Insecure and weak pursuits try to derive strength from ornaments, decorations, prizes (Pulitzer, Booker, Nobel), awards (“best student paper” in 2014), titles, long resumes, and select memberships in academies. But animals, the public, and history detect weakness. Time is inexorable.
[Chapter 5]
When someone, without being asked, expounds on why he “took the decision” to leave a certain job, you know he did not himself “take the decision” to leave that job.
What will survive: things that don’t make sense yet have been around for a very very long time.
My approach to writing in previous books has been as follows —but it took me a long time to realize it. Let the reader know on every page where he is located and how the current discussion stands in relation to the entire book —by continuously summarizing the arguments previously made. This has allowed me to go deep into arguments without losing the reader. I will make important parallel remarks in footnotes —those too important to leave to the text, and will invite the reader to skip sections including unnecessary technical arguments or distracting analyses.
[INTRODUCTION]
The definition of an academic is someone whose brain is designed to mistake the statement “everything has a reason” for “everything has an *accessible* reason”.