I have from time to time described myself as a “thought worker”, which is my own variant of intellectual. True intellectuals, particularly of the European (think Left Bank, or perhaps Berlin) variety I consider to be “thought esthetes”. They are smart, and very good at describing their visions, but their visions are not very useful, most of the time, and as a general rule they degrade humankind, by impoverishing them both physically and culturally.
Obviously, I am a fan of some, such as Friedrich Hayek, and Karl Popper, but for them a better term might be “serious academics”.
What thought workers do is they throw off thoughts. Thoughts come to me in droves daily. I will continually find myself on a ladder, pondering some economic point, or Trump’s political positioning or–well, if you read this blog, you know.
My task, though, is to graduate to spiritual work, and where thought work consists in new thoughts, spiritual work consists in learning new ways of being, new affective patterns, and new emotions.
Such work is described as “that”. You need to be in the room with me to feel it.
But that is what I need to be doing, I feel.