Nice piece Jared. It resonated with me. I had a wonderful experience of high school under old school Jesuits. But only time and aging gave me an appreciation for what they did for me. A core curriculum that sparked a thirst for ideas and thinking and peeled off a fear of new ideas challenging my core. The tension of paradox in my life is where I’m currently at observing that the deity of the binary in modern discourse and the glib sacrificing of the “other’s” humanity to serve self interest all around us today. I find comfort in the large thinkers and am glad I found you to inform that along my path
Current disaffected MA holder (I couldn’t even do a PhD! Full time enrollment required, here’s your stipend so you could maybe split a flophouse with 4 people and eat EasyMac, oh you’re mid-30’s? bummer man.)
It also took me a few years but I’m now diligently every morning before work reading works of history in depth that I was only able to skim in grad school. My field is also clogged with xenophobes who hate the culture and people we are supposed to be experts in, so it was always awkward anyway. Being removed from that discourse and just reading and analyzing on my own has been so great.
The advent of these read-alongs has drastically improved my well-being also, finally tackling works that my “education” did not include. I find it crazy to live in allegedly the most bestest democratic republic ever 2 exist and to have not once been instructed to read The Republic. Some teachers & professors talked askance at it but that’s kinda where it ended. I didn’t even know until 2 weeks ago that it was not a treatise by Plato but rather another account of Socrates engaging in discussion 😂
Thank you, Jared, for a lovely meditation and a nice plug for our Biblioll College project. Your stack (and YT channel) are lights in the gloom!
Two of my kids are PhDs with jobs in Academia, one daughter-in-law teaches HS, and Rach works with HS kids with special needs, so I know and value the role of traditional learning. But our educational system is going through tough tough years, for a whole host of reasons and with plenty of blame to spread around. And it may get worse before it gets better. In the meantime, we all have to get a good grip on the development of our own minds—our own "self culture", if you will—in the midst of the unprecedented challenge of digital distractions of every description.
While it never ever occurred to me not to read, it was immensely helpful, all those decades ago, to come across Sertillanges and realize that a bit of system could save a lot of wasted time and energy. What I didn't have then, but which venues like Substack offer now, is the possibility of an intellectual community such as was only heretofore available in the halls of Academe. We desperately need these ongoing discussions, not just for a sense of community, but to prevent that great risk of isolated self-education, which is fanaticism and monomania.
What a beautiful essay. It seems that no matter what we do in life, if we somehow manage to regain our sense of wonder lost in the daily grind, eventually it leads us to studying philosophy, art, and literature. To fully live, it seems that we need to become children again with their innate curiosity and authenticity.
I really like the connection you make between wonder/curiosity and gratitude. The latter word gets thrown around so much but it never means anything to me without the former. It's only because I can marvel at what I am lucky to have that I feel gratitude, for the mystery of it to persist and push me to keep thinking.
As a fellow academia ex-pat, I am seriously impressed with what you do. For a long time I was really paralyzed by Hegel's scornful remark about Schelling--"he conducts his philosophical education in public." I resented the idea that I had to share my thinking with others before it felt ready for public consumption, still vulnerable to inconsistency, error, misrepresentation, etc. Now it seems bizarre to me that the same thinker who developed the idea of determinate negation could be so oblivious to the importance of learning (i.e., letting yourself be wrong) in public.
I resonate with your follower who posted. I've spent years listening to others break down books I've been too timid to read on my own; but you and this platform make it less daunting and I can't believe I'm reading Plato now. I'm loving the ride, thank you so much for creating this space for us.
Lovely piece. About 2 years ago I stopped my SSRIs for severe OCD. They had numbed me to the point where I wasn’t able to read anymore, and enjoy my literary pursuits. Around that time I read through The Book of The New Sun by Wolfe. It has since become one of my favourite works of literature but more importantly I was blown away by the depth of knowledge of Myth and the intertextuality on display. Wolfe humbled me - made me feel that for all my professed love of reading I was nowhere near as learned as I thought myself to be.
I soon finished the rest of the Solar Cycle and The Wizard Knight and decided to do some serious reading. I am now reading through a Shakespeare play every month and hope to finish one read through of The Odyssey and The Iliad this year. I am also aggressively watching film from the top 250 on Letterboxd. I am learning so much and it has been a rewarding experience. Time is of the essence.
Thank you, Jared. I finished my MA in the humanities two years ago and couldn’t bring myself to continue with the PhD (despite it being the end goal I always envisioned for myself) for all the same reasons you’ve noted here and in your videos. I resonated so deeply with your reflection about having made the decision to leave academia and yet feeling like academia had been the one that rejected you. I’ve been experiencing the same feeling and wondering where I can go from here. Following you has provided some much needed hope and your YT channel and Substack have been a place of solace. Thank you, fellow traveler.
