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Key insights from

Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life

By Zena Hitz

What you’ll learn

What’s the point of knowing the name of a particular flower, or the distance between the sun and the earth? Why does it matter if you can recite the definition of an especially obscure word? In most cases, such bits of trivial knowledge are practically purposeless, gaining the learner no benefit beyond the simple gift of knowing. And yet, this seemingly idle process of thinking is one of the most fulfilling activities anyone can partake in: The indescribable rush that flows from the process of discovering something new is the sustenance of daily life and creates a rewarding and necessarily pointless “intellectual life” thereafter. In a culture that prizes material benefit over inner impact, Professor Zena Hitz reawakens readers to the joys and necessities of this seemingly purposeless, endlessly fulfilling art of thinking.


Read on for key insights from Lost in Thought.

1. Aimless thinking is a source of infinite contentment.

Despite the tangled mesh of every person’s goals and aspirations, a single aim usually overrides the others and organizes life thereafter. According to the author, every person acts within the frame of her “ultimate end,” or a reason for being that undergirds and directs all of her actions. Esteemed thinkers like Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics endeavored to define the “highest good” of these endeavors, or the best goal that fuels a fulfilling image of human life. As Aristotle intuits, this shaping activity and reason for being must stand on its own and reward its practitioners with delight—a break from the seemingly cyclical nature of work. It must be something a person enjoys doing regardless of any external reward or apparent benefit. In order for one to welcome this delight, it must build and eventually dissipate into one deep breath, an edifying activity: leisure.

Aristotle’s leisure isn’t quite the image of the vacationer sprawling out on a golden, sand-covered beach or the off-the-clock employee kicking her feet up after a long day at the office, though. Rather for Aristotle, leisure is much deeper; it’s a cherished activity that tops every person’s day with joy and meaning. According to Aristotle, the surest way to capture that seemingly fleeting sensation called happiness, or eudaimonia in Greek, is found in his favorite past time: “contemplation.” In other words, the seemingly purposeless “intellectual life” and the process of internal learning and deep thinking it facilitates, restores the purpose of life beyond the books it ponders.

Learning in its truest form flourishes solely for itself—outer rewards add nothing to the gift of its being. Reading books and musing on philosophical theories aren’t the only ways to enjoy the offering of learning, though. Take the example of John Baker. By day, Baker worked in an office at the Automobile Association in Essex, but when he was off-the-clock, he enjoyed life as an amateur ornithologist. On his bike, he pedaled himself in the wake of peregrine falcons which he observed with deep thoughtfulness. In 1967, he published a book of his findings called The Peregrine, a work in which he distilled his plentiful analyses into artful expressions of his life’s aim, a life intent on learning and pondering deeply about a topic that probably seemed pointless (if not completely weird) to outsiders. Baker followed his falcons and his thoughts in pursuit of nothing more than a rewarding life.

It might appear odd to follow a flock of falcons on your bike, study an ancient royal lineage, or engage with any topic that doesn’t provide an immediate external benefit, but authentic learning, freed from outer limitations and expectations, engages our humanity to its fullest extent.

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2. Learning isn’t passive—it enables an active search for deep truths in the world and in oneself.

While the flush of joy that accompanies reading a beautiful novel, setting the finishing touches on a difficult equation, or following falcons after work is a key motivator in one’s intellectual pursuits, the activity of thinking requires constant work and mental stamina. Just as the thinker must unlatch her eyes from the endless movement of the world, she must untether her mind from herself and her own fleeting desires, too. The author posits that in this search for truth, and what Aristotle proposed as the “highest good,” thinking becomes a variation of “asceticism.” As such, thinking moves insistent learners to forsake their less beneficial motives or designs in favor of a much deeper and more meaningful reality, an intellectual feat the author terms “the virtue of seriousness.”

The Christian thinker and philosopher Augustine did his own soul-searching throughout a philosophical work he called his Confessions, a poignant appraisal of his own life and humanity at large. Throughout his writing, Augustine tells the tale of his friend Alypius, a man who got hooked on watching the violent rumble of gladiator matches. Augustine attributes his friend’s disturbing, seemingly mindless addiction to what he calls curiositas, or a desire to be entertained by horrific, weird, or simply shallow things. Curiositas isn’t the same as typical curiosity either, rather it’s something the author herself translates to the “love of spectacle.” This malignant form of seeking threatens the depth that true learning upholds—it’s an easy perversion of the more challenging activity of thinking.

