I grew up in a fairly conservative religious community that abhorred study and praised ignorance, in a way. From this assumption folks would often quote in my general direction of the making of books there is no end. They believed along what Asimov said of many Americans: that my ignorance is as good as anyone else’s knowledge. It’s a dignity statement, in the end. It means something like, “I’m a human with my own feelings, my own thoughts, my own opinions, all of which are valid so affirm my existence.”

The problem comes when this insistence on personal dignity mutates into some kind of insistence on rational integrity. They aren’t the same. 

I understand that the rational capacity of any given person is up to the task of puzzling out existence and beauty and truth and love. It’s enough. And I also understand — and advocate for — the mutual humanity and dignity of every human soul. But let’s be honest: ignorance is not wisdom and foolishness is not knowledge.

Common sense is both common and uncommon, since we all have the capacity to reason and grow up with innate conscience in our innocence, yet sense is something one must steward. Certain institutions have been thinking about thinking for far longer than other institutions. Because of this, not all words of wisdom are created equal for the same reason that not all sightseeing leads to insight, not all heard sounds come from master composers, not all tastes follow from the hands of master chefs. The other senses are just as — perhaps moreso — common than Common Sense. Yet they are not stewarded equally across individuals in society, nor yield uniform experiences within the individual, moment to moment.

You don’t trust all people practicing the scientific method to do science, all witch doctors with medicine, all readers of the law with adjudicating your court case. Why would you trust exceedingly recent philosophical institutions with the storehouse of wisdom? Particularly from individuals who seem to believe their reading of the text is better than literal millennia of folks who have read the same text otherwise?

One of the verses these anti-intellectual types often quote comes from the book of Ecclesiastes, the book of proverbial wise sayings and truisms penned by King Solomon the Wise of ancient Israel. After this whole rather nihilistic book of sayings, he said, “Of making many books there is no end and much study wearies the body.” 

This got thrown at me a lot early on. 

It got thrown at me for being a boy who reads in a community where little boys don’t read outside of the classroom. At least not without ending up on the receiving end of mockery.

It got thrown at me for going to college where reading and logic and rhetoric were the main focus, rather than, say, middle management, finance, or engineering. 

And then again at that very same college for taking a more studious path than what was “practical.” 

For writing outside of class for fun.

And then for aspiring to make many books from out of my experiences within and without all of the above communities. 

Eventually for publishing them. One whom I later mentored told me that if I can’t sell a hundred copies, it isn’t worth publishing. I laughed: some of the greatest manuscripts in history only sold one or two copies for centuries until they were discovered. Hell, most of Bach’s musical scores were used as wrapping paper originally. I use “hell” here advisedly.

The funny thing is, it’s true: there is no end to making books. It’s actually something that New York’s publisher’s row and Amazon are quite good at: books are freaking commodities at this point in human history, a thought that would have baffled our forebears who had to scrabble and scrape for parchment and quill. 

And in a way, much study does weary the body. Recently it hit me how thin I had spread myself in my study — of dabbling in The Intelligent Investor and The Complete Book of Etiquette and some tractates on philosophy and psychology and theology and then the literature and fantasy and eventually they all start to mash up into a weird sort of stew.

Now I’ve thrived on this for years, right? The whole referencing obscure things so that even though a person might know a thing or two about one field, they can’t possibly know them all.

But it’s tiresome.

It’s tiresome for me because that kind of well doesn’t go very deep in any one particular area. 

And it’s tiresome for experts because they can easily see through it. If I don’t know much about the one thing they know a ton about, why on earth would they trust me to know something about the subjects on which they remain ignorant?

So it grew tiresome.

And you want to quit studying all together.

But here’s the thing: that verse was cherry picked out of a whole context that the community I grew up in always ignored. Here’s the whole paragraph from the man after whom Saruman the Wise was named:

Not only was the Teacher wise, but also he imparted knowledge to the people, He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs. The Teacher searched to find just the right words and what he wrote was upright and true. The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails — given by one Shepherd. Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them. Of making many books there is no end and much study wearies the body. Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing whether it is good or evil. 

It’s funny because that “making of books there is no end and much study wearies the body” line happens in the midst of a tradition. It comes after this guy has basically said he sought out the wisest, truest, highest good of all of the words said. He calls them “firmly embedded nails” that goad us on. And that we should be warned of adding to them because (1) we can make books forever, but it’s hard to add to the tradition of the wise and (2) because it’s tiresome to do so. It takes work.

In other words, the tradition matters because however common our sense, for us to say anything sensible at all, we need to know in what sense what we say has a history to it. We’re not merely seeing a tree, we’re seeing that tree of that species: what’s its history? We’re not merely hearing a symphony, we’re hearing that symphony by that man: who were his mentors and influences? To whom is he responding? It matters where we come from and whether we know what the best things ever written or said were. It matters that we steep ourselves in the ideas of the great sages and wizards of the past. (If Moses was anything, he was a wizard). It matters because the sayings of the wise both goad and root us, that we may be both prodded and shod. 

As I wrote in Old Books > New Books, it matters that we know the tradition because without it we’re blind to our reputation and to whether we’re adding anything to the conversation. You want to get a masters in organizational management? Good for you: but have you read Plato’s Republic and Confucius and Sun Tzu? Without them, you might find your “mastery” has little to add and may well be indiscernible from mere advanced apprenticeship. Someone must steer us. Something must bind us to reality. 

And that takes study. It takes reading the old books. Not studying — as I did — any new fad or thought that comes along. Not making — as I have — books that simply add to the filler. But that we carry on the deep and old and wise knowledge of our ancestors and add to it what little we may and warn ourselves of adding to them. 

So I’m spending my morning reading time trying to learn the western tradition. It’s slow, grueling work. And it’s so, so rewarding.

Because ultimately, the saying by the guy after whom Saruman the Wise was named ends that we must seek the highest good, the highest and noblest beauty and truth, the ultimate reality. 

And the way forward and up and into that ultimate reality is first to turn towards the past.

So I’ll be giving much study in the days ahead. Not to new books or interesting subjects or whatever passing fad grabs everyone’s fancy.

But the Western and Eastern Canons of Literature. 

And that alone — the wisdom and highest good within — will power me to make books and keep my body from being old and weary. 

Of the making of books there is no end and much study wearies the body, but the greatest works of the tradition written by the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails — given by one Shepherd. Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them.

You know what the jack of all trades specializes in? 

Human experience. Connecting people. 

Even that sort of anthropological writing has a tradition. 

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