I am a big fan Jared, and I’ve also been inspired by your content. I recently began my philosophy journey, and am currently reading about Nietzsche from Kaufman, to then read the man himself. Looking forward to the video about him!
I left academia for money (as a lawyer), came back and studied philosophy. Now I combine both and found my passion. What I want to say: Ways are not often straightforward. (Btw: I like your YouTube channel!)
Thanks so much for this. After educating myself as much as I could since I was young, I finally went to college at 38. I'm in my sophomore year now and it's been quite discouraging at times. Even more so with all the recent budget cuts. Is there a future for me in academia? Do I even want that? Should I go into debt in this economy based on debt in order to have a minuscule chance of finding a position I love, in a place I want to live in, when I finally get through college and my master's program? It's good to reminded that it all began, and continues to begin, in curiosity. In gratitude. And one of the great gifts you can give to others is learning in a public format.
I'm a mathematics teacher, and I share some of your frustrations around the institution versus the thing. I especially felt this growing up as a kid in middle school and high school. I was a voracious reader of classic lit. I read Plato's Republic in my senior year of high school and absolutely loved it - even though it took me months, and I doubt I retained much of the major themes or thoughts.
I still read when I can find the time, but your notion of the urgency and responsibility to oneself in seizing your education resonated. Pretty much everything I know about philosophy (which isn't comprehensive by any metric) comes by way of slowly parsing the primary sources with others. Between your foray into the Republic and your thoughts surrounding academia, I'm finding that I'm able to put my thumb on a feeling/frustration that I couldn't express before. Thank you!
We are in a new experiment: how to foster humane learning without an institution in support… or how to create new institutions. UATX is also trying to do this.
Your writing craft got my attention. Unfortunately, it only took 3 sentences before what I feared, emerged. -The absolute saturation of patriarchy's enforcement operation: religion.
For me, the entry point into philosophy was an understanding that I want to learn philosophical thinking, not philosophy itself. That means I don’t need to know and understand all complex thoughts and ideas of philosophers of the past. I just need to adjust my thinking to explore and wonder. That made my journey much more enjoyable.
Nice piece Jared. It resonated with me. I had a wonderful experience of high school under old school Jesuits. But only time and aging gave me an appreciation for what they did for me. A core curriculum that sparked a thirst for ideas and thinking and peeled off a fear of new ideas challenging my core. The tension of paradox in my life is where I’m currently at observing that the deity of the binary in modern discourse and the glib sacrificing of the “other’s” humanity to serve self interest all around us today. I find comfort in the large thinkers and am glad I found you to inform that along my path
Current disaffected MA holder (I couldn’t even do a PhD! Full time enrollment required, here’s your stipend so you could maybe split a flophouse with 4 people and eat EasyMac, oh you’re mid-30’s? bummer man.)
It also took me a few years but I’m now diligently every morning before work reading works of history in depth that I was only able to skim in grad school. My field is also clogged with xenophobes who hate the culture and people we are supposed to be experts in, so it was always awkward anyway. Being removed from that discourse and just reading and analyzing on my own has been so great.
The advent of these read-alongs has drastically improved my well-being also, finally tackling works that my “education” did not include. I find it crazy to live in allegedly the most bestest democratic republic ever 2 exist and to have not once been instructed to read The Republic. Some teachers & professors talked askance at it but that’s kinda where it ended. I didn’t even know until 2 weeks ago that it was not a treatise by Plato but rather another account of Socrates engaging in discussion 😂
Finally, I do need to give Arendt another go!
Thank you, Jared, for a lovely meditation and a nice plug for our Biblioll College project. Your stack (and YT channel) are lights in the gloom!
Two of my kids are PhDs with jobs in Academia, one daughter-in-law teaches HS, and Rach works with HS kids with special needs, so I know and value the role of traditional learning. But our educational system is going through tough tough years, for a whole host of reasons and with plenty of blame to spread around. And it may get worse before it gets better. In the meantime, we all have to get a good grip on the development of our own minds—our own "self culture", if you will—in the midst of the unprecedented challenge of digital distractions of every description.
While it never ever occurred to me not to read, it was immensely helpful, all those decades ago, to come across Sertillanges and realize that a bit of system could save a lot of wasted time and energy. What I didn't have then, but which venues like Substack offer now, is the possibility of an intellectual community such as was only heretofore available in the halls of Academe. We desperately need these ongoing discussions, not just for a sense of community, but to prevent that great risk of isolated self-education, which is fanaticism and monomania.
