Focusing the Mind

When difficult times arise, I'm often surprised at how much patience I have for going through what needs to be done... and how little patience I have for things that are done in bad faith, done for ulterior motives.  I've had a full day of both.

There’s a telling scene in Tom Wolfe’s novel The Bonfires of the Vanities, in which the 9-year-old daughter of “master of the universe” broker Sherman McCoy asks him what he makes.  He attempts, through the space of three or four increasingly desperate pages, to explain how constructing and brokering arbitrage deals is a productive and important way of making a living.  It’s a crucial scene — McCoy’s life is coming apart on several counts, all of which he can attempt to blame on others instead of his own hubris and carelessness, but here on the beach, faced with an child’s innocent question, he is unavoidably confronted with the meaningless of his work.

I saw something the other day that included a link to Bard College.  I went to their home page, since I didn't really know much about Bard except its excellent reputation.  But I stopped dead at their marketing tag line.

Bard.  A Place to Think.

I read that and I thought that's EXACTLY what I had in mind 20 years ago this month when I set off to graduate school to start my Ph.D.  I didn't want to be a tenured faculty member, I didn't want to be a department chair, I didn't want to be a Dean or a Provost.  I wanted a place to think, and to become a part of that place.  I wanted to read smart ideas, talk with smart people, write smart things that would be of help (or at least of comfort or inspiration) to others.

I already knew that the professions, for the most part, discourage thinking.  They encourage predictability, repetition of successes.  There's an old saying: "When you hire an architect to solve your problem, you're going to get a building."  It's true of almost every profession, though—by the time you get hired, the problem is about 98% defined, and you get to fill in the edges. 

What I didn't expect was the degree to which the business of higher education swallows you up, kidnaps you from the land of thinking to the land of professionalism.  You set out to advocate for young people, and you end up writing ad copy.  You set out to have a research life, and you end up deciding how to assemble a PDF for the accreditors.  The important is shut out by the urgent.

I hadn't realized until writing this post that it was exactly 20 years ago—fall semester 1991—that I moved from Berkeley to Milwaukee to join the doctoral program at UWM, that I found my place to think.  The people I most admired there were busy teaching and reading and writing.  That had been true at Berkeley as well.  And in both cases, I learned both through instruction and through example how to think at least a little bit myself.

It's time to do that again.  Everybody should think at least once every 20 years or so.

Speaking of thinking, I read a very fine set of thoughts last week by the graphic designer Milton Glaser, on the most important things he's learned.  And I now share them with you, if you'll click here.