Hunting for Treasure vs. Panning for Gold on the Beaches of Nome

This week's Torah content is sponsored by the Reznik family in dedication to the loving memory of Silvia Tanzer (Sora Hesha bas Chaim Moshe) and Irving Tanzer (Yisroel ben Yechezkel).

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Hunting for Treasure vs. Panning for Gold on the Beaches of Nome

According to Mishlei (Proverbs), you will achieve success in your quest for chochmah (wisdom) and tevunah (understanding) if you search for it “like you search for hidden treasures” (2:4). Rabbeinu Yonah explains:

[This means] that the wisdom is sweet to his soul, and working for it will not be a toil for him, due to the abundant love, in the manner of: “it was like a few days in his eyes, due to his love of her” (Bereishis 29:29). It will be like one who searches for hidden treasures, who is told that there is a treasure in this house or in this valley: the quest for the hidden treasure will not be a toil for him, due to [the prospect in] his mind of finding great wealth in one location and becoming instantly rich.

In other words, if you learn with the mentality of a treasure hunter who hopes to hit the mother lode, then learning will not be a toil for you, since it will be fueled by excitement and the hope of being rewarded with instant wealth. But unlike the treasure hunter, whose hope will likely prove to be a fantasy, the seeker of chochmah and tevunah really can strike it rich!

Thank God, the more I learn, the more this treasure hunting mentality has come to characterize my own learning. However, this same mentality has occasionally proven to be an impediment when it comes to teaching. When I was a high school teacher, I had no problem teaching “basic ideas,” since my students were all new to learning. Once I started teaching in yeshiva in the Fall of 2020, I felt a tremendous pressure to come up with major chidushim (new insights) in everything I taught. I’d feel this way in many of my daily shiurim and especially when I’d give a shiur to the whole community. But this wasn’t the first time I’ve experienced this type of pressure. I’ve gone through phases in which my writing suffers from the same problem. I end up feeling like I shouldn’t write an article unless it contains some groundbreaking chidush that will be seen as valuable to all, laypeople and chachamim alike, and this leads to writer’s block.

I am pleased to report that my “Summer 2021 Experiment” of writing one-page articles has counteracted this pressure. I am reminded of another Mishleic mashal (metaphor) for chochmah, stated in the previous chapter: “Chochmah calls out in the streets, in the public squares she gives forth her voice, at the heads of noisy [streets], at the entrances of gates, she gives forth her words” (1:20-21). In contrast to the treasure hunting mashal of Chapter 2, which depicts the scarcity and hidden nature of chochmah, the mashal of Chapter 1 emphasizes its ubiquity and vociferousness: chochmah is on every street corner, wherever you look, and it’s constantly shouting and clamoring to get your attention! In my case, now that I’m looking for “one-page ideas” to write about, I’m noticing them everywhere, which is fantastic!

If I were to create a highly specific mashal which combines these two mashalim, I’d borrow from Shlomo ha’Melech’s comparison of chochmah to gold (see 8:10,18 and 16:16) and I would liken my Summer 2021 experience to panning for gold on the golden beaches of Nome. According to Wikipedia:

The Nome Gold Rush was a gold rush in Nome, Alaska, approximately 1899–1909. It is separated from other gold rushes by the ease with which gold could be obtained. Much of the gold was lying in the beach sand of the landing place and could be recovered without any need for a claim. Total production of gold from the area is estimated to be 112 metric tons.

Chochmah is like Nome’s gold: it’s there in the sand, ready for the taking, and there’s plenty to share.

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Musings on the Wisdom of Charles Ives

Originally published in December of 2008. Click here for a printer-friendly version of this blog post.

Charles Edward Ives (1874-1954) 

Musings on the Wisdom of Charles Ives

For those of you who do not know, my pre-Judaism life was centered around classical music. The composer who exerted the most influence over my musical development was a man by the name of Charles Ives (1874-1954). Ives - the man and his music - will always have a special place in my life.

Ives was not a philosopher by trade, but possessed a philosopher's insight, a poet's perceptiveness, and the gift of wit - much like Mark Twain. I was recently reading some of Ives's writings and came across several ideas I'd like to share with you. 

