Intermission

Currently reading:
The Myth of the Eternal Return
   by Mircea Eliade

I'll most likely put up the rest of the argument sometime before too long (maybe in some sort of illo tempore). I need to track down citations, and that's always my least favorite part of papers. Who cares whether or not the person actually said that as long as I can make it sound creative, after all?

In the meantime, I just had some thoughts on studying which I thought I'd jot down. It seems like curiosity used to be enough to get me to read anything. Curiosity can be a vice when it pulls one away from what is really important. However, sometimes there is an innocence about curiosity as well, a self-forgetfulness as one simply and artlessly gives oneself over to understanding another (whether that be a person, culture, idea, et cetera; not that those are entirely separate). This innocence is lost as we go on to have to write paper after paper, and seek a job in what we once loved. "Pragmatism" sets in, we start having to cast a critical eye on everything we look at in order to determine its worth for research material, for building our career, for getting us into the right schools, for the eventual use it could be to society. This leads to getting wrapped up in our own concerns, and using the words of other people for our own ends. To some extent, this is a necessary stage an academic must go through; there needs to be a deeper reflection on ones studies. However, this stage too must be transcended where one again can come to a text and devote oneself to it for a time in a deeper, more concentrated way. This is a way which does not ignore the practical issues, but at the same time realizes the worth in listening to the words of others and the occasionally limited, fallible nature of various practical judgments.