Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Choosing a subject

 Advice to the young: Choose a subject that interests you and make yourself the foremost expert on it.

Max Schuster, the book publisher, used to give new employees that advice. He apparently got to them quickly. Before anyone could tell the new folks where the restrooms and coffee pot were, Schuster told them what they were there for.

Schuster’s advice doesn’t work literally for me. I am not an expert on anything. But the spirit of his counsel is wonderful. It reminds me that there are such things as intellectual pleasures and that they ought to be part of my life.

• Source: Ronald Gross, The Independent Scholar’s Handbook; Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1982, p. xii. If you’re interested in the direct quotation, see ‘One way to welcome the new guy,’ March 14, 2024. As you might guess, I’m still thinking about projects for the coming year.
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