By ALAN LIGHTMAN [MIT Communications Forum] – Over the years, my wife and children have grown accustomed to seeing me drift off into the world of my own thoughts — it might be during a car ride or listening to my daughter tell me a story, or I might even be talking myself — when, I’m told, my face dissolves, my eyes get glassy, I’m gone, useless to them, an absent father and husband. Being a person who works with ideas and books, an academic or a writer, is a terribly selfish activity, because it’s hard to turn your mind off — you’re always at work, to the suffering of your family and friends. So I’d like to say a few things in justification of this kind of life, put it in larger perspective. In short, what is the role of the intellectual in the world at large? I wish my long suffering family and friends could be in this room at this moment to hear my defense.
Continued at the MIT Communications Forum | More Chronicle & Notices.
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