Improving Your Intellectual Reading Life

Last week I shared some thoughts from the book, The Intellectual Life. This week I want to share thoughts on my favorite portion of the book where Sertillanges discusses reading. There is one point I disagreed with but other thoughts I fully agree. He begins the section on reading with, “Now reading is the universal means of learning, and it is the proximate or remote preparation for every kind of production.” (p.145). Reading is vital to our educational growth for life and our vocations. He adds that our learning is through connection and collaboration with other minds which reading connects us with great minds and great experiences. He then moves onto a point that first bristled me as he mentions “we need to read little”. Why mention that in a section on reading. He then clarifies that he is emphasizing balance in life. We need to set time for reading but also time for self reflection and do other activities in life. I fully agree with that. In his clarifying on “reading little” he reminds the reader that in the book he discusses a wide variety of topics so there needs to be a breadth of topics we read about. He proceeds to another thought I disagreed with: that we should not read passionately. I firmly disagreed with that as that is against my concept of being a Bookhead that there should be an internal passion for reading. Reading between the lines he was a monk and a professor in an age that emphasized intellectualism. Religion at that time had an aversion to the passions of humankind so the use of passion to reading may be contrary to him. Instead he emphasizes reading intelligently meaning concentrate and reflect on what is read. Critical thinking is important in my mind towards reading so I fully agree with his thoughts there; but I believe a passion is needed as well to be enthusiastic about reading. Being passionate about reading helps in building other readers. Both reading intelligently and building a passion for reading is important I feel for all readers. Sertillanges discussed four kinds of reading and expands on them in the text. “…I distinguish four kinds of reading. One reads for one’s formation and to become somebody, one reads in view of a particular task, one reads to acquire a habit of work and the love of what is good; one reads for relaxation. There is fundamental reading, accidental reading, stimulating reading or edifying reading, recreative reading.” (p.152). With my work as a therapist and in my former teaching work my focus was usually fundamental and edifying in the area of psychology and spirituality. An area of reading I need to work on is recreative reading as I do not read much fiction. He continues in this section on reading to give advice of being open to reading the great thinkers from the past and present to learn from others. His big emphasis too is to read what interests you. That goes back to his concept of reading little meaning focus in on your interests in reading but be open to building a breadth of knowledge. As I mentioned last week there is so much of interest in the book as a whole and also in this section on reading. One final quote from the book I will share is, “No one can teach us without our own effort. Reading puts truth before us; we have to make it ours. It is not the dealer in the market place that feeds our body. What I eat must turn into my substance. I alone can bring that about.” (p.168). This reminds me of the phrase you are what you eat. Similar in our mindsets and thoughts we are what we read. We need to take ownership of what we read and make choices to put the reading that impacts us into our daily lives. Reflection: What type of reading do you enjoy the most? How do you go about choosing the books you read?

Passion for the Intellectual Life

Thinking back to the cruise I took in May the main book I was working through at that time was a philosophical work, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods by A.G. Sertillanges, O.P. He was a philosopher, author and priest in France born 1869 and died in 1948. This was one of his most popular books. Obviously I do not know French so this was a translation. The book was challenging as it dug deep into living life as a philosophical thinker. He used his studies of Thomas Aquinas for the moral underpinnings of his concepts in the book. Being a philosopher obviously he was sharing his passion for the intellectual life. He shared in it that people in different vocations have various passions yet his principles of critical thinking, spiritual character, time management and organization relate to all of us in whatever vocation we are called to so I think this book has benefits to us all. In the start of the first chapter he speaks to the deepening of the mind. “I say the deepening, in order to set aside the idea of a superficial tincture of knowledge”(p.3). He is revealing the importance of having discipline and immersed engagement in the intellectual life. Personal discipline is important and that weaves through many chapters of this work. Personal choice from the will is also important in his thinking as he says, “The most valuable thing of all is will, a deep rooted will to be somebody, to achieve something, to be even now in desire that somebody recognizable by his ideal.” (p.10). That is a good reminder for all of us to willfully seek to be somebody in whatever our passion is. For myself it was to be best I could be as a professor to my college students when I was teaching. Now since I am focused on being a counseling therapist my passion is to be my best as a people helper to help others reach their potential in their lives. He explains how the spiritual disciplines relate to intellectual development. Being in tune with the spiritual aspect of life is important in this work. He emphasizes the importance of prayer and times of silence. As to silence he states, “Hygienists recommend three things for the body: the bath, the air bath and the inward bath of pure water. I would like to add for the bath of the soul the bath of silence, in order to tone up the organism of the spirit, to accentuate the personality, and to produce the active consciousness of it.” (p 51). Especially is our culture of stress and constant doing his discussion on adding silence to life is so important. Even just 10-15 minutes of silent meditation at the end of the day has benefits for our mental and spiritual growth. We tend to think of mindfulness as a recent discovery since Jon Kabat Zinn and others research on it in the past 20-30 years. Yet I capture in these writings the concept of being mindfully present. “So aquire the habit of being present at this activity of the material and moral universe. Learn to look: compare what is before you with your familiar or secret ideas. Do not see in a town merely houses, but human life and history. Let a gallery or museum show you something more than a collection of objects, let it show you schools of art and of life…” (p71). This points to his emphasis on the aspects of life going into depth to get to the richness of life experience. Too often we are too superficial in our observations and it carries over to superficiality in our relationships. There is so much in this classic book which is why I feel it would be beneficial for all to read it. It is a life challenging and self improvement text. One more item of many that stood out to me about curiosity in our work. “The intelligence is like a child, whose lips never cease their why. Does a good educator leave this fruitful restless questioning unsatisfied? Does he not take advantage of this fresh curiosity…” (p.123). This thought shows the importance of keeping curiosity alive in our work and all areas of life. Curiosity keeps life long learning exciting. Another aspect of this book I enjoyed is he quotes other French philosophers and since I have never read any works by the French this opened me up to research other great thinkers from his time period. It was helpful to learn about the spiritual disciplines and other concepts of life from such a great thinker. Reflection: Are you mindful in your observing of things in life around you? Try going to a park and be mindfully present in your observations. Also think of a time you were truly curious about something in life. What are your memories of that?