In the past few months, I have had the experience of students and their parents remarking that they found me to be a “profound” thinker. I have no idea what they mean, nor what “profundity” comprises. In hopes of emulation (and I would caution them against such misguided flattery), they asked how I came to be this way. In the moment, I could offer no explanation. But the question has lingered with me: “how did I come to be this way?” I offer the following, likely apocryphal tale, as my only explanation.

On a dusty summer’s afternoon, I was studying in the library when sleep befell me. My slumber was broken, some unknown hours later, when a book leapt from its shelf, and landed heavily upon my head. The impact (or perhaps my deep slumber) left me dazed and dizzy, did such damage to my mind, to my long months of learning, as to make me forget the use of words, of language entirely. The effect was similar to that of amnesia in many patients. The words still came to me, as beloved comrades appear to the forgetful friend, but I now have to ask who they are. This has been the method of my recent attempts at reading: asking once familiar words: what do you do?