Practicing for Expertise

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Love all of God’s creation, both the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love animals, love plants, love each thing. If you love each thing you will percieve the mystery of God in things. Once you have perceived it, you will begin tirelessly to perceive more and more of it every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an entire, universal love.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (tr. Pevear & Volokhonsky)

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The great thing about reading is: when you do it, you come across such beautiful, beautifully articulate sentiments.

The above passage comes out of Dostoevsky’s last novel — his longest — whose second installment he never wrote but which remains one of the towers of modern literature.

The book reads as composed, articulate, and mature: the result of a lifetime of practice, developing and honing his craft.

Only this lifetime of practice, the practice of love, he tells us, can teach us the details, the particular quirks and foibles of the world. And through that practice of knowing, the whole of the universe will reveal itself.

Every person is equipped with a brain ready to develop its own areas of expertise, to specialize in and master disciplines. But not without practice and dedication. Not without the love.