Before I do that, I highly encourage you to listen to these quick samples of Ives's music, since his music is the context for the ideas that I'm going to focus on in this post:

• Piano Study No.20: I chose this piece because it features a variety of Ives's musical hallmarks: dissonance, syncopation, complex counterpoint, quotations from American folk songs, ragtime, and more. It's not necessary to listen to the whole thing. In fact, if you can't tolerate the beginning, skip to 3:00.
• Holidays Symphony: Movement III - The Fourth of July: This clip is the last 100 seconds (4:08 - 5:48) of one of his early symphonies, written in 1912. In this movement he attempted "to exemplify the excitement a boy feels during the Fourth of July celebrations and the freedom felt on that special day."
• Concord Sonata: Movement III - The Alcotts: In my opinion, this piece is the exemplar of Ivesian beauty. The theme is a variant on the famous "fate knocking" theme of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. This is the only Ives piece I ever learned how to play on piano. [1]

Ives was unique in many ways. Unlike most other famous composers, Ives did not make his living with his music. Once he came to terms with the fact that his music was decades ahead of its time, Ives ceased holding public performances and decided to go into the life insurance business, keeping his music entirely to himself and his family. He wasn't really "discovered" by the Classical Music World until he was already an old man.

Unlike other artists, Ives did not view his art to be the purpose of life, or larger than life. Rather, as he proclaimed in a letter to his wife, "Music is life," by which he meant, "It comes directly out of the heart of experience of life and thinking about life and living life" [2]. It is this view which makes it possible to view Ives's music as a sort of commentary on life, and his attitude towards music as his philosophy of living.

Here are three ideas from Ives's music/life that I came across and would like to share:

Ives on Musical Appreciation

Ives was always critical of people who have a narrow taste in music. Take, for instance, this excerpt from his memos:

I'd played over the Second Violin Sonata for him - that harmless piece. "After stuff like the that," he said, "if you consider that music, and like it, how can you like Brahms or any good music?" That is a very common attitude among almost all the well-known lilies. They take it for granted - a kind of self-evident axiom, a settled-for-life matter, ipso facto, admitting no argument. The classical is good for all time, the modern is bad for all time - so if you like one, you can't like the other. They don't always limit it to "good and bad." They, in a general way, throw (in their nice little minds) all that fits into their accustomed habits of sound, technique, etc., all together into a classical idiom, good or bad. [3]

What Ives says about music is also true of philosophy. Many people (myself included) have a tendency to accept or reject ideas, not based on their merit or veracity, but on whether they conform to accustomed or "accepted" lines of thought. 

This "evaluation" is made with little analysis or reflection, and is driven by the need to place the idea into a "classical idiom, good or bad." All people care about is, "Is this idea in line with my hashkafah (worldview) or not?" They ask themselves "Is this a good idea or a bad idea?" rather than "Is this a true idea or a false idea?" 

This approach is not the approach of chachamim (the wise), but of "philosophical lilies," as Ives would say - people whose "taste" in philosophy is so narrow and close-minded that they miss out on philosophical truth altogether.

Ives on Musical Beauty

People have a hard time seeing the beauty in Ives's music. According to Ives, this is due to an incorrect notion of beauty:

Beauty in music is too often confused with something that lets the ears lie back in an easy chair. Many sounds that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them beautiful. Frequently, when a new or unfamiliar work is accepted as beautiful on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends to put the mind to sleep. [4] 

Likewise, I would say: "Truth in ideas is too often confused with something that lets the mind lie back in an easy chair. Many ideas that we are used to do not bother us, and for that reason we are inclined to call them true. Frequently, when a new or unfamiliar idea is accepted as true on its first hearing, its fundamental quality is one that tends to put the mind to sleep."

I also didn't see Ives's music as beautiful at first. But after a lot of hard work and "stretching my ears," as Ives would say, I was finally able to appreciate its beauty, which was unlike anything else I had ever heard. 

