The Great Thinkers and Their Daily Routines

By Brian Liu

At St. John’s we often find ourselves fascinated with the daily lives of the various authors we read. If philosophy stems from life, then peering into the lifestyles of these great thinkers may reveal where their thoughts came from.

There is an author that has impressed me but is not on the program: Haruki Murakami (hence the featured image). My first exposure of him was a little novela he wrote called “After Dark” (totally recommend it by the way – thought provoking leisure reading). He ranks on the list as well.

After studying the daily routines of these great thinkers, what is shocking is their lack of uniformity in their daily habits. Some of these great thinkers get a long with abysmally little sleep. Some devote a lot of time to their work, while others spend very little. I found it appalling how, with respect to the other activities in his life, Kant spent only an hour on his creative work and yet he was able to churn out the monster that was The Critique of Pure Reason (not so much of a recommended read for me – it’s not all that leisurely especially when you find out you can’t relax in the thing unto itself.)