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Musings From The Professor's Desk

Dear Readers,

Before I left Korea for Lebanon in 2004, I completed the first draft of a manuscript of a book that described what I had done there during my most intensive autodidactic language learning phase. I sought to detail not only what I had done and how (the methods) but more importantly, the why, the contextual framework, my philosophical reasons for engaging in this kind of study. I entitled this manuscript The Path of the Polyglot, and I have been agonizing over it for the past two decades. I have not done so continuously, thank God, but periodically over the past twenty years, I have dusted it off and attempted to both edit it and update it. There are about a dozen chapters in fairly good shape, but also an amorphous mass of ideas that I vomited out initially and that I have wanted to either merge into the existing text or remove for another volume. It is here that I have bogged down each time I have tried to work on this, and often ended up adding rather than subtracting.

As you may know, I am now in my second cycle of leading a circle with the same title here in the academy in which I use the manuscript to lecture on the topic. With the input and feedback of the kind of participants we have, editing it here has been far more fruitful than it was in the past. I am still very far from satisfied with it, but this past month I had one of those obvious epiphanies that illustrate the absurdity of the human condition: perfectionism has reared its ugly head here. I am sure I have been told literally a hundred times that I ought to just publish it as is, but for some reason I was deaf to the suggestion for the first ninety-nine. I cannot pinpoint the 100th time, but somehow that logic has now clicked. It is not perfect, and it will never be the perfect all comprehensive magnum opus that for some reason it has aspired to be in my heart, but so be it. This is what I wrote twenty years ago, and I ought to leave it at that and now write other books (such as The Principles of Polyliteracy). Attempting to edit it further myself is actually preventing me from getting to these new projects. So, imperfect as it is, I now want to provide it to people who might find it valuable, and move on to write other texts instead.

Participants in this course give me feedback in the discussion period that concludes each session, and I have already taken note of your comments and tried to incorporate them into my editing, so I thank you all for this. I am now asking any of these participants who might have more global suggestions (i.e., this chapter was too short, that too long; you should give more detail here, but you don’t need to give so much there, etc.) if they would be so kind as to send them to me. I do not plan on attempting to edit the manuscript further on my own with these suggestions, but rather to pass them on to a designated editor to consider or incorporate them in a final pass.

And so that is my announcement or request for this newsletter: I cannot work on The Path of the Polyglot anymore. I have edited it all that I can. I now need a dedicated editor to take it in hand and put it into final publishable shape. The sooner I can find such a person, the sooner the text of this volume can get into the hands of those who might like to read it. If anyone reading this newsletter can think of anyone particularly qualified to do this and who might be interested in the project, I would most appreciate receiving this information. Thank you in advance to anyone who might be able to help with this.

With best regards,
Alexander Arguelles

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Student Column

Meet Nathan Anderson
A singular individuation in-process of the species homo sapiens. Vagabond and Möchtegern. Lingua- and bibliophile as well as ineffectual wordsmith. Errant disciple of the path of the polyglot in search of his own way. Formal schooling in textual analysis. Effectuates imitations with varying degrees of similitude in several Germanic and Romance languages. At home at the Alexander Arguelles Academy with many minds to look up to.

“I first encountered Professor Argüelles on YouTube in 2013 when, repulsed by contemporary language instruction, I stumbled across his video “A Polyglot’s Daily Linguistic Workout,” which quickly guided me to his challenge video titled “Spanish French Italian German,” in which he invites his audience to systematically learn the aforementioned languages within a five-year span. The Professor’s manifest diligence and passion for language acquisition and literature signaled to me that which had formerly existed only as an impossibility in my mind – i.e. the possibility of polyglottery. I accepted that challenge, albeit under extenuating circumstances, and my commitment to its pursuit marked the outset of a linguistic odyssey which has sustained me through the peaks and troughs of life.

Since the Great Books of the West reading group is currently traversing the entirety of Euripides’ tragedies, allow me to remark on how the extant wisdom of Antiquity has impressed itself upon my being in concert with my enrollment at the academy. Despite its tendency to foster embellishment, mythology often strikes the nail on the head. The myth of Sisyphus, for example, has endured well over two millennia and proves every bit as pertinent to Modernity as it likely was to early Antiquity. Life and being itself are perfidious toward fortuna secunda, the treachery in question being but a matter of degree and timing. While we as humans remain impotent in the dealing our lot, we can nevertheless elect sponte nostra to meet it head on – indeed, as if it were the most quotidian of matters. And such is Sisyphus’ resolve: For if it is his lot to heave that boulder heavenwards into eternity, better with resounding mental fortitude than the compound burden of moral asthenia and victimhood which leaves a human undone.

Looking back on the linguistic challenge in question, the truth of the matter is that, stricto sensu, I failed. Manifold instances of false starts, life circumstances, changes of heart, linguistic dalliances, not to mention personal weakness, frequently stalled my progress, and the prospect of closure is only now dawning on the horizon as I at long last turn my attention to Italian some eleven years later. Yet I never quit, and I feel as though the journey itself has left me with more vital substance than I possessed at its outset. I attribute much of that growth in moral being to what might be considered the quintessence of Professor Argüelles’ academy, namely a way of life forged from quantum habits in the service of a grander vision, a life project he exhibits in his lecture series titled The Path of the Polyglot. Indeed, the pursuit of polyglottery is neither a list item to be checked off nor a final destination but rather a path to be walked in its proper rhythm with assiduous attention and conservation. I’ll likely never attain Argüelles-esque heights in polyglottery, but having learned how to steadily inch my boulder up the incline with Sisyphean grace I feel confident I now possess all that I need to reach the peaks for which I was destined, be they what they may.”

Additional student accounts can be found on the Academy website under Testimonials.

June Video Recommendation

The Path of the Polyglot: Lessons from a Lifetime of Language Learning

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