This metaphor, I believe, can be extended to the pleasure of learning. Some people are naturally drawn to truth and thinking. They find learning inherently pleasurable from the get-go. I did not. I didn't experience the so-called "joy of learning" until, after years of frustration in yeshiva, I was finally able to begin to experience the beauty of ideas on my own.

Ives on Musical Independence

Ives recognized that his conception of beauty differed greatly from that of his contemporaries. Nevertheless, Ives believed, a man should not be deterred from sticking to his own conception of beauty just because it is not widely held:

A man's life should be a stately march to a sweet but unheard music, and when to his fellows it shall seem irregular and inharmonious, he will only be stepping to a livelier measure, or his nicer ear hurry him into a thousand symphonies and concordant variations. There will be no halt ever, but at most a marching on his post, on such a pause as is richer than any sound, when the melody runs into such depth and wildness as to be no longer heard, but implicitly consented to with the whole life and being. [5] 

This brings to mind the parting words of Socrates to Crito:

But why, my dear Crito, should we care about the opinion of the many? ... We must not regard what the many say of us: but what he, the one man who has understanding of just and unjust, will say, and what the truth will say. And therefore you begin in error when you advise that we should regard the opinion of the many about just and unjust, good and evil, honorable and dishonorable. [6]

What makes Ives's artistic independence unique is that he didn't flaunt it, like so many musical pioneers before him. He knew that the public of the late 19th century was not ready for music this radical, and that he would only cause himself frustration by forcing his music upon them. This is reminiscent of the Rambam's [7] description of those who have grasped certain fundamental truths:

It is right that a man should belong to that class of men who have a conception of truth and understand it, though they do not speak of it. Thus the pious are advised and addressed, "Commune with your own mind upon your bed and be still, Selah!" (Tehilim 4:5).

And when people finally did recognize his music by rewarding him the Pulitzer Prize in 1946 - when he was already 72 years old - Ives didn't haughtily pat himself on the back and indulge in egotistical pleasure. Instead, he gave away half of the prize money and said:

"Prizes are for boys, and I'm all grown up!" [7]

Often when I "succeed" in convincing a person of a certain idea, I often feel a certain illicit sense of pride and achievement. Whenever this happens, I must remember to take a lesson from Ives. Instead of patting myself on the back, I should just be happy that another mind can share in the truth.

In conclusion, I am not trying to elevate Charles Ives to the status of a true philosopher. However, my approach in life is to try to recognize true ideas wherever I see them. If I can associate good music with good ideas, all the better.

[1] At around the same time that this blog post was originally published, I wrote the following comment about my relationship to this piece in an online Charles Ives fan group:

When I was in 11th grade, my family and I moved to a new city and started a new life. That was probably the loneliest, most difficult year of my young life. 

During that time, I learned to play "The Alcotts." I channeled all of my turmoil, loneliness, and longing into that piece. It became my emotional anchor. Whenever I felt myself on the verge of being pulled into the undercurrent of despair, that piece refocused me and helped me to retain a sense of identity. The pain and passion of that piece, climaxing in its glorious conclusion, never fails to give me goosebumps. "The Alcotts" will always hold a special place in my life.

[2] quoted in Charles Ives: A Man and His Music (1968), by Henry and Sidney Cowell

[3] Charles Ives, Memos 121-122

[4] Charles Ives, Essays Before a Sonata

[5] Charles Ives, Thoreau Journal, vol.1, 156

[6] Plato, Crito 47c-d

[7] Rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon (Rambam / Maimonides), Moreh ha'Nevuchim 1:50

[8] This anecdote is widely quoted, but I don't know the original source.

Why I Write

Half of this was originally published in January 2012; the other half is new. Click here for a printer-friendly version of this blog post.

Artwork: Memory Jar, by Donato Giancola

Why I Write

This morning I was thinking about how I preoccupied I used to be with my blog stats. I would obsess about how many clicks each blog post got, and when the numbers were higher or lower than average, I'd wrack my brain to figure out why, so that I could keep giving the public what they wanted.

This obsession proved to be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it helped me to be a better writer, since I cared about the number of regular readers I had. On the other hand, it created undue pressure which often made it harder to write.

