It’s 4:15 AM, totally silent. This is my favorite time of day. No one else is awake, not in this house. My inbox hasn’t roared to life yet, and the phone might as well be a rock. Notifications don’t start their daily deluge of distraction until the sun starts to arouse those who need something from me.
If someone were to look at my desk, they would conclude the occupant of the cheap faux leather chair is clearly mad. Insane even. In a stack of books, one could find books on spiritual discipline on top of books about Mike Tyson’s boxing philosophy as well as an examination of an SS reserve police battalion’s mentality toward their slaughter of innocents during the Second World War. No rhyme or reason exists between the subjects, style, or author’s writing ability.
Yet, for a little while each day, I embrace the chaos that interests me. There is no shame, no remorse. At one point in time, vanity and pride drove my study habits. Then, as curiosity began to take over, I started to read more broadly. As I grew, an entirely new system began to take shape.
Now, I read to answer burning questions. How could men shoot infants with little hesitation or remorse? What can I learn about war from a boxer stepping into the ring to endure long, eternal minutes of brutality? What did Sherman do right as a leader that I can steal to improve myself? The answers hide in the pages on my cluttered desk.
Results of A Request
This issue of Hone The Edge is different. It is different because someone asked for it. A man that I like and respect asked for it in a way that is very unique to him. I’m not overly sure if he realized that he even asked for it, but he did.
He runs a bookstore, and I find that delightfully funny. You would think the person who runs a bookstore would be the master of the discipline of study, but he isn’t. By his own admission, he is terrible at it. I love that about him. Life’s little ironies make it worth living.
This post is for him. A treatise on the fundamentals of the discipline of study. However, it would be abhorrently arrogant for me to sit here and tell you that I have it figured out. Damn me if I were to make such a silly mistake. Instead, I only claim to have myself partially figured out. That may be the first lesson: figure out your own, unique study habits.
Sharpen The Axe
Every day, I come into my office, turn on soft music, pick up a book, and read for an hour. It is by far the most critical hour of my day workwise. What happens in that hour will echo through the hours of the rest of my life.
We often view the discipline of study incorrectly. We see it as a luxury to indulge in before bed or perhaps on vacation. No one says this outright, but it’s an undertone of many conversations. “What will you do in Florida?” “Oh, I don’t know. Sit on the beach and sip some fruity-infused libation while I read this book.” Bullshit. Real study is work. Vital work at that.
Typically, we are hired for our brains, not our backs. Once humanity entered the stone age, thinking became man’s chief task. The way you sharpen the only tool you have to chop down the trees that life puts in your path is the whetstone of study. And frankly, most chop with dull axes. Don’t be like them.
Real Study is Productive
Why do you think I am writing this newsletter? It makes no money, consumes my time, and adds to the long list of things I must do. Hell, today is supposed to be a day off, but here I am writing again. By pure material gain, it is a net loss. However, it may be the most important thing I do every week.
Why? Each week, I tell you what I am doing to get better. I’m producing something that is the unique result of my curiosities and the study habits brought to bear on them. It’s not about you, it’s about me. It's about synthesizing things I have learned, reflected on, and codifying them so I can solidify those lessons for myself.
Whatever you study, produce something out of it. I write, but that is only because I am a writer. Each of us has a creative capacity that needs to be embraced and leveraged for the betterment of the species. By embracing your creative whims and letting your study habits inform what you produce, you will not only be helping yourself but teaching the rest of us as well.
Embrace Comfort In Study
“You look comfortable” is something I have been told when people stumble upon me during the first hour of the day. The reason is simple, really, because I am very comfortable with design. I have coffee or tea, background music, and something to make the place smell good. Every bit of my sensory experience is immersed in sharpening the axe.
I’m not sure how I figured this out. I’m not even sure when I really stumbled upon it. No matter how or when, at some point in the past, I realized that if I made study an immersive experience, I simply enjoyed it more and retained the information.
Coffee for my taste, a candle to please my sense of smell, a comfortable chair, and some Lofi music playing endlessly to serenade me into a state of comfort. As a matter of fact, right now, there is some weird Christmas candle of Caits burning, Japanese Lofi playing on YouTube, and I’m sipping coffee out of a cup my dad sent me when I was in Afghanistan. I can’t believe it made it this far.
Embrace Your Interests
Damn, the books that you “have to read.” I refuse to read Calvin’s Institutes on these grounds alone. When I started ministry, everyone told me I had to read Calvin. I read the first sentence and vomited. It still escapes me if my revulsion came from Calvin’s dry, systematic approach to theology or if it was the unwritten requirement that a protestant preacher simply must embrace it.
However, I gladly read all of On War by Clausewitz, a book that most loathe to read outright. I also read every book my battalion commander assigned me with glee and made reading lists off the footnotes. That’s a total nerd move.
A famous general once told me that you should read what you find interesting. Don’t study what you are “supposed to.” Study whatever makes you tick, whatever makes you unique. The reality is that there is too much information out there. We as a civilization need people to embrace their inner weirdness and really lean into what makes them happy to study. That diversity of interest and thought has led me to make unorthodox connections and generate new creative ideas during challenging times. Study, when done right, is a real superpower.
Hone The Edge.
Wise words as always Brandon! I hope you and the family have a wonderful Christmas.