Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

Education

A Problem in the Modern University

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In an interview for C2C Journal, Dr. Jordan Peterson mused that:

“I mean, I think huge swaths of the university are irrevocably corrupted: sociology, gone; anthropology, gone; history, big chunks of it are gone, the classics, literature, social work, political science in many places, and that doesn’t cover women’s studies, ethnic studies. They probably started lost, and it’s gotten far worse. I believe now, with the exception of the science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) branch, that universities do more harm than good. I think they produce indentured servants in the United States because tuition fees have gone up so much and you can’t declare bankruptcy on your student loans. We’re teaching university students lies, and pandering to them, and I see that as counterproductive.”

I think that, over all, this assessment is likely to be true. The humanities and liberal arts have traditionally included logic and rhetoric education as staples of a good education. But most humanities degrees in the modern university require no logic courses. I’m not against a liberal arts education. In fact, there is a sense in which such an education is priceless, but with the diminished state of the humanities, many of the available degrees hardly qualify as liberal arts educations. And going into debt to achieve an education with no economic payoff is a bad decision. Education is necessarily vocational and while financial markets aren’t the sole determiners of value, the ability to eat, care for your children, and plan for the future are necessary considerations. When academics counsel people to be unconcerned about these areas of life, they are setting people up for emotional and economic ruin.

I’ve been accused of STEM idolatry before, but it was by a theologian who didn’t seem to understand things like ‘wisdom,’ ‘planning,’ or mathematics. The purpose of an education is human happiness and classical anthropology indicates that virtue is one of the key elements of happiness. The average college education seems to do little to supply virtue or the skills necessary to pursue virtue without being an ‘indentured servant.’

The current system is one in which universities end up existing, not to promote human happiness, but to maintain existence. Professors encourage students to obtain expensive doctoral degrees despite there being no jobs waiting on the other end of the dissertation defense. If you have more students, you can keep your job. If you have more students with terminal degrees, you have less jobs available for those people. And while happiness consists in more than having a paying job and owning property, it does not exclude them.

Anyway, I really think that a classical style education in the liberal arts for even very young children is a powerful solution to these problems. Especially if there is a way to do it that allows children to gain skills which they could use to afford college should they choose to attend. Graduating from high school with the ability to use logic, do research, discern dialectic from rhetoric, teach yourself math, and run a small business making a product or providing a service would do well to set people up for happiness and success.

Power: Does it corrupt or ennoble us?

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Power: An Evil Desire?

Power corrupts.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Is this true? Does seeking power make us evil[1]?

No. Absolutely not. You morally authorized to seek power. In fact, you are obligated to do so if you wish to be happy and a good person.

The Ability to Produce an Effect

The dictionary definition of power is this: the ability to produce an effect.

A definition concerning human action would be: what is necessary to bring about what one desires.

Such a thing is amoral. It is no different from a hammer, a shaving razor, or knowledge.

Moral power would be this: what is necessary to bring about the good.

Immoral power would be what is necessary to bring about my desires without thought to the good.

Here’s the difference:

  1. Moral Power
    Charisma, know-how, and resources for pursuing the good by means of virtue. Think of somebody who uses their prudence to gain large sums of wealth in order to quietly fund rationally altruistic charities.
  2. Immoral Power
    Charisma, know-how, and resources for pursuing goods by evil means or in a disordered fashion (pursuing fame above health, honor above wisdom, etc). Think of somebody who pursues a political agenda (like socialism) in the name of the poor despite the body count of that ideology being in the hundreds of millions.

Many people associate power solely with the second example and they miss the importance having power and feeling powerful for a life of meaning and happiness.

As a result many throw both forms of power out the window and then resent their lot. There are lots of social reasons for this in the lives of men and young boys.[2] I’m not sure about the rest of our culture. But it appears on social media, amongst the young, and in the political world that claiming to be a victim is a badge of honor. Consequently, bragging about weakness, illness, and ineffectuality is a form of social credibility.[3] Regardless of that, the fact is that living without a sense of power leads to depression, inactivity, and destructive behavior like drug addiction and intimate partner abuse.[4]

Nice Guy Syndrome

A name has been given this unfortunate state of feeling helpless and powerless as a result of doing what you’re “supposed to do.”