What a beautiful essay. It seems that no matter what we do in life, if we somehow manage to regain our sense of wonder lost in the daily grind, eventually it leads us to studying philosophy, art, and literature. To fully live, it seems that we need to become children again with their innate curiosity and authenticity.
I really like the connection you make between wonder/curiosity and gratitude. The latter word gets thrown around so much but it never means anything to me without the former. It's only because I can marvel at what I am lucky to have that I feel gratitude, for the mystery of it to persist and push me to keep thinking.
As a fellow academia ex-pat, I am seriously impressed with what you do. For a long time I was really paralyzed by Hegel's scornful remark about Schelling--"he conducts his philosophical education in public." I resented the idea that I had to share my thinking with others before it felt ready for public consumption, still vulnerable to inconsistency, error, misrepresentation, etc. Now it seems bizarre to me that the same thinker who developed the idea of determinate negation could be so oblivious to the importance of learning (i.e., letting yourself be wrong) in public.
I resonate with your follower who posted. I've spent years listening to others break down books I've been too timid to read on my own; but you and this platform make it less daunting and I can't believe I'm reading Plato now. I'm loving the ride, thank you so much for creating this space for us.
Lovely piece. About 2 years ago I stopped my SSRIs for severe OCD. They had numbed me to the point where I wasn’t able to read anymore, and enjoy my literary pursuits. Around that time I read through The Book of The New Sun by Wolfe. It has since become one of my favourite works of literature but more importantly I was blown away by the depth of knowledge of Myth and the intertextuality on display. Wolfe humbled me - made me feel that for all my professed love of reading I was nowhere near as learned as I thought myself to be.
I soon finished the rest of the Solar Cycle and The Wizard Knight and decided to do some serious reading. I am now reading through a Shakespeare play every month and hope to finish one read through of The Odyssey and The Iliad this year. I am also aggressively watching film from the top 250 on Letterboxd. I am learning so much and it has been a rewarding experience. Time is of the essence.
Thank you, Jared. I finished my MA in the humanities two years ago and couldn’t bring myself to continue with the PhD (despite it being the end goal I always envisioned for myself) for all the same reasons you’ve noted here and in your videos. I resonated so deeply with your reflection about having made the decision to leave academia and yet feeling like academia had been the one that rejected you. I’ve been experiencing the same feeling and wondering where I can go from here. Following you has provided some much needed hope and your YT channel and Substack have been a place of solace. Thank you, fellow traveler.
I am a big fan Jared, and I’ve also been inspired by your content. I recently began my philosophy journey, and am currently reading about Nietzsche from Kaufman, to then read the man himself. Looking forward to the video about him!
I left academia for money (as a lawyer), came back and studied philosophy. Now I combine both and found my passion. What I want to say: Ways are not often straightforward. (Btw: I like your YouTube channel!)
Thanks so much for this. After educating myself as much as I could since I was young, I finally went to college at 38. I'm in my sophomore year now and it's been quite discouraging at times. Even more so with all the recent budget cuts. Is there a future for me in academia? Do I even want that? Should I go into debt in this economy based on debt in order to have a minuscule chance of finding a position I love, in a place I want to live in, when I finally get through college and my master's program? It's good to reminded that it all began, and continues to begin, in curiosity. In gratitude. And one of the great gifts you can give to others is learning in a public format.
Really enjoyed this, thanks for sharing!
I'm a mathematics teacher, and I share some of your frustrations around the institution versus the thing. I especially felt this growing up as a kid in middle school and high school. I was a voracious reader of classic lit. I read Plato's Republic in my senior year of high school and absolutely loved it - even though it took me months, and I doubt I retained much of the major themes or thoughts.
I still read when I can find the time, but your notion of the urgency and responsibility to oneself in seizing your education resonated. Pretty much everything I know about philosophy (which isn't comprehensive by any metric) comes by way of slowly parsing the primary sources with others. Between your foray into the Republic and your thoughts surrounding academia, I'm finding that I'm able to put my thumb on a feeling/frustration that I couldn't express before. Thank you!
We are in a new experiment: how to foster humane learning without an institution in support… or how to create new institutions. UATX is also trying to do this.
Your writing craft got my attention. Unfortunately, it only took 3 sentences before what I feared, emerged. -The absolute saturation of patriarchy's enforcement operation: religion.
Puke.
So sad.
I’m in the same boat, but with mathematics. Luckily, I also am starting to pick it back up again.
Thank you for this essay, Jared.
For me, the entry point into philosophy was an understanding that I want to learn philosophical thinking, not philosophy itself. That means I don’t need to know and understand all complex thoughts and ideas of philosophers of the past. I just need to adjust my thinking to explore and wonder. That made my journey much more enjoyable.