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/lit/ - Literature

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10886820 No.10886820 [Reply] [Original]

>''The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company. Be careful, however, lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady. You must linger among a limited number of master-thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind. Everywhere means nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends. And the same thing must hold true of men who seek intimate acquaintance with no single author, but visit them all in a hasty and hurried manner. Food does no good and is not assimilated into the body if it leaves the stomach as soon as it is eaten; nothing hinders a cure so much as frequent change of medicine; no wound will heal when one salve is tried after another; a plant which is often moved can never grow strong. There is nothing so efficacious that it can be helpful while it is being shifted about. And in reading of many books is distraction.''

>''Accordingly, since you cannot read all the books which you may possess, it is enough to possess only as many books as you can read. “But,” you reply, “I wish to dip first into one book and then into another.” I tell you that it is the sign of an overnice appetite to toy with many dishes; for when they are manifold and varied, they cloy but do not nourish. So you should always read standard authors; and when you crave a change, fall back upon those whom you read before. Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested each day. This is my own custom; from the many things, which I have read, I claim some one part for myself.''

Was he right? Being an ADHD-afflicted subhuman retard I find myself doing the exact thing he warned against, jumping from one subject/era to the next, never gaining any deeper understanding or appreciation for any particular category of literature. How does one deal with this inclination?

>> No.10888281

>>10886820
Yes he was right. Its better to stick to some authors and fully understand them.
How about if u stick only with seneca for a while? he is pretty good

>> No.10888436

What trite, trivial, banal garbage

>> No.10888518

>>10888436
you too

>> No.10888665

He's right about there being a tradeoff between depth and breadth, but maybe if he had more breadth he'd be able to give better diet advice.

>> No.10889220

I'm the same with languages. I've learned a respectable amount of a good half-dozen different languages, but none at a truly deep level. I'd love to understand how it feels to assimilate a language so completely that it becomes a part of myself, but I don't know if I have the strength to choose one.

>> No.10889254

>>10886820
better to be a jack of all trades and master of none,
than to be just a master of one.

>> No.10890108

I think reading a wider variety gives you more ideas and a better understanding of things then only listening to a few people.

>> No.10890191

-10888436
Yes, I agree, shallow and pedantic

>> No.10890210

It's wrong though. Master knowledge on one thing still needs some supplementary breath.

>> No.10891019

>>10888436
why?

>> No.10891238

>>10889254
Yeah, better to be half assed pseud dumb nigger like you that produces nothing of value in his entire life and can't provide any cohesive thought about any of the topics that he "learned" since he doesn't understand shit about them than properly studying one field(for example epistemology), gaining profound understanding in it and producing your own work.

>> No.10891329

>>10891238

You can produce a lot of things of value while being a jack of all trades. We're humans, not ants. Not that angry little simpletons like you would understand.

>> No.10891362

>>10886820
no this is slavish reatraint dionysian nomadic consciousness is upright anything else is debased

>> No.10891453
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10891453

>>10886820
I think he's stating an ought where he should consider a fact. You are raised by those that want you only to be nourished and then you rebel by gorging, and slowly you find either an edifying balance, a la Epicuriuan moderation, or continue gorging on novelty, though even then selective in what fare fills your banquet table. People over time come to define themselves more and more selectively within their pleasures and leisure, declare themselves by smacking lips and loud burps, consuming their pacman path to being. If you don't believe me, you should watch a driving lesson video where the beginners field of vision is compared to an advanced drivers. Developing tunnel vision to your task while maintain your route is natural.

Seneca would not have done well instructing teenage boys....

>> No.10891470

>>10888436
B8 or Pseud?

>> No.10891499

>open thread
>oh another dead white cismale
>close thread

>> No.10891600

>>10891329
No, you can't. Tell me about single field in which you can produce a meaningul paper without being master in it.

>> No.10891617

>>10891600
all of the humanities and if high iq probably maths and biology

>> No.10891628

>>10891617
give an example

>> No.10891637

>>10891617
You won't produce anything of value in math without studying it in university. All of the fields are HIGHLY specific and you have to follow all the new papers(there are more than one written every day) in your field in order to stay on track. Look at this as an example of ammount of papers produced every day in one of them: https://arxiv.org/list/math.AT/recent..
You don't know what you are talking about.

>> No.10891665

>>10888436
Agreed

>> No.10891672

>>10889220
What books can outline the shared structure/axioms of the various languages?

>> No.10891679

>>10891637
same with any subject. At least with math or music you could be like an Isaac Newton type prodigy who can do calculus when youre 3. With other topics theres literally no chance outside of the higher education system.
*you/we are talking to a 14 year old who's seen 3 Jordan Peterson videos and thinks he's an intellectual

>> No.10891711

>>10891637
It's a trade off. There are many fields in stem that lose themselves in overspecialization. Errors accumulate upon errors and nobody can see them since they are autists like Seneca who follow the tree to the end of the branch without breaking off their own. At the same time you have to follow the math to a suitable point at least before you can break off your own logic chain. So for example, somebody who knows nothing beyond undergrad calculus won't make it, but neither will some autist who learns M theory b/c it's what he's supposed to do, and is promptly sucked into the black hole of meaningless and flawed math. You have to have both perspective and agency, in any field.

>> No.10891735

>>10891711
Yes, but you won't produce a single paper in math without having at least bachelors. Period. What you are talking about is specializing in something while still paying attention to other things. It's not being "jack of all trades and master in none".
>Errors accumulate upon errors and nobody can see them since they are autists like Seneca who follow the tree to the end of the branch without breaking off their own.
[citation needed].
That's not what Seneca said by the way. He said that you should follow each writer until you get a decent understanding of his ideas and then move on the next one.

>> No.10891740

>>10891637
this is retarded someone could just steal the papers and do work in their free time who is more competent than the bugs at uni, and you completely ignored the social sciences, humanities and bio
>>10891679
wow so smart awe man im just a 13 yrar old peterson dweeb who don’t know nuthing

>> No.10891754

>>10891740
You clearly have no understanding of how much things changes in acamedia in the last century. You are romanticizing people like Newton and Darwin. It's not like that anymore. Show me a single person who has accomplished anything in math or biology in the last 30 years without having any formal education.

>> No.10891765

>>10891754
to be fair, almost all "advances" in the past 30 years have come from people using more and more powerful computing to demonstrate things that were conceptually developed decades ago. science is pretty much dead

>> No.10891773

>>10891740
>do work in their free time
name one

>> No.10891780

>>10891740
You have absolutely zero formal education, or experience of higher education, do you?

>> No.10891785

>>10891765
The only field where that happened is machine learning. And it was starting point for switching from other problem solving paradigms to data driven ones where it seemed more fit. Pure math has no concern with computing powers whatsoever.

>> No.10891790

>>10891785
This, no computer in existence, or anything even conceivable in the near future, is capable of making any contribution to pure math.

>> No.10892902

>Seneca on everything else

Why does everyone go on and on about Memeditations when Moral Letters makes so much more sense as an introduction to stoicism?