Meanwhile, truly authentic learning necessitates “the virtue of seriousness,” a quality of deep and dedicated thought evident in thinkers whom Augustine calls studiosus. These contemplative few travel beyond gladiator matches and social media feeds to discover the truth that lies beneath the shining veneer of life. A studiosus thinker forsakes her “love of spectacle” in order to gain genuine understanding, piercing the surface of constantly streaming, never fulfilling distraction to tap into the reality of truth. Similarly, Augustine’s inner life and his intellectual search for truth enabled him to recognize the deceit of his previously beloved Manichaean religion, which was a vacuous belief system that supported the lifestyle he wanted to live. Augustine’s endeavor to discern truth shifted him away from a facade and toward a much deeper reality—the reality of God. 

Ultimately, Augustine concludes that the human drive to discern, learn, and find true reality, while reveling in the rapture of the process, finds its home in God himself: the arbiter of all truth and the carrier of true contentment. Peering into the deepest caverns of human meaning requires strenuous excavation, in both one’s inner and outer worlds. But the truth that unravels from this serious, wise questioning is endlessly illuminating.

3. The “inner life” is a respite from one world and a gateway to another.

You probably have that friend (if the dreamer isn’t yourself) who seems eternally absent, enamored by some faraway world nobody else can see. According to legend, the genius mathematician Archimedes wiled away at his study, crafting abstruse mathematical proofs while the Romans ravaged the city beyond his dream-encased walls. When one of the invading captors arrived at Archimedes's lair, the consumed thinker greeted him (probably with a brush of the hand), asking that he simply be able to finish his equations. Unfortunately for Archimedes, the Roman soldier wasn’t sympathetic to his intellectual prowess and killed the thinker at his work. While the typical math student or literature professor won’t need to sacrifice his or her life for an academic endeavor, this story encapsulates the simultaneously absorbing and fulfilling activity of thinking—just as learning breaks thinkers from the bounds of one world, the activity builds another, freer world in its wake.

Cultivating an “inner life” through the process of learning involves a thinker’s removal from culture and the world at large. Sometimes this act of leaving one world for another is physical, like in the case of the ardent library-goer, but in other cases it’s simply mental, like in the instance of the unfortunate Archimedes. Learning isn’t simply an empty escape from the mounting concerns, piling pressures, or even the invading Romans of everyday life, though. Learning is an escape with an entryway—fixing one’s mind on an engaging topic, whether that’s mathematics, poetry, or history, relinquishes the pull of negative, degrading aspects of daily life to establish a space that reaffirms the inherent meaning of the individual beyond her place in the world. 

Though the removed nature of the inner life doesn’t always necessitate a physical absence, often remote environments are the most conducive to a flourishing intellectual endeavor. When people picture Albert Einstein, they rightfully envision a genius—a scientific prodigy recognized with equal regard in academia and in culture beyond. Few people know that before this widespread acclaim, Einstein lived in relative scientific seclusion after failing to receive a position in academia. For seven years, the young Einstein worked as a simple patent clerk. In a situation that looked like a deadend, Einstein concocted the ingenious, imaginative scientific theories for which he’s now known.

Though the patent office seemed empty of all higher meaning or a purpose that could propel Einstein into the seemingly more important world of academia, this lack was actually a great freedom—Einstein didn’t have to waste a precious thought worrying about social status, rank, or academic merit. Instead, Einstein’s intellectual imagination roamed unencumbered, focused only on the most pressing matters in his life—his scientific endeavors. Not only did Einstein’s inner life and his truly free, self-directed learning rewrite what looked like defeat, but it also gifted him with the isolation he needed to envision a truer form of reality.

4. Thoughtful learning precedes contemplative living.

The act of learning may seem like a solitary plunge into the deep end of truth, but when approached in the right way—as it is in the process of teaching—it fulfills two of humanity’s deepest needs: that of knowing and that of loving. Augustine writes of these dual desires as beautifully intertwined, each informing and allowing for the other to grow. This is why seemingly pointless learning is absolutely crucial; when learning is sought with the “virtue of seriousness,” new meaning infuses all of life, no matter how mundane. With a mind given to understanding, thinkers are equipped to unravel the truthful reality of all things from literature and scientific theories to culture and individual people.

