Thinking is Uncomfortable but Exciting

Eric Havelock

by Cal Newport, Study Hacks Blog: http://calnewport.com/blog/2014/12/30/thinking-is-uncomfortable-but-exciting/

Thoughts on Thinking

“Thinking [is] a very special type of psychic activity, very uncomfortable, but also very exciting …”

This quote comes from the influential twentieth century classicist, Eric Havelock.

It’s taken from a book in which Havelock argues that the invention of writing in the ancient world was a prerequisite for the activity we now call “thinking” (he’s talking here about thought in its most rigorous form in which we embrace abstraction and attempt to understand truths beyond specific concrete encounters with the world).

What strikes me is that Havelock describes demanding cognition as both uncomfortable and exciting.

These two adjectives sum up well the sometimes complicated experience of deep work. This activity is not fun in the sense that it can cause mental strain and discomfort, but at the same time, the rewards it produces are richer than anything that the addictive digital bazaars of the attention economy can offer.

I don’t have a specific suggestion to offer here. This is just a meditation to keep in mind as we enter a season of New Year’s resolutions and begin to ask, as we do most Januarys, how we should define a working life well lived …
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The quote comes from pages 283-284 in the 2009 Harvard University Press edition of Havelock’s influential Preface to Plato. It was first brought to my attention by James Gleick’s ambitious 2011 book, The Information.