When last we spoke, I was one-quarter of the way through the month-long break that this school of ours places across the old and new years. I’d had a little to drink, met up with a few friends, and generally had a good time. As I’ve written before, when you’re at the LSE you spend quite a bit of time thinking. I was enjoying, honestly, spending a little bit of time not thinking.
So much for that. Since then I’ve lived the premise – if not the conclusion – of an Agatha Christie novel when our family car broke down and we missed our ferry, trapping us on a near-deserted Scottish island, walked down the Seine in the company of a French railroad officer, and been asked to leave Balliol College, Oxford. Moving into halls today felt like coming home, intellectually and physically, which was a pleasant surprise.
And I’m thrilled to be back. There’s something about work, and application to it, that gives an extraordinary benefit. Listen to Richard Nixon:
The man may be cantankerous and of dubious morality, but he’s not wrong. People need purpose, and right now my purpose is the LSE, and the life of the mind I’m living now. What that will lead to – if there’ll be a broader goal to tie myself to – is a problem for a later day. For now, I work, and return to regularly scheduled programming.