Robert Glover calls it “nice-guy syndrome.”[5] Nice-guy syndrome is the state of perpetually refusing to do what you want and pretending to be gracious while secretly resenting the world and yourself. According Dr. Glover “nice guys” have a tendency to be incapable of breaking bad habits, unwilling to allow their flaws to become public (though he didn’t deal with victom culture when he wrote), and they also have a tendency to blow up friendships, lose their temper, and to sabotage their success in ways that they can easily blame on circumstances.[6] Such people have no power. With this in mind, the prescription is not to follow stupid platitudes like “power corrupts.” The correct response is to assess oneself and start making decisions that tend toward the power necessary to achieve happiness. To fail to pursue power when living in such a state clearly causes unhappiness is immoral.

Based on my definition of virtue (a good habit), the pursuit and maintenance of personal power is itself virtuous. Like all virtues, there are vices on either side (even Eden had a serpent!). In this case, obsession with power beyond one’s reach or laziness with respect to reaching it fit the bill.

A typology of power

Here are types of power, as far as I can tell, and how they’re related to virtue:

  1. Physical power –

    The ability to accomplish and endure what is necessary for one’s circumstances with the grace and resilience possible for their specific body. Obviously, keeping one’s body in proper shape can help one to be generous, courageous, or self-controlled.

  2. Cognitive Power –

    The approach of the height of one’s cognitive abilities with respect to their circumstances. Cognitive power, of course overlaps almost perfectly with the intellectual virtues. The difference being that two people could have equally good habits of mind with respect to their individual differences, but one of them might have more “cognitive power” with respect to their IQ or their calling.

  3. Social Power –

    Social power could be either magnetic charisma or hierarchical power-over. Both matter, both can be good, and both can be abused. Men and women with dark-triad traits are typically better at seducing the opposite sex. Bosses can destroy or make the careers of their subordinates. But the pursuit of social power is connected to virtue in that one can be just, generous, and loving much more effectively from a position of authority or charismatic influence.

  4. Economic Power –

    Economic power is power to bring about change due to access to resources. It doesn’t have to be money and it doesn’t have to be from accumulation of resources, although that is the primary way to get it. Somebody who has a tremendous amount of charisma may also have economic resources. Many great ethical thinkers warn about the danger to virtue in those who have economic resources because they can lead to pride, a life style with no struggle, or access to immoral pleasures. I think those warnings are wise, but they do not change the fact that the management of resources that leads to wealth is a result of virtue (self-control, prudence, courage, loyalty, etc).

  5. Spiritual Power –

    Spiritual power is simply result of acquiring the moral virtues as well as the intellectual virtues. Some good habits are had by evil men. But some good habits (courage, justice, prudence, and self-control) do not exist in them. Spiritual power, in this sense, is simply living in a state wherein doing what is right comes naturally. Incidentally, even the most virtuous of men claim to never really reach such a perfect state in this life. In my mind the human race is incapable of complete spiritual power.

Conclusion

It is not immoral to acquire power, instead, it is immoral to ignore your need for power. There are many types of power and understanding what they are and why it’s good to have them will help give you permission to seek them so that you can get what is truly good for you out of life.

References

[1] Interestingly, the Latin word from which virtue is derived could originally mean strength or power. Collins Latin Dictionary Plus Grammar (Glasgow: HarperCollins, 1997 Check out the full range of meaning from this dictionary: “manhood, full powers, strength, courage, ability, worth; (MIL) valour, prowess, heroism; (moral) virtue; (things) excellence, worth.”

[2]  Christina Hoff. Sommers, The War against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

[3] There is a powerful sense in which this can be true. See 2 Corinthians 10-13 in the New Testament for an example.

