I have a friend with whom I speak English even though English is neither his mother tongue nor mine. He is worse at it than I am. But I am fascinated by his word choices. Constrained as they are, they kind of wake me up. For example, ”… and I will be sitting here, at the same table, with the same people, and we will just speak about other things” (like going into crime). And I would look at “the same table”, on which we are having dinner, and feel more alert than a moment before. He would never invite me to “speak about other things”… but he would be sitting in the same chair.
I think there are generally three ways to get intellectually active. The first one is to be a professional. The second one is to be inspired. And the third one is to have a preference for simplicity, strong enough that you would want there to be a more streamlined way of doing something. You would not even need to think about it in words. It’s enough to recognise it when you see it, it just flips a switch.
I have a friend with whom I speak English even though English is neither his mother tongue nor mine. He is worse at it than I am. But I am fascinated by his word choices. Constrained as they are, they kind of wake me up. For example, ”… and I will be sitting here, at the same table, with the same people, and we will just speak about other things” (like going into crime). And I would look at “the same table”, on which we are having dinner, and feel more alert than a moment before. He would never invite me to “speak about other things”… but he would be sitting in the same chair.
I think there are generally three ways to get intellectually active. The first one is to be a professional. The second one is to be inspired. And the third one is to have a preference for simplicity, strong enough that you would want there to be a more streamlined way of doing something. You would not even need to think about it in words. It’s enough to recognise it when you see it, it just flips a switch.