Discussion Topic for Tonight, December 5th
Article link and snippets to ponder.
Meeting tonight, Tuesday December 5th, 7pm, private event. Get on the all-locals email list for location information (it arrived in your e-mail last week if you are already on that list).
Discussion will center on this article at Public Discourse: “The Intellectual Life: Hope for the Rest of Us”
Some snippets to ponder in advance:
“I quickly learned that law school is more professional boot camp than intellectual playground. My friends in academia confirm that this is largely true of university lecture halls as well.”
“Indeed, an intellectual project may not be the whole of our lives, and certainly not the thing that supports our families financially. But to think sharply, read widely, and move through the world with a spirit of wonder? This, I believe, is a call to all.”
“Just as we don’t need credentials to live an intellectual life, we also do not need unlimited time. We do, however, need to commit to moving through the world differently than we are accustomed.”
“. . . the unexpected monkey wrenches life throws in our plans, perhaps more than anything else, invite us to stretch our minds to places of wonder rather than defaulting to our baser tendencies of frustration and irritability.”
“ . . . although hyperspecialization, in some cases, may indeed bring riches, it is intellectually and spiritually impoverishing.”
“Thinkers like Sertillanges advocate cultivating a broad array of interests (poetry! music! art!) because it’s in this array of interests and immersion in a variety of media and modalities that we can start to form webs of meaning and connection in our minds.”
Enjoy.