[4] Albert Bandura, “Regulation of Cognitive Processes through Perceived Self-Efficacy,” Developmental Psychology 25, no. 5 (1989): 729–735, Carlo C. DiClemente, Scott K. Fairhurst, and Nancy A. Piotrowski, “Self-Efficacy and Addictive Behaviors,” in Self-Efficacy, Adaptation, and Adjustment, ed. James E. Maddux, The Plenum Series in Social/Clinical Psychology (Springer US, 1995), 109–141, accessed July 5, 2016, http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4419-6868-5_4, Albert Bandura et al., “Self-Efficacy Pathways to Childhood Depression,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76, no. 2 (1999): 258–269. Steve M. Jex et al., “The Impact of Self-Efficiency on Stressor-Strain Relations: Coping Style as an Explanatory Mechanism,” Journal of Applied Psychology 86, no. 3 (June 2001): 401–409. Farhad Shaghaghy et al., “The Relationship of Early Maladaptive Schemas, Attributional Styles and Learned Helplessness among Addicted and Non-Addicted Men,” Addiction and Health 3, no. 1–2 (November 10, 2011), accessed July 5, 2016, http://www.ahj.kmu.ac.ir/index.php/ahj/article/view/55, Victor J. Strecher et al., “The Role of Self-Efficacy in Achieving Health Behavior Change,” Health Education & Behavior 13, no. 1 (March 1, 1986): 73–92.

[5] Robert A Glover, No More Mr. Nice Guy!: A Proven Plan for Getting What You Want in Love, Sex, and Life (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2003).

[6] They might be similar to what Vox Day calls a “gamma male” in Helen Smith’s excellent book Men on Strike.

The Third Art of the Trivium: Rhetoric

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The third art of a true liberal arts education is rhetoric. I’ve written about grammar and logic already. I’ve also written about rhetoric in the ancient world. Obviously, this post is about rhetoric.

Whereas the purpose of grammar is clarity of communication and the emphasis of logic is the discovery of truth and probability through clarity of thought, rhetoric is the art of discovering and using what is persuasive. More succinctly, rhetoric is the art and science of persuasion.

Rhetoric, as a skill set, can be seen from the perspectives of speaking/writing, listening/reading, and debating:

  1. Speaking/Writing
    Rhetoric, in this sense, is related to the forethought given to discovering what could potentially persuade an audience, what they need to be persuaded of, and the actual delivery of the speech or writing of the paper/article.
  2. Listening/Reading
    Listening involves discerning the intent of the speaker or author as well as the intended audience. Are they trying to get you to act, to believe a proposition, or to support a cause? In knowing the author’s cause and audience, one can determine what methods they are employing to persuade and whether or not they are convincing. At this stage, one will want to use logic to determine whether or not the author contradicts accepted principles without good evidence or contradicts other statements made in the discourse.
  3. Debating
    In debating, rhetoric becomes very important because being able to demonstrate or discover the truth is not always helpful in a person-to-person encounter whose outcome can largely be determined by the emotions of the audience. Rhetoric is especially important in contects of debate. Logic is still one’s friend, especially for discrediting an opponent’s claims, but rhetoric is important for defending oneself from claims on incredibility or incompetence. Rhetoric is also important for framing the debate. It is not uncommon in debate for side issues to become the focus due to ideologically driven participants or people unconcerned about civility. Learning to maintain one’s state of mind and the emotional and cognitive frame of the debate for the audience is difficult, but crucial in a debate.

The Modes of Persuasion
Aristotle identified logos, ethos, and pathos as the three phases of persuasion.

  1. Logos
    Logos is the appeal to facts and evidence. But in a speech, this is not always the same thing as careful and accurate argument. That is necessary for research and writing to advance the field of knowledge. It is not always best for persuading people to act. Logos, with respect to rhetoric appealing to the facts that the audience would find convincing. This is not always different from careful and painstaking accuracy, but it is not always the same thing. Learning to use the common topics carefully will be very important here because they represent the types of evidence available to a researcher, speaker, and writer. Also, I recommend that no matter what type of logical argument you rely on in a speech, you have a tighter more carefully documented version of the argument elsewhere in case questions are asked.
  2. Ethos
    Ethos is appeal to personal credibility. To bolster your ethos, you must associate yourself with the good (morals, principles, groups, and individuals), take the moral high ground (appeal to the audience’s sense of virtue and morality), and when possible use sources credible to the audience. When thinking of rhetoric in terms of debate, ethos becomes very important. Many debate opponents are comfortable discrediting the other by means of attacking their ethos rather than their arguments. Learning to deal with this and take an acceptable risk of punching back in the same manner (because that is the nature of the game) or taking the moral high ground of non-response is a difficult decision to make. In my opinion, this depends on whether or not the debate is about action or fact. If the debate is over an academic topic, then the high ground of seeking truth must be taken, even if this leads to a perceived “loss” on the part of the more accurate and careful participant. In the case of debates about the proper course of action, the one becomes morally obligated to fight back hard in defense of the audience when attacks are made. This is because, in fact, we are easily persuaded to enjoy ruthless winners over kind losers. In the Bible, Jesus does both, which illustrates how difficult a line it is to walk.
  3. Pathos
    Pathos is the appeal to the passions or deeper emotions of the audience. This includes using techniques such as exaggeration, sarcasm, the language of shame/honor, flattery, legitimate compliments, and so-on. Pathos is greatly aided by florid language or simple language. Academic language is almost always a passion killer, although if it is accompanied by strong ethos, academic language can ignite the passion for knowledge. Pathos is appealed to, not simply by florid or simple language, but also by emotional style. An enthusiastic speaker is easier to listen to than somebody who sounds like the topic is boring to them.

