Sunday, September 25, 2011

On the Intellectual Life

The intellectual life is such a beautiful and rewarding aspect of our human lives and yet it is so easy to let it fall to the wayside, especially once we leave the formal classroom setting. I am by no means a great intellectual, but I hope I am at least a reasonable intellectual. I have put much thought to the matter of how too pursue further intellectual studies without paying for classes, neglecting my family or becoming a philosophy professor (which I am not at all qualified to be). I have come up with a few ways that  have been quite rewarding for the time and effort put into them. 

Mark Twain once (or possibly many times) said, "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."  I held strictly to that rule all through my formal education by frequently immersing myself in studies that interested me as a supplement to what I was required to study. I must confess that sometimes  I even pursued my own interests instead of what I was required to study. One practice I used all throughout college was to move slowly but constantly through the works of the late and esteemed G. K. Chesterton. I have not come close to reading even half of what he has written, but I have a good start on his work. This is a practice I have tried to maintain out here in the world of work. Admittedly I might go several weeks without this reading but I always come back to it and it has provide me much insight into my own life. 

Almost two years ago a good friend of mine, a homeschooling mother, approached my wife and me asking us to lead a discussion group for highschoolers on A Tale of Two Cities by the great Charles Dickens. We accepted and lead a small group of eight or nine students through this great work. I had never read this book when I was asked but read it several times to prepare myself for the seminar. We both enjoyed teaching the group so much that the next year we lead seminar on english poetry and will soon be starting a seminar on Dracula and Frankenstein

My last method was more or less handed to me by my brother in law who lent me a couple of audio books just after I had purchased my iPhone. When I am working with wood I am usually working alone and there is much time spent in repetitive tasks such as sanding or staining during which I can listen with quite a bit of my attention on the audio book. To be fair I listen to quite a bit of fiction, but I also engage regularly with the classics or philosophical works. Most recently I listened to Plato's Dialogue Pheado. I get most of the audiobooks free off of iTunes in the Podcasts section or in the iTunes U section. Many of the books are from librivox, which is also in the iTunes Podcasts section.

I have enjoyed getting to continue my intellectual life and look forward to many more books and discussions. 

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