An online commonplace book
Learn a craft is what I suggest to young writers who contact the Idler: carpentry or blacksmithing or gardening or upholstery; such pursuits sit alongside the life of the mind very well. It is wise reject utterly as a piece of bourgeois propaganda the oppressive aphorism ‘jack of all trades and master of none’. No: you can do lots of things. You can chop wood and carry water and write poems. You can combine small holding with software design. One Idler reader is a classical tuba player who is also a trained plasterer. He loves both and both earn him an income. Why limit yourself to one small field?
Encouraging words to all the jack of all trades out there. But I’ve found great satisfaction in focusing on one discipline deeply, for an extended amount of time. How else can one become a classical tuba player or trained plasterer?
Hodgkinson, Tom. The Freedom Manifesto: How to Free Yourself from Anxiety, Fear, Mortgages, Money, Guilt, Debt, Government, Boredom, Supermarkets, Bills, Melancholy, Pain, Depression, Work, and Waste. United States: HarperCollins, 2013. pg47
You don’t have to do things others do, or have things they have, at the expense of the deeper things you want. You really don’t. Almost everything is an option. You have full permission to ask yourself what really matters to you—whatever that is—and then optimize for that in all hard tradeoffs of life. You’re going to have to make some sacrifices anyway. Might as well not sacrifice the wrong thing.
– Henrik Karlsson
Public service reminder.
Pull out a legal pad or an index card and write down what a meaningful day would like. What work would you do? Where would you live? How would you get around? Who do you hang out with?
Or shoot, any method of documenting your aims and desires could work.
It’s making the quiet time to think that matters.
Beautiful essay. Link below.
Karlsson, Henrik. “Don’t Sacrifice the Wrong Thing.” Escaping Flatland (blog), 2024. https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/sacrifice.
The miles seem interminable in this godforsaken stagecoach – only an Abraham could believe it otherwise! – and Kierkegaard’s fellow passengers look as wretched as he feels. But who knows, perhaps each one of them is, this very moment, giving thanks to God in silent prayer – for we can never see another person’s inward labour, nor know all the joys and sorrows stirring in another soul. Kierkegaard, for his part, is stiff, sore and shattered, and prays only that the coach will soon reach Stralsund.
This passage is an example of Clare Carlisle’s travel narrator technique she deploys in Philosopher of the Heart. It’s a literary technique I’ve not come across in biography before. “Travel narrator” is also a made up phrase. I just made it up.
Back to the passage:
It dips between present and past tense. It briefly explores the inner-life. And if you sit back and imagine, you can picture Kierkegaard on the coach while the narration plays in the background.
Carlisle, Clare. Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard. United States, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. pg42
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study paintings, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain
– John Adams
We’ve arrived at that day John Adams mentions here. Fascinating, that as generations progress art becomes the focus of study. Are we wasting the opportunity?
McCullough, David. John Adams. Simon & Schuster, 2001. pg 237
Kierkegaard insists that religious faith requires ‘a paradoxical and humble courage’, a virtue quite different from the dubious sacrificial heroism he aspired to in relation to Regine. A connoisseur of anxiety, he knows that fear is the great enemy in the spiritual life – and that courage is required to overcome it. ‘Do not be afraid,’ Jesus constantly told his disciples: he saw how fear contracted their hearts, preventing them from loving or receiving love; how it made them flee from the loss that follows human love like a shadow. Courage is traditionally understood as strength of heart – like the bravery of a soldier who faces the danger of battle – but on the battlefield of existence hearts must be open as well as strong if they are to become fully human, and this is why Mary and Abraham are among the greatest spiritual exemplars.
Philosopher of the Heart is the gateway book to Søren Kierkegaard. Clare Carlisle structures the book where each chapter is a different stage in Kierkegaard’s journey. The subject of courage continues to crosshatch my readings. A sign from the universe perhaps?
I’m open to it.
Carlisle, Clare. Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard. United States, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020. pg49
The scents of the dressing-room were changed and mixed with the rich incense-like smoke, and Mama was not protesting by even so much as sniffing. That alone was enough to show that Uncle Ralph was in a class by himself. Then he was wearing tweeds, strong and tangy and almost fox-coloured, which were a little baggy here and there, but blended beautifully with the darker foxiness of Uncle Ralph’s hair and the redder foxiness of his moustache. Christopher had seldom seen a man in tweeds or without whiskers. This did even more to assure him that Uncle Ralph was someone special. As a final touch, Uncle Ralph smiled at him like a sunlight on an autumn forest.
I lied.
It only took twenty one pages. Diana Wynn Jones’s description of Uncle Ralph is exquisite, funny, and full of original detail.
redder foxiness of his moustache. Come on.
Lastly, the Brits really know how to spell moustache. Part mouse, part stash.
Get over yourself American spellcheck!
Jones, Diana Wynne. The Lives of Christopher Chant. United Kingdom: HarperCollins Publishers Limited, 2008. pg21
“On board all day, reading Don Quixote,”
– John Adams
This from a single diary entry by John Adams on May 18, 1779. I believe he was aboard the Alliance, waiting for passage back to America. Remember your diary entries don’t have to be long to be remembered over one hundred years on.
McCullough, David. John Adams. Simon & Schuster, 2001. pg 215
“You got to tilt a windmill sometimes.”
– Palmer Luckey
It’s called “Planned Obsolescence” . A phrase I didn’t know existed. It’s the number one killer of great products every year.
This is for all the super hardcore turbo nerds out there.
Christopher sighed thankfully and settled down to enjoy being an invalid. He drew pictures, he ate grapes, he read books, and he spun out his illness as long as he could. This was not easy. The next morning his wound was only a round itchy scab, and on the third day it was hardly there at all. On the fourth day, the Last Governess made him get up and have lessons as usual; but it had been lovely while it lasted.
It took seventy pages before I uncovered the first bit from The Lives of Christopher Chant I wanted to capture. A few things:
1. This is my itinerary for the next time I fall ill – Draw pictures, read books, eat grapes.
2. Diana Wynn Jones labels Christopher an invalid during his recovery. Haha.
3. Seventy pages in, I’m not sure where this story is going.
Jones, Diana Wynne. The Lives of Christopher Chant. United Kingdom: HarperCollins Publishers Limited, 2008. pg71
Floodlights and Goalposts 