Cultivating a Life of the Mind Out of School

On book clubs, reading, and writing

Photo by Gülfer ERGİN on Unsplash

I hate the summer. I shouldn’t. Like most teachers, I work long hours during the school year¹ so that I can have the summers free to read, write, and spend time with family (and nap). But inevitably, I feel a crash when the semester ends. Because during the semester I go from having a vibrant intellectual community of students and colleagues and then, poof, they’re gone. Scattered across the country and even the globe for the summer and sometimes for good (in the case of graduates who don’t return or write to tell me how they are doing). That’s a strange and jarring experience. Historically I have struggled mentally during these breaks because of the loss of a regular work schedule. But I think it’s also difficult because I lose one of my primary intellectual communities.

Thankfully, I still have my wonderful wife and a few friends to discuss ideas with, but I still miss the educational community when it’s gone. And I know that many students feel similarly. Graduating students feel this acutely. They get used to four years of interesting conversations with friends about books and ideas and then enter the “workforce” to discover that most people don’t want to have meaningful conversations. They just want to get through their day. Or at least it seems that way. And for many people who have left school, the struggle to stay engaged with the life of the mind really is a struggle. I think the popularity of certain corners of Substack is a testament to this, to a longing to read and wrestle with ideas in a less distracting and more directed manner. Perceived the wrong way, banality of everyday life can suffocate any creative or intellectual energy you have. Between dishes, diapers, and work, staying mentally engaged feels exhausting. You’ll be lucky to watch a sitcom before falling asleep. And yet, at the same time, you miss the life of the mind. So, what can you do after school to cultivate the life of the mind? What kinds of habits and practices can you develop to enrich your life without adding unreasonable to the burdens of Things You Need to Do? In this article, I’ll give some practical advice about how to enrich your mind.