Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life

I loved the title and subtitle of this book. I was enamored with the idea of an “intellectual life.”

And this is a neat thing. I mean, we have love lives and social lives and sex lives, but how many people talk about an intellectual life? I feel like I have this, but I never really had a word for it. (I mean, I looked up one thousand things just to say I did it.)

That said, the book is kind of a mess. It wanders around aimlessly. I couldn’t make heads or tails of most of it. I think it’s a philosophical treatise of some kind?

I did like the first chapter title which frames an intellectual life as a sort of “refuge” and people retreat into. This matches my experience. I love learning new things, and sometimes if I have 10 minutes before a call or something, I’ll just search for something or ask ChatGPT a question, just in the hopes of learning something new.

But, again, the book did not deliver in any practical sense. Other than the couple ideas I took away from it, I don’t feel I’m much better for having read it.

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