This got me thinking about why I write, in general.

Specifically, it got me thinking about why I have cared less and less about numbers with each year that goes by. And, as writers are wont to do, I had a desire to write about this topic.

At first I planned to write out my own thoughts on this matter. However, I've been perusing what other writers have written about writing - many of whom write for the same reasons as I do. In this post, I'd like to share some of these excerpts. Maybe some day I'll write my own post on why I write.

Here are excerpts from three writers whose reasons for writing align with my own:

George Orwell: Writing for "Political" Purposes

I'll begin with a short quotation from George Orwell's Why I Write (1946). Orwell states that "Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose." Of these four motives, I find that I relate most to the fourth, which he terms "political purpose." He explains that he is "using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after." Here is the paragraph that jumped out to me:

What I have most wanted to do throughout the past ten years is to make political writing into an art. My starting point is always a feeling of partisanship, a sense of injustice. When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, "I am going to produce a work of art." I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. 

I have chosen to lead with this Orwell quotation because it reflects my original motive for writing. When I was in high school I used to want to be a journalist. Once I converted to Judaism and began learning Torah, some of that journalistic zeal and integrity (in that order) became diverted towards the goal of bringing awareness to "authentic Judaism." As a convert who found himself among many FFB (frum from birth) Jews who didn't understand what they were doing or why they were doing it, I felt the urge to reveal the truth that I had learned and share it with others. 

Unfortunately, due to the sorry state that Klal Yisrael is in - and due to my fiery personality - many of these posts ended up with a greater emphasis on sur me'ra ("turn away from bad") than aseh tov ("do good"). My old blog was filled with polemical posts and polemical language. I really didn't hold back, especially when I felt that "sense of injustice ... because there is some lie that I want to expose." 

Over the years I've definitely dialed down the tone in my writing and teaching. I now focus more on what Torah is than what Torah is not. Yet, there is still a strong political character (as defined by Orwell) to my writing, which is also present in my teaching. I am still passionate when it comes to sharing my understanding of Judaism and contrasting it with other views that are out there. I'm just not as "in your face" as I was in my younger days. 
William Stafford: Writing for Discovery

The next few excerpts are from A Way of Writing (1970) by the poet William Stafford. (Full disclosure: I'm not a poetry guy, and haven't read any of Stafford's writings except for what I'm about to share.) This first quotation is the main reason why I write:

A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them. That is, he does not draw on a reservoir; instead, he engages in an activity that brings to him a whole succession of unforeseen stories, poems, essays, plays, laws, philosophies, religions, or--but wait! …

For me, writing is a method of thinking. I can achieve a depth of understanding and a degree of clarity in writing that I can't obtain in any other way. Most of the time when I set out to write a blog post, the full idea isn't completely formed in my mind. The process of writing brings the idea to fruition. 

Stafford continues with a point that touches upon one of the major obstacles I face from time to time: the unwillingness to allow myself to "fail":

I must be willing to fail. If I am to keep on writing, I cannot bother to insist on high standards. I must get into action and not let anything stop me, or even slow me much. By "standards" I do not mean "correctness" spelling, punctuation, and so on. These details become mechanical for anyone who writes for a while. I am thinking about such matters as social significance, positive values, consistency, etc. ... I resolutely disregard these. Something better, greater, is happening! I am following a process that leads so wildly and originally into new territory that no judgment can at the moment be made about values, significance, and so on. I am making something new, something that has not been judged before. Later others -- and maybe I myself -- will make judgments. Now, I am headlong to discover. Any distraction may harm the creating.

I write best when I'm not worried about meeting my self-imposed standards. I have learned to ignore my inner need to write chidushim (innovations), or posts of "importance," or posts that people will care about. The ability to do this has not come easily. I have written about this struggle at length in Playing with Torah and Am I Qualified to Write this Blog? 

