Whitehead

If you’re a graduate student, one of the things you should really revel in is the fact that if you feel like reading something, you’re more or less free to do so. Most likely you have plenty of time on your hands even if you’re busy with your thesis.

What starts happening once you have a job and other obligations is that free reading time begins to decrease. One can still fit it in now and then, but it’s a guilty pleasure. For the most part, only when I am committed to teaching or writing about something do I have the chance to read it.

Which is why I felt the greatest pleasure this morning when I remembered: “I am speaking at a Whitehead conference in early December. I’d better pull Process and Reality off the shelf and reread it.”

What a delight to read Whitehead. I am confident that he will be one of the handful of thinkers who survive from any century, in this case the 20th: a very good century of philosophy, though I wouldn’t say the best.

It hasn’t been too long. I reread the whole thing two years ago, then reread parts of it six months later when finishing up Prince of Networks.

I joined a reading group on the book early in freshman year of college. It seemed immediately impressive, but I didn’t quite get it at that point, and eventually stopped going to the reading group. But I still have the same copy of the book, which is amusing since some of my old notes are still in the margins, with a handwriting that is recognizably the way I wrote at age 18. And a few of the notes are so embarrassingly stupid that I completely crossed them out with ink. It’s easy to embarrass yourself at 18.

Just as funny is the price listed on the book: $10.95. You know you’re getting old when the prices on your oldest books start to look laughable.