A Catholic activist and cofounder of the Catholic Worker Movement, Dorothy Day spent her early life reading books and novels of all kinds—the words of Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Charles Dickens lit her imagination and piled into her mind at a young age. The deep, involved thinking with which she approached these works and her inner life gave her insight into human poverty and regard for the individual which her later social work required. Her seemingly useless learning transformed her outlook on the world, prompting a desire in her to change it, a dream that came from a place of humbled, understanding compassion. 

Of her admiration for reading, she noted to her biographer Robert Coles, “I’m not a great one for analyzing those novels; I want to live by them!” For her, books weren’t static collections of passive words—they were invitations that drew her into the eventual work of establishing places of comfort and respite for the homeless and the needy. Day’s commitment to true thinking and reflection enabled her to witness the holes in reality that needed filling, encouraging her to stretch her inner life to the outside lives of those she truly loved.

While Day sat in prison after participating in a protest for women’s suffrage, she read the Psalms. Between the Bible’s poignant stanzas, she glimpsed the truth of the human experience of which she was a part. Her contemplative reading blessed her with the ability to understand and empathize with the people around her, the inmates who were fraught by greater pain and darker situations than she herself had ever experienced. This is the selfless, life-sustaining reward of a life of learning: Deeper compassion for others, authentic understanding of human hardships, and a directing compass to truthful living. Learning is endlessly fulfilling in its own rite, but it doesn’t end at the individual—just as there’s always another book to be read, there’s always another life for learning to impact.

5. The seemingly pointless life of thinking must be preserved for education to exist.

Not even learning is free from the threat of subversion. The same activity that unlatches thinkers from the outer world often gets tangled up in some of culture’s more dishonest desires. What should be a selfless stretching toward truth morphs into a duplicitous grab for material gain, social superiority, and self-importance. The intrusion of politics into the learning process is equally malignant, and its movement into higher academia is especially dangerous both to social justice and to education as a whole. When learning is wielded as a weapon of political ambition, its purpose and impact grow mute—the free process of learning devolves into “opinionization,” or a bumper sticker belief system that usurps active contemplation. 

Though social justice movements are undeniably necessary and well-intentioned, academia often employs these causes in ways that are harmful to both parties involved. The repetition of trending buzzwords and hot button topics makes real issues crumble into meaningless sayings. Moreover, as institutions and people exploit these concerns, they build yet another exclusionary social ladder. When politics enters higher education, the author writes that “the contemplative life and the life of action or the life of political service becomes blurred.” Academia isn’t the realm for this kind of social purpose—learning is authentic and guided by truth only when it's untethered from agendas and external purposes.

Moreover, academia’s flawed self-image is at the core of this conflation. According to the author’s own experience, the fear of many academics (at one point or another) is the abyss of futility. With so much pain, cruelty, and injustice in the world, what business does a literature professor have in analyzing an obscure poem, and what difference does it make whether a chemistry major can recite the periodic table in order? These pursuits seem entirely purposeless, and sometimes, even selfish—a more useful identity and way of being must be sought. The desire to use one’s education for “making a difference” begins with pure motives, but it often misconstrues the purpose of learning and the vocation of the university therein.

Similarly, as esteemed professors and intellectual elites vie for better paying positions that provide more time for traveling and research, the purpose of teaching is thrown by the wayside. According to a 2016 study, nearly 75% of higher education instructors in the U.S. were poorly-paid, overworked adjunct professors instructing swarms of students in crowded lecture halls. As universities bend toward the lure of social power, the purposeless purpose of education is lost and the life of thinking suffers. 

Learning isn’t about a political agenda or a particular job title—when the desire to think grows entangled with the dream of esteem and influence, education falls from its life-giving role and begins to lead culture nowhere. Education must rediscover its identity as a noble, uplifting service passed from teacher to student in order for the gift of learning and the intellectual life to recapture thinkers and reinvigorate reality with deep truth.

The next time you turn off the news to pick up a novel, clamber through a quiet library in search of a particular book, or sip your coffee while talking with a loved one, remember the gift we each may enter into if we wish—a beautiful, shared weaving toward truth: the gift of thinking.

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