Look guys, this is going to suck

I heard an interview with a philosophy professor who framed this approach to work in a useful way.

Her advice to students during orientation week was this.

These are not easy reads. And they’re not going to train you in philosophy. But they will put you into contact with the ideas that are beautiful and worth studying. You have to sweat through the training of your mind to get there. It’s not like you start reading philosophy and you get sucked in. It’s more like training for a marathon.

You have to slowly agonize when you’re completely unfit. It sucks. It’s not like you just run a little bit, and it feels great. And then you run a little bit more, and it feels great. Then somehow you get to twenty six miles. It doesn’t work that way. Welcome to philosophy kids!

This professor’s warning to her students resonates with me deeply.

God, I would have loved to have an instructor flat out tell me on the first day of class, look guys, this is going to suck. You are going to hate this. But that’s the only way you’re going to get better. So buckle up buckos, and get ready to sweat.

Hey, at least that would be honest. At least students would go into the semester with a little perspective. That way, six weeks into the work, when nineteen year olds are racking their brain trying to figure out what the hell an infinite regression is, they could pause for a moment and think:

Oh right, she did say this was going to suck. And she was right. I really do hate this. But I think that’s kinda the point. Dang it. Well, whatever. Onward.

Ultimately, I don’t think that’s a masochist mindset. Merely realistic. Believe me, I try to optimize my life for comfort and joy whenever possible. I set boundaries like nobody’s business. And I am a huge proponent of paying a minor cost for something that is disproportionate to the massive value you get in return.

I mean, I published a book called, Pay The Sanity Tax. It’s always worth it.

Then again, that book was also three hundred thousand words long. I woke up at the ass crack of dawn every day for a year to write that opus. And according to my most recent royalty statement, I sold exactly one copy this month. One copy. Last month I sold zero copies. So clearly I’m doing this for the value of the process, not the outcome.

That’s my thing. I like to work regardless of circumstances. It makes me feel proud and heroic.

Where are you being coddled? What might be the long term implications of that dependency?