Lebenskünstler

Such a vision of the work of the mind leaves it open to anyone that has a desire for it. Intellectual life is not merely professional activity, to be left to experts. Because its central goods are good universally, it belongs in taxicabs, at the beach house or the book club, in the break room at work, in the backyard of the amateur botanist, in thoughtful reflection wheter scattered or disciplined, as much or more than it does at universities.

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…Aristotle argued that there must be something beyond work – the use of leisure, for the sake of which we work and without which our work is vain. Leisure is not merely recreation, which we might undertake for the sake of work – to relax or rest before beginning to labor anew, Rather, leisure is an inward space whose use could count as the culmination of all our endeavors. For Aristotle, only contemplation – the activity of seeing and understanding and savoring the world as it is – could be the ultimately satisfying use of leisure.

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We might recognize from the combination of withdrawal and inwardness that we are looking at a form of leisure, a way of being that lies beyond work, at a form of activity that is worthwhile for its own sake and that could constitute the culmination of a life.

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Collecting garbage is a form of service, just as producing comedy is. That comparison should begin to suggest to us just how superficial and how hostile to the interests of humanity our notion of “making a difference” really is.

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…One of the diseases of our spectacle-riddled culture is that we forget that the invisible life has all the human splendor of the visible one, and often more. I have had in mind all along, and have applied where possible, the humble bookworm, the amateur naturalist, the contemplative taxi driver. If you, like me, are naturally drawn to achievement, collect examples of ordinary thinkers – human beings whose splendor is only known to a few, their family, their neighbors, their coworkers. Settle back in awe from time to time, as I do, in thinking about the vast treasury of thought and experience that will never be available to us.