Chazal (Avos 4:1) teach: "ein ha'bayshan lomeid" ("One who is embarrassed doesn't learn"). If you wish to advance when learning with your rebbi, with your chavrusa, or even by yourself, you must be willing to "fail." I use the quotation marks because I don't consider this to be a failure. To realize that you've erred is a success, since it allows you to move closer to the truth.

When I write a blog post, I know it's possible that I'll make mistakes - but if I allowed this to stop me, then my writing would suffer, and so would my learning. (And so would the readers who gain from what I write.)

Stafford concludes with a beautiful summary of the activity of writing:

[Writing] itself is one of the great, free human activities. There is scope for individuality, and elation, and discovery, in writing. For the person who follows with trust and forgiveness what occurs to him, the world remains always ready and deep, an inexhaustible environment, with the combined vividness of an actuality and flexibility of a dream. Working back and forth between experience and thought, writers have more than space and time can offer. They have the whole unexplored realm of human vision.

I thrive off of this experience of freedom in the process of writing. This is what allows me to sit down and write in an uninterrupted flow for hours on end. The joy of intellectual exploration and expression is intoxicating.

Richard Mitchell: Writing for Self-knowledge

The third and final excerpt is from a speech given by one of my favorite writers, Richard Mitchell. The speech, entitled Writing Against Your Life (1986), was given by Mitchell at a writers' conference in Southern Carolina. This speech became the basis of Richard Mitchell's greatest book, The Gift of Fire (1999), which is one of my favorite books of all time.

I am really tempted to excerpt the entire speech, but I'm afraid that will make this post appear too long. Here is the conclusion of the speech, which is my favorite part. I encourage you to read the whole thing, if you have time. Bear in mind that Mitchell was speaking to aspiring writers:

I am talking here of course of the kind of writing that I do. I don't write fiction, I don't know how to write fiction; I don't make characters, I don't know how to make characters; I don't have plots, I don't know how to make plots--all I do is try to think on the page--but I have read numbers of the works of those who makes plots, and write fiction, and know how to do that, and there is no difference. There is no difference there whatsoever. They make, insofar as they can, the truth. They make true human beings, who in true human predicaments, seek the truth for themselves. They make there all of the agony and joy, both, that it is to be a human being, coming into self-knowledge or suffering in its lack. As a matter of fact they make it far better than any discursive writer -- like this one -- can do, and they make it in drama, and they make it in lit, and they make it in living before our eyes, and it is the search for truth ... and whether or not you know, the difference between a good book and a bad book, I don't know -- and I don't know the difference between a good book and a bad book -- but you do know the difference between a true book and a false book. That is the real distinction. And if you will think about it a false book is whoring, or a false book is parroting; or a false book is a book in which the author -- I loved what you said about this this morning, Jane -- you write for yourself. And it goes further: I think you write because of yourself. It is you who are illuminated by what you write; and what is the nature of that illumination? It has one simple name -- although the terms underneath the name are numerous and complicated -- and that is self-knowledge ...

Now, if you take up writing seriously, I can't promise this, but I can hope this: I hope that it will make you profoundly unhappy. I hope that every day will bring you some bad news from the frontier of that unknown territory in which you work. I hope every day you rise up from your desk and say, "God, what a fool I was yesterday!" So that you can say that again tomorrow. And thus write against your life.  

There was a very popular whoring book around lately -- I don't know, it hasn't been for some time, I can't remember when, it was called "I'm Okay" -- uh, something -- "I'm Okay, You're Okay." Oh, what pleasant news. Believe me, you'll never lose money by telling people how nice they are. You'll never lose money by telling people, "Hey! Don't worry about your miserable rotten behavior and your perversions, and your lies, and your thefts! You're okay!" No one will blame you for this, and you may actually do quite well. I don't know about you -- I suspect, but I don't know about you -- however I will tell you this: I am not okay. I am not okay. I do not carefully define my terms when I think. I do not test, rigidly, as though I were a stranger, every one of my quaint and curious notions, prejudices, and beliefs, I do not do this, I am not okay. I lie. Whether I lie to you is none of your damn business; I lie to me, as to what I am and how it is in me. And I am not okay. (And I don't think you're okay either, but all I can do is suspect that.)  

