The Intellectual Life

BOOK:
The intellectual life, its spirit, conditions, methods
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THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE
1 Which paragraph motivates you as you pursue an intellectual vocation? You should comment on it.
The paragraph that best motivates me is Para. 3, page (vii). What motivates me is the knowledge that to become an intellectual worker, one must create a zone of silence and cultivate a habit of recollection, renunciation, and detachment (p. vii, Para. 3). Through meditation, I am progressively cultivating an intellectual mindset that is requisite for a successful intellectual vocation. Besides, I am motivated by the fact that through meditation, an intellectual worker is detached from toxic desires and self-will, which are contrary to the state of grace of the intellectual worker.
2. What do you have to give up in your "intellectual life"? How does that make you feel?
Based on para.3, page (vii), the pursuit of intellectual vocation requires that you give up social life. This means cutting down on social relationships in a bid to create a zone of silence. Social detachment is needed to cultivate the intellectual habit of recollection, renunciation, and detachment. Secondly, one has to give up desire and self-will to attain inner silence. This makes me feel that the pursuit of intellectualism is a lonely path. Nevertheless, I feel emboldened and inspired because my greatest life desire is the pursuit of intellectualism. Thus the loss of social life, personal desires, and self-will is, in fact, a blessing in disguise.
3. Which information do you consider "practical"? How do you plan to apply it, if you do?
The information that I find practical is found in the chapter titled, the organization of life (p.41). Firstly, I plan to apply the virtue of simplification throughout my intellectual vocation, and more so in my day-to-day life (p.41). I will apply the principle of solitude to get into a zone of silence. The third tenet of intellectualism is cooperating with one's fellows (p.53). I will cooperate with fellow intellectuals in the pursuit of knowledge. Furtherm...