Desultory: marked by lack of definite plan, regularity, or purpose.
Defn. from Merriam-Webster
When Lucilius wrote to Seneca in a letter about how much he likes reading books from various authors, Seneca replies with a letter that explains how injurious it is to the mind being a desultory reader. According to Seneca, a man’s ability to stop where he is and pass some time in his own company shows how ordered his mind is. He says, “Tearing yourself from place to place is symptomatic of a sick mind.” Upon reading this, the first thing that I could relate to was my thought process; how I think of doing a lot of things, and in return, it makes me unsettled.
My experience
I remember when I used to stick to one thing and the peace it used to bring me. One of the reasons why I used to stick to learning just one thing at a time was because I didn’t know much about the world. I was just a child who had one goal in mind and I had to achieve it. Now, when I spend some time learning something, my mind usually diverts to a more interesting tangent. It’s like a ladder that keeps branching, and I always take the new branch. Whenever I realize this, my mind panics and I start thinking about where I would have been having not gone off that tangent. Upon reading this letter I realized that when I am desultory, I neither understand the original topic nor the tangential one.
Importance of being a specialist
Seneca tells Lucilius, “To be everywhere is to be nowhere.” That’s why he suggests to Lucilius that he should extend his stay among writers whose genius is unquestionable in order to derive constant nourishment for the mind. He argues that our minds are like plants. If you keep moving a plant from one place to another, it won’t grow as much as it would have, had it been at the same place. I agree with that. If someone does this to their mind, it would become the jack of all trades but master of none. Nothing can be useful if we have just gone through it in passing. We know that in today’s world, there are a lot of people who can do a lot of things in a mediocre manner. What nations and businesses need are people who specialize; people who know their stuff and are able to make decisions that could potentially affect millions of lives.
Conclusion
Seneca concludes the letter by suggesting Lucilius that he should go back to the same authors he had read before and read their books again if he feels like wanting change. I believe this is what we as a society should do as well. I have learned a lot of things and completed a lot of courses on sophisticated technologies but I can hardly recall any of them. On one hand, I always feel like I should learn new technologies like Blockchain and Quantum Computing. But on the other hand, the things that I already know are slowly vanishing from my mind. Reading this letter was like a wake-up call for me, and I hope you have also gotten a gist of why being desultory in anything can only lead to being mediocre.
Your views can differ from mine, but if you found the points made in this post reasonable then please share this with your family and friends. It would mean a lot to me! You’ll also find an entire series where I talk about stoicism from Seneca’s perspective and how it can or cannot be accommodated in our modern lives here. Have a look; you’ll definitely find something that stimulates your mind. Thanks a lot for reading!
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