Okayness does not ever come; I'm sure of that. But writing is the path towards it, and it's a path that hurts.  

The main point of the gift of Prometheus (i.e. the gift of mind), I think, is this. He made of us, with that gift -- by the way I'm a literal fundamentalist where the myth of Prometheus is concerned, you'll understand -- but by that gift, he made us absolutely unique in the universe, as far as we know. Before, all blindly floundering on, which is roughly as Aeschylus puts it, we were like the zebras, or the gnus (it's always good to mention the gnus): When bumped from the left, we veered to the right. And when bumped from the right, we veered to the left. We responded, perhaps very successfully as the zebras and the gnus do, matter of fact; but in a sense we lived what I think of as a satellite life. We lived, really, like moons. The moon ... shines. But not of herself. The moon is beautiful, but her beauty is provided for us by another power, the sun. The sun ... the sun does the sun. We do not see the sun by reflected light, we see the sun by its own light, and the day after Prometheus gave us that gift we who were satellites, creatures like others, entirely -- flowing -- where influence came, we became a new creature, something entirely different, all of us. You, you, you did. From having been a moon, you became a sun. The energy is in you. It starts in here. It has its home, its dwelling place, in here. Not in the world. Not in society. Not in your family. Not in your political party. Not in your church -- here is the life, and here is the light. Who of us knows that light? And who of us knows much about it? Damn few.  

Any serious work that a human being does must be looking for this light. And if you don't find this light, you will be able to write, and to be a writer -- either as a parrot or a whore, of course. But you'll never find the truth. Perhaps you'll never miss it, as a matter of fact I think the worst of them don't. But you will miss it. Because I am telling you this. I am a very arrogant schoolteacher; when people sit before me as though they are students, I imagine that they want to hear what I have to say and so I tell them what I have to say, and I tell them that because I have told you this, now you must be different, or deliberately reject some light. Go ahead and do that, if you will. But if you do pursue it, if you take this step from unknowing into knowing, you do walk a dangerous, perhaps even a deadly path; but it's the only path. I encourage no one to do this. But those of you who do it, and will do it, I will tell you this -- and I will tell you this as a command, because you can walk out now before you hear this command, but I'm going to give you this command:  

Don't -- shine.  

Don't seek to shine.  

Burn.

Wow! The first time I read this, I felt like Mitchell was speaking directly to me. He made me realize why I am driven to write: I write to know myself. I write because writing allows me to get my beliefs, values, and feelings out there, on paper (or a screen), at arm's length, so that I can examine them and get to know who I am - and by doing this, become a better person. 

Seneca

At the beginning of this post I mentioned that I used to be obsessed with tracking the number of readers I had, and that this obsession gradually wore off. Somewhere along the way I came across a quotation from Seneca in Letter #7 which explained to me why I became less focused on the number of readers:

Equally good is the answer given by the person, whoever it was (his identity is uncertain), who when asked what was the object of all the trouble he took over a piece of craftsmanship when it would never reach more than a very few people, replied: “A few is enough for me; so is one; and so is none.”

The more I have developed as a writer, the more this statement has resonated with me. All of the writing-motives I've listed here - Stafford's, Mitchell's, and in my case, even Orwell's - are selfish motives. I write primarily for myself, and although there is more potential for constructive criticism when more readers read by writing, the act of writing is something I do by myself, and for myself. Thus, even if nobody reads what I have written - and believe me, I've labored for hours on posts which have never seen the light of day - then the effort was still worthwhile for all of the aforementioned reasons. 

Conclusion

I laughed just now because I know that this is one of the blog posts I write which will get fewer readers than average ... and I really don't care! And that makes me happy! 

Here I have outlined three of my reasons for writing, at this stage of my life. Moreover, my writing of these three reasons is in line with these three reasons. This post was written to make a point about writing (political), and to help me clarify my thoughts about writing (discovery), and to help me come to terms with why I write (self-knowledge). 

