Intoxicated with God

“Where we had thought 

to travel outward, 

we shall come to 

The Centre of Our Own Existence. 

And where we had thought 

to be alone, 

we shall be 

with all The World.”

-- Joseph Campbell

" It's key to understand that to be A Hermit in this society does not necessarily mean that you have nothing to do with people. 

People start to want to find you, because you must have special power. Back in Alexandria, their baby is sick. 

"Maybe you, oh hermit, living on locusts and out in the desert, have some spiritual power to help my baby."

This is Shamanism. It happens in all sorts of religions. 

You can't just be A Shaman, 

a medicine man, a wise man, 

and hold down a 

regular old job. 

Or you can, but it helps. And that's the conceit of a lot of TV ideas, secret heroes. They're the real estate agents, but they're battling the forces of darkness. 

But generally, most of the time, 

you've got to be special, 

and you've got to look special. 

And you've got 

to be a reject. 

You can't have a spouse, kids, 

a mortgage, a garden, a swing set. 

You've got to be A Seer. 

You've got to have 

Your Vision focused 

on The Other World.

Ponticianus tells Augustine about these men, and his response is not only to be impressed by them, but to be humiliated by them. 

First of all, here are these guys who are intoxicated with God, while I'm still thinking about My Career. But -- and this is the ancient world speaking -- they are uneducated, these monks of Egypt. 

They didn't study The Republic, the Hortensius, the Timaeus, the rhetoric of Quintilian, the Satires of Juvenal.

They don't know anything about this. 

They're uneducated people. Many of them are illiterate. And yet they are closer to God. 

They have an apprehension of The Divine that causes them to Renounce The World, whereas we -- Augustine says of him and his circle -- we "lie here groveling in this world of flesh and blood, while they storm The Gates of Heaven." 

And this is the moment of his conversion. "

The Art of Study is Not a Voluntary Gulag

Because it's unnatural.

Why would you even want to..?

What are you, Asian..?

...'cause if you don't practice, then you might as well give The Clarinet to a kid who'll use it.

Kim's mother called me just after he left her. 

Delightful woman. He's her only son. 

He'd left his clarinet behind. 

She wanted to know if she had time to send it. 

I had to tell her no. 

I think (1) you can't do it and (2) you shouldn't try. No one can actually study that much. It is very rare for people to be able to concentrate  hard for more than three hours a day.

However, if you absolutely must....

1. Don't study more than 7.5 hours a day. You will just wear yourself out. More won't help. You can't learn when you are exhausted.
2. Take a day off per week. Do something you like on that day. You are in this for the long haul, so you can't wear yourself out. That would be counter-productive. Your job is to learn, not to prematurely die trying.
3. Make a plan. What knowledge is most critical in each of the subjects? First, concentrate only on that. Imagine that you are first planning to obtain the easiest 50% in each study area.
4. Study from low to high resolution. Familiarize yourself with the central ideas of the study areas. Then, and only then, concentrate on the details. This means that you have to broadly outline the study domain, as if you were summarizing it in essay format. I have produced a guide to such an outlining process here: http://jordanbpeterson.com/Psy43...
5. Nap. A lot. Study for 2.5 hours. Take a break. Eat something. Do something mindless, like watching a Simpson's episode. Then have a nap. That will refresh you, and also increase the probability that you will remember what you have studied. Sleeping helps consolidate memory.
6. Study one topic for 2.5 hours. Then switch to another. Continue.
7. Read. Then put down the book. Then summarize what you have read. Don't look at what you were reading when you summarize. You have to practice recall, not repeatedly expose yourself to the same material. You are practicing remembering. That's what makes you good at remembering. Going over the material ad nauseum won't work. It just feels like work, without any of the actual difficulty of work (or the benefits). Don't highlight or underline or anything useless and self-deceptive like that.