Enjoying the view from Limbo
Is having a fairly regular and predictable daily routine beneficial or harmful to the thinking life? The question is unanswerable until we have clearly distinguished between the two relevant kinds of routine.
There is the routine that aims to minimize the distractions of daily life, and then there is the routine…
I have no time for idle conversation with casual acquaintances. To speak of light subjects with people close to me (i.e., people I already know to be earnest and thoughtful, and thus whose incidental thoughts are of some intrinsic interest to me) has a value analogous to a bit of butter on fresh bread — inessential, but nonetheless pleasant. But to speak in...
The other day, a student of a taciturn and sometimes pessimistic temperament, whom I have counselled for the past couple of years as she tries to reorient her life, sent a short e-mail to tell me about her interesting and enjoyable first day at a new, temporary job. “Thank you for making me do something,” she wrote. “I mean your giving me some...
Regular readers will be aware that I often return, perhaps somewhat obsessively, to the theme of not wasting time. I can never emphasize enough, however, that when I speak of wasting time, or invoke the personal motto of sorts that I use to exhort my serious students to improve their lives — “I don’t waste time” — I am not even remotely concerned...
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