reading as “cross-training”

There hasn’t been an advice post in awhile, so let this count as one.

Yesterday I realized why I felt the sudden instinctive urge to go back and read about the history of Rome from earliest days up to the climax of the Empire. The reason is that, deep down, what I want to do this summer is read all of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire from cover to cover, three fat volumes in all. (ADDENDUM: this refers to three fat volumes in the edition I own, not to Gibbon’s own organization of the project. There was a complaint about my inaccuracy on this point. The work consists of 71 chapters. In my own version, the Modern Library, they are arranged into three very thick volumes. I have no idea how many volumes were used in the original 18th century publication.) Gibbon is one of my favorites, but in the past I’ve only jumped around to my favorite parts and this time I want to read it all from start to finish. (By “fall” of the Empire he means the fall of Constantinople and thus the Eastern Empire in the 1400’s, so it goes a good long way forward from its starting point.) The obvious problem is that Gibbon starts quite late, not really getting the narrative going until Marcus Aurelius dies (in pop culture terms, that’s where the movie “Gladiator” begins).

Why is this important? Because it must mean that I’m subconsciously planning to do some good philosophical work this summer. In every case where I’ve written a book, I’ve always had some massive work of history by my side– e.g., Shelby Foote’s mammoth Civil War for Tool-Being, and Parkman’s 7-volume history of the British-French struggle for North America while finishing off Prince of Networks.

For other people different things may work– large works of literature, for instance. Or mountain hiking, or surfing, or whatever. History works best for me primarily because it puts me in a mood of awestruck admiration for the ability to organize panoramic stories in a way that emphasizes the most essential points. And that’s what you need to do to write a philosophy book effectively, even if in a different medium.

Under no circumstances would I ever do serious philosophical reading at the same time as serious philosophical writing. For instance, it would be intellectual suicide for me to reread Hegel’s Science of Logic this summer. That project has to be saved for a time when I’m mentally exhausted and low on ideas of my own. If you try to read something like that while writing your own work, it would become an exercise either in procrastination or in self-intimidation. You’d start to lose your own voice simply because Hegel’s philosophical voice is so overpoweringly strong. But Gibbon, also an overpowering voice, is not a philosophical writer, and hence only reinforces the remarkable amount of tension and energy needed to write a long philosophical work, without interfering with my own way of doing it.

Naturally, I do read some philosophical works while writing my own, but only in the limited sense of needing them for specific practical purposes in the writing, whether to cite them or simply to answer their claims.

I’ve said this many times before, but as an intellectual your primary foe is procrastination. Procrastination is so dangerous because it leads directly into a life-destroying negative feedback loop. The longer it takes to finish your thesis, the more the pressure increases to do something mind-blowingly exceptional. And the more such pressure you feel, the more inadequate you will feel to the task, and hence the more arrogance grows inside as a defense mechanism against your failures.

There is the real danger of turning into a snide, curmudgeonly critic of others rather than someone who regularly delivers interesting and useful goods to the public. Since it’s taking you a gazillion years to finish a simple piece of writing, then obviously (or so you tell yourself) you must be more conscientious than all the cheaters who are using ignoble tricks to finish off work. The “publish or perish” system can then be denounced from a position of moral superiority, etc. But it won’t matter how superior you feel, because no one will be listening to all the noble self-congratulation, and a few decades later you will be dead and still no one will be listening.

Avoid falling into that loop. Almost all of us come close to being sucked into it at one point or another, and those who escape it perhaps escape it by the narrowest of margins, and not without a fair share of simple good luck.

Anything that helps you be productive should be treated as holy. What that may be differs for each of us. For me, it’s long multi-volume history books, as well as certain public sites that have been “lucky” places for me for thinking and working– the now-closed Café Trevi on Lincoln Avenue in Chicago, a specific cybercafe near Russell Square in London that still exists, etc. I do recommend treating these sorts of lucky rituals and places with a near-religious awe, because humans are all constantly within inches of turning into sulky, embittered procrastinators and aggressive resenters of the productive and the fulfilled. But you have to find your own holy places and holy relics. Sometimes people may even count as religious relics– certain people simply make us feel energized and ambitious, while others suck our blood and/or provide us with alibis for doing nothing more.

And whatever you do, don’t waste time loitering on the internet taking potshots at people who are doing their jobs.