When you think of writing a speech, I recommend thinking of these aspects like a group of investment accounts. You need to invest enough in the right one depending upon the audience. For instance, your personal credibility might be very high due to your virtue and research capabilities, but that does not mean that an audience of people who don’t believe in virtue will care. So in that case it might be better to appeal to emotions and logic. Similarly, emotional appeal will not help you in a speech about statistical methods to a group of mathematicians. Similarly, an audience might need a strong emotional hook before they are ready for logic and facts. In other cases, logic and facts must come first, but a rousing fiery call to action can come at the end. These things are to be determined on a case by case basis.

Concluding Thoughts and Extra Tools
I really think that the study of rhetoric, as a skill is crucial to the development of your mind and social skills. People who are naturally good at it often say things like, “Just get it without trying to learn it.” That’s literally stupid. Studying rhetoric can help you learn to defend yourself against charming evil-doers and appealing falsehoods, to win debates, to see through cheesy sales tactics, and even to flirt.

Helpful tools for becoming rhetorically minded include:

  1. Grammar and Logic (of course)
    Without clarity of expression and thought, rhetoric is pointless.
  2. Eloquence
    Eloquence is the art of speaking beautifully. It is context dependent. A good tool for gaining eloquence is having a digital copia and listening to the compelling speeches of others.
  3. The Common Topics (Or the destroyers of writer’s block)
    I’ve written about these here. In coming weeks, I will write about each topic and add a few more to the list. Knowing the common topics is incredibly useful for research, finding the truth, writing, and personal mindset (because debating your inner monolog is best done using evidence that you find convincing).
  4. Learn the Five Canons of Rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery)
    These are the five things one ought to think about in order to improve at public speaking. I will write about these soon, but for now, I recommend the articles at AoM here.
  5. And, to keep you from becoming a charming evil-doer, learn wisdom and virtue
    Rhetoric treated as a mere skill without reference to truth, goodness, and beauty leads to speeches which work like fruit eaten off of a forbidden tree. They sound good, but they are poison to the mind and soul.

Power and Christian Spirituality

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The Christian and Power

Christians are understandably nervous about power.

You know the saying, “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

But at its most basic level, power is “being able to do what you want.”  Therefore it is no different from strength, except that its associations transcend the athletic capacities of the physical body. And while we often want what is evil, this is not always so. Power is morally neutral in this sense.

I do not think that power is bad. Sought for its own sake, power is an idol. But that is true of food, sex, spiritual disciplines, romance, justice, and essentially everything but God or “the good.”

Power is a good, and as such has its place in the Christian moral landscape. I’ve written about Proverbs 24 before, but there’s more to say about it.

Go ahead and read this twice:

Pro 24:1-12 ESV Be not envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them, (2) for their hearts devise violence, and their lips talk of trouble. (3) By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; (4) by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. (5) A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might, (6) for by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory.

 

(7) Wisdom is too high for a fool; in the gate he does not open his mouth. (8) Whoever plans to do evil will be called a schemer. (9) The devising of folly is sin, and the scoffer is an abomination to mankind. (10) If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. (11) Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. (12) If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?

