A Place To Think

 A thinker needs a milieu, W. says. A place to think. Think of Kant, with his Konigsberg, walking the same route every day. Think of Kierkegaard in his Copenhagen, walking among the crowds …

The thinker needs regularity! External structure! The thinker needs good habits, if he's in it for the long haul, W. says.

Good habits: isn’t that what I lack?, W. says. Structure and discipline: isn’t that what I should cultivate? I am a chaotic man. A man without pattern.

Don't I lurch and spasm my way through my studies (my so-called studies)? Didn’t I twitch through my Sanskrit studies and flop my way through my musical studies?

I've got no milieu. That's why I've never got anywhere, W. says. I've no walking route, no daily schedule.

W. was a man of particularly regular habits when he lived in Wivenhoe, he says. Het himself a particularly rigorous schedule of study. Four hours at his desk, and then a walk to take the ozone. A light lunch, followed by classical guitar practice. An hour at his German, or an hour at his Greek. An hour at his Hebrew. Then four more hours at his desk before dinner. And after dinner. A walk along the sea-edge, W. says. A walk to take the ozone, and to let his studies of the day knit themselves together in his head.