a machine, so that it might run more efficiently during the next shift.
The thoughtful man, however, understands why reading is far more than the absorption of information, and rightly becomes a means for active interpretation. Our very judgments about the true, the good, and the beautiful are in play, through a constant interaction between minds exploring a shared existence.
To read responsibly is therefore also to engage in critical study, which can often take the form of then writing about the things we have read. Not everyone needs to write professionally, but any discerning and creative soul will write, in the broad sense, as a brilliant amateur, continually chronicling life’s glorious patterns.
I have an intense love both for travel and for reading, though I fear it is not for the usual reasons; I try not to treat a journey or a book as a form of escape, but rather as a challenge to deeper engagement.
Far too often, we go on trips because we believe our problems come from where we are, not from who we are. Far too often, we hide away in libraries because we seek a diversion from the world, when what we really need is a readjustment within ourselves.
No, the Eifel Tower will not make me fall in love, and a gripping tale about mystic unicorns will not bring me enlightenment. As much as I embrace sentimentality, it should never be a replacement for sanity.
I know that both traveling and reading have done their proper work when I feel like I have just been knocked about by some arduous yet dignified task, an odd combination of exhaustion and satisfaction.
In my own quirky manner, burying my nose in a book is inevitably followed by a brisk walk, as if the body needs to catch up to the mind, and the further I journey from home, the more books I somehow manage to consume, as if the new surroundings have spurred my curiosity all the more.
While I have heard some people say that they read for the sake of solitude, I have always found the opposite to be true: the text becomes the vehicle for a spirited conversation. From the outside, it may look like I am doing nothing at all, but on the inside, I am in constant motion.
“We read to know we’re not alone.” That I cannot find a page where C.S. Lewis actually said this, but I can trace the quote back to Shadowlands, a brilliant film about Lewis, suggests that I sometimes read a bit too much.
The dull man, concerned with timetables and balance sheets, views reading as a merely passive state, just as he takes leisure to be the act of switching off a machine, so that it might run more efficiently during the next shift.
The thoughtful man, however, understands why reading is far more than the absorption of information, and rightly becomes a means for active interpretation. Our very judgments about the true, the good, and the beautiful are in play, through a constant interaction between minds exploring a shared existence.
To read responsibly is therefore also to engage in critical study, which can often take the form of then writing about the things we have read. Not everyone needs to write professionally, but any discerning and creative soul will write, in the broad sense, as a brilliant amateur, continually chronicling life’s glorious patterns.
—Reflection written in 12/2013
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