Now, there are different kinds of power/strength. But nevertheless this chunk of Proverbs says at the very least to get:

  1. wisdom
  2. knowledge
  3. might/strength
  4. wise counsel

A favorite genre in the Bible is that of praising/shaming two groups. One of ideal goodness and the other of typological badness. This rhetoric encourages us to place ourselves firmly in one category. The passage above praises:

  1. The wise
  2. Those with knowledge
  3. The strong
  4. Those who increase their might
  5. Those who use wise counsel to overcome obstacles
  6. The steadfast
  7. Those who protect the weak

The passage is shaming:

  1. The wicked
  2. Those who envy the wicked
  3. Individuals who do not increase their strength, wisdom, knowledge
  4. Those who plan evil instead of good
  5. Any who pretend not to see the plight of the weak

Why Seek Power?

I propose that if you have power and use it wisely and justly, you do not have to envy the wicked and you can wage your various wars*, survive adversity, and assist/protect the weak. Solomon praises several dimensions of power throughout Proverbs:**

  1. Financial – earnings, savings, and generosity
  2. Physical – heath of body
  3. Vocational skill – the ability to do something well
  4. Personal – ones persuasiveness and charisma
  5. Cognitive – ones problem solving ability
  6. Emotional – managing  your feelings is crucial
  7. Spiritual/moral – one’s habitual reliance on God and ability to say no to sin (see Hebrews 12 especially), it encompasses all the others because a spiritually strong person can manage poverty or wealth well, can deal with a strong or weak body, and so-on.

Indeed, the biblical authors only disparage human strength when it is arrayed against the purposes of God. The Bible assumes that humanity, with God’s grace, will develop strength. Taking dominion over nature requires persistent growth in power (in all its dimensions).

My point is to encourage Christians to actually seek power and strength. That sounds so weird to say, but again, Jesus says, “Be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.” Grow in goodness, including the ability to make the good happen. That’s what he’s saying. His statement assumes the background of passages like Proverbs 24.

Closing Questions:

  1. What are you doing to grow in power?
  2. Is it working?
  3. Finally, are you growing in spiritual and moral power?

Notes

*The text may refer to literal wars if Proverbs was written for kings, but warfare is a metaphor in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes for the scribal struggle for wisdom.

**I intentionally left political power out.

Make the Most of Your Education

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I wrote this guide based on my experiences as an educator and student.

I’ll update this page frequently.

Note: I wrote this from a religious perspective, but I recommend reading it anyway because most of the tips are quite universal and not sugarcoated or based on the self-esteem notion that challenging things are bad because you might fail.

  1. Learn to study
  2. Learn to be alone without feeling lonely
  3. Learn to have a morning routine
  4. Learn to write basic computer programs
  5. Learn to do basic vehicular repairs and upkeep
  6. Learn to cook
  7. Learn to budget
  8. Learn to read for pleasure

Always Have Something to Say: On Keeping a Digital Copia

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Have you ever said aloud, “Oh, I wish I could remember that special quote!” Or perhaps instead, “Who made that three point argument?” Or perhaps, “What was the last line of that poem I otherwise memorized?” Well, if that’s you, then this post is on me. Or this post is for you.

Copia or a commonplace book which is essentially a notebook of aphorisms, quotes, poems, paragraphs, etc that you maintain for the express purposes future writing and research. I prefer to organize mine topically. The topics include almost anything. Seriously, things like “the purpose of Paul’s letter to the Romans,” “Misunderstandings of Statistics in Science Journals,” “funny tweets,” “lines from novels,” etc. The quotes can be as complicated or simple as you wish, but the point is that any idea, paragraph, or quip you wish to ponder, utilize for research, or quote is all in one place. I even put the source under each one in Turabian format. It’s like an annotated bibliography for your life. I would even recommend putting your own thoughts about the quote underneath the quote in bold. This way you also have a pithy version of a story for illustrative purposes.

Having a copia document allows you of simply searching for that whatsit or whosit you have in the shadows of books past in the deep caverns of your mind. There are two ways to keep a copia.