That, to my mind, makes this a successful blog post. And with all due respect to my readers, my mind matters to me the most. :)

Richard Mitchell: On Knowing vs. Knowing About

Last week's post from Richard Mitchell's The Gift of Fire reminded me of another of my many favorite ideas from that book. This one is from Mitchell's introduction. Since his introduction is so short and rich with ideas, I have decided to post the entire thing. I would like to call special attention to the three passages I've emphasized in bold towards the end. 

Originally posted in June, 2009.

Artwork: Ancestral Recall, by Ryan Pancoast

Richard Mitchell: On Knowing vs. Knowing About

- Introduction to The Gift of Fire

I SUSPECT THAT THOSE WHO have read some of my other works will be a little surprised by this one. I am a little surprised by this one.

That, in itself, is nothing new. I have never yet written anything, long or short, that did not surprise me. That is, for me at least, the greatest worth of writing, which is only incidentally a way of telling others what you think. Its first use is for the making of what you think, for the discovery of understanding, an act that happens only in language.

I have habitually found it convenient, and perhaps just a little too easy, to look for understanding by paying close attention to failures of understanding, which always take the form of bad language. Just as there is nothing but language in which to make sense, there is nothing but language in which to make nonsense. So, in my works, at least, the examination of sense and nonsense has ordinarily been a sometimes clever and amusing castigation of fools, who can be shown to imagine that they make sense when they don't.

The castigation of fools is, of course, an ancient and honorable task of writers and, unless very poorly done, an enterprise that will usually entertain those who behold it. No matter what else we imagine that we believe about the propriety of compassion for the unfortunate, we do like to see fools exposed. It's funny. And it is not only funny; it is the great theme of Comedy, and a mild, domestic counterpart of the great theme of Tragedy, in which we rejoice, however sadly, to see villains brought down.

So it is that the habitual contemplation of folly, which does not seem to be the worst thing in the world, leads little by little to some consideration of vice, which does seem to be the worst thing in the world. It is troubling to notice that when we are foolish or "only foolish," as we easily deem it, we find ourselves all the more likely to do bad things. And when we can see, as I think I have so often managed to demonstrate, that some very foolish people are in a position to bring the consequences of their folly not only on themselves but on others, we do have the suspicion that something bad is going on. Surely, if we could certainly pronounce certain persons wise, we would think it a good thing to fall under their influence, and it seems only natural and inescapably right to expect some badness from the influence of fools. So it was that I gradually found, in my own considerations of nonsense, less play and more brooding, less glee and more melancholy, and the growing conviction that the silly mind, just as much as the wicked mind, if there is such a thing, makes bad things happen. And my meditations on foolish language, my own included, grew somber and satirical.

Satire is a cunning, landless opportunist who poaches along the borders of the two great realms of Tragedy and Comedy. The hunting is good, no doubt, for the satirist is nourished by folly and vice, of which there is said to be never any shortage. But, perhaps because I was reared in Comedy's fair land, I am not convinced of that. Folly is thick on the ground, no doubt, but where is vice? I know, I truly do know and can demonstrate, just as surely as one can provide a proof in geometry, that certain influential persons, especially in the schools, do bad things to other people. But they are not villains. They do not will badness. On the contrary, probably far more than most of us, they deliberately intend to do good things. And I am certain that they would do good things, if only they could make sense.

But all of that, obviously, could be said of any one of us. Outside of the pages of fantastic fiction, there is no one who says in the heart, I will do evil. We all intend the good, and would, at least often, do it if we could. But we don't always understand what the good is.

That is hardly a new idea. But, while I have known about it for a long time, heard it with the hearing of the ear, as it were, I haven't truly known it. Between those conditions -- knowing about, and knowing -- I think there is a very big difference. The point of this book was, for me, the discovery of that understanding. True education is not knowing about, but knowing. It is the cure of folly and the curb of vice, and our only hope of escaping what Socrates once called "the greatest peril of this our life" -- not sickness or death, as most of us would say, but the failure to make sense about the better and the worse, and thus to choose the wrong one, thinking it the other.

This is, I'm afraid, a presumptuous book. It is a book about how to live by a man who doesn't know how to live, but who has begun to learn that he doesn't know how.