More wisdom-seeking
A plaque in the vestibule of Bowdoin College’s former library:
“Books are not absolutely dead things but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are.” This is from John Milton’s “Areopagitica,” which (I’ve learned) is one of the standard-bearer prose polemics (basically a speech/argument — which I’ve also learned) in defense of free speech. It was written in 1644, but of course like other persuasive writings packed with wisdom, lives on. For better or for worse, there’s not much new under the sun, right?
The second part: “Who reads and reads and does not what he knows is one that ploughs and ploughs and never sows.” I haven’t been able to determine where this is from; it’s also likely from “Areopagitica.” (Anyone know?)
My brother introduced me to the podcast Philosophize This! by Stephen West. If you don’t know who Stephen West is, that’s ok. He’s a high school dropout who started this podcast in 2013 after soaking up what is essentially Philosophy 101 via audiobooks while working in a Safeway warehouse. He’s now self-supporting and has over 200 episodes — each delineating a different philosopher — to his arsenal. “Refreshingly unpretentious,” my brother said. The Atlantic recently published a profile on West partly because he has close to zero digital footprint (save for his podcasts, of course). From that piece: “He just ‘always wanted to be wiser,’ [West’s wife] said. ‘I mean, when he was younger, he literally Googled who was the wisest person… That’s how he got into philosophy.’”
I’m so over our preference for zippy memes, quick sound bites, the constant barrage of news coming via our digital devices. (Yes, I know…here I am on Instagram.) Part of me thinks this style of information acquisition is going to eventually jump the shark (to rely on a phrase that gained traction precisely *because* of the internet), but I also wonder if we’ve become too used to factoids pinging at us relentlessly.
More wisdom-seeking: That’s my goal for the upcoming days, weeks, years. (I know people like to read books for entertainment, but once in a while it’s good to read with an eye toward “wisdom” too.)
originally published on instagram