  1. A physical copy
    You see this in George Herbert when he gave advice to pastors. I’ll give the quote in a moment. But this can be used is lots of ways, you could have several topical note books or even one mega binder (so that making things alphabetical is easier). The problem with this method is that it loses its searchability. The nice thing is that writing things helps one commit them to memory. If I were keeping a copia by writing, I would keep a large binder of several topics, but for large writing projects or for specific courses I teach I would keep a separate binder for each. Here’s the quote from Herbert on keeping a copia in the form of a systematic theology:

    THe Countrey Parson hath read the Fathers also, and  the Schoolmen, and the later Writers, or a good proition of all, out of all which he hath compiled a book, and body of Divinity, which is the storehouse of his Sermons, and which he preacheth all his Life; but diversly clothed, illustrated, and inlarged. For though the world is full of such composures, yet every mans own is fittest, readyest, and most savory to him. Besides, this being to be done in his younger and preparatory times, it is an honest joy ever after to looke upon his well spent houres. This Body he made by way of expounding the Church Catechisme, to which all divinity may easily be reduced. For it being indifferent in it selfe to choose any Method, that is best to be chosen, of which there is likelyest to be most use. George Herbert, The Country Parson: The Parson and His Accessory Knowledge

  2. A digital copy
    There are several ways to do this and it works nicely with the obscene quantity of digital books out there. Seriously, for the purposes of saving money by using sales I have books on kindle, pdf, real life books (that smell like tobacco, mildew, glue, and paper!), Logos Bible software, Bible Works, Google Books, and a collection of journal articles that I’ve saved from Ebsco! Keeping track of it all isn’t what’s hard, but remembering a quote in a pinch can be difficult if I don’t immediately remember which version of the book I possess.

Here are some protips:

    1. Keep a persistent document
      Title the document Copia or Interesting thoughts and quotes.
    2. Save this file locally and in the cloud
      It’s useful to be able to can add to it from anywhere on a phone, tablet, or local computer.
    3. Memorize the best stuff
      Memory is still the most useful tool for keeping important information in a usable format. Having data in your mind makes it far more useful to you than having it in a computer. This is especially true of inspirational quotes or poetry if you’re a romantic.
    4. Utilize a service like Onenote or Evernote
      These tools can help you you can snip things from websites with very little effort then you can later paste them into your copia. With these you can even utilize pictures and diagrams. Here’s somebody showing how to get kindle highlights into Evernote.
    5. Utilize Zotero or some bibliographic manager
      Zotero and tools like it keep track of all of the bibliographic data ever. Adding one to your browser is an excellent idea. It’s even better if you force it to save everything on your computer rather than in their database, this way any journal article you save is put into a file on your computer. But then any highlights you do, just remember you copy into your copia.
    6. Transfer hard copy resources to the copia
      Make the effort to type your underlines and highlights into your copia as this will help you to etch them into the wax tablet of your memory (though not as well as with writing).
    7. Remember to keep things simple
      If you get to the point that you have a copia, some note files, and annotated bibliographies for different projects you’re probably fine. If you get to the point that you’re using Evernote, Onenote, keeping a copia, utilizing annotated bibliographies, and writing notes in zotero (which is a useful function if you’re not doing it elsewhere), then you’re over complicating things and not spending enough time actually writing and thinking. You’re a collector but not a thinker or producer at that point.

Concluding Remarks:
If you’re in high school or just starting college, I highly recommend you start a copia and an annotated bibliography. Keeping this type of useful information in two places (copia and annotated bibliography) will help you for the rest of your life but at least for the rest of your academic career. If you’re a preacher this is incredibly useful, take note of Charles Spurgeon’s thought’s on knowing things from the sciences and put it to practice for all things you study:

It seems to me that every student for the Christian ministry ought to know at least something of every science; he should intermeddle with every form of knowledge that may be useful in his life’s work. God has made all things that are in the world to be our teachers, and there is something to be learned from every one of them; and as he would never be a thorough student who did not attend all classes at which he was expected to be present, so he who does not learn from all things that God has made will never gather all the food that his soul needs, nor will he be likely to attain to that perfection of mental manhood which will enable him to be a fully-equipped teacher of others.C. H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students: The Art of Illustration; Addresses Delivered to the Students of the Pastors’ College, Metropolitan Tabernacle, vol. 3 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1905), 144.

Though human memory can be greatly perfected with use and attention to treating it as a skill, not all things can be treasured up in your heart. Therefore, you would do well to store them up externally, like a tool shed of ideas and thoughts.