"Does this Aleph exist in the heart of a stone? Did I see it there in the cellar when I saw all things, and have I now forgotten it? Our minds are porous and forgetfulness seeps in; I myself am distorting and losing, under the wearing away of the years, the face of Beatriz."
---Jorge Luis Borges, The Aleph
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Doing Nothing
"Why don't you get out of the house and do something?
"Why?"
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
“No…I mean, ‘why should I get out of the house and do something?’.
"Why?! ...Because!..."
(Arms spread wide to indicate that the reasons for ‘getting out’ and ‘doing something’ are so multifarious as to literally fill the empty spaces surrounding us like music, like dust).
“I mean, are you really going to just sit there all day?”
“Well, I had been planning to. Evidently you know better than I do how I should spend my time.”
(Sad shake of the head).
“It’s a beautiful day…the sun is shining…and your wasting it just sitting around reading, for God's sake…it’s almost a crime…”
Maybe you’ve had the above conversation or one just like it at some time in the past. Perhaps it’s even a regular occurrence. If you’re like me you’re the person who asks ‘Why?’ rather than the one who insists ‘Because!” Of course, living alone, these conversations are for me mostly imaginary. But you get the idea: I have internalized my own voice of societal disapproval.
Not that I am a hermit or completely sedentary. I love spending time with my extended family, the children especially. I try to fit a long walk into my day Mondays through Fridays. I particularly love nature trails, lakes and brooks, even beaches. And anyplace that’s leafy and quiet---in other words, lots of trees and no people. Anyplace where I can snap some good pictures. Heck, I’ve even been known to lift weights now and then in a desperate attempt to ‘stay in shape’.
But to the ‘well-intentioned’, these simple pleasures do not count. No---they insist we always be doing something.
I need hardly point out that, to these noodges, reading certainly does not constitute doing something.
No. By 'doing something' is meant: rock climbing, camping, cycling (uphill, naturally), ‘kayaking’, or otherwise courting death in a half- dozen sweaty ways. And for the less vigorous, there is always stuffing oneself at barbecues, drinking too much beer, and pulling calf muscles playing paunchy, middle-aged softball in the park. Above all else, we must be “Having a Good Time.”
And as Raymond Chandler pointed out, in America ‘having a good time’ consists in the main of imbibing prodigious amounts of alcohol and making lots of noise.
Sorry, but I don’t want to have what other people call a ‘good time’. I do not crave excitement or challenge. I have no interest in testing my mettle against raging rapids or my footing against the sheer sides of steep mountains. And I don’t have to always be doing something.
I can sit in a room all day. Why not? The room is warm and dry and contains everything I need: Books, coffee, my computer, my video collection, food, books. So the sun is shining---fine! Nothing better! But I can see it well enough from the window. In a room I can enter into conversation with the likes of Plato, Shakespeare, and Charles Dickens. But if I step out of my house, depend upon it that within five minutes some idiot has collared me with ceaseless and inane chatter. What’s to choose? I take my stand with Lord Emsworth:
He was humming as he approached the terrace. He had his programme all mapped out. For perhaps an hour, until the day cooled off a little, he would read a pig book in the library. After that he would go and take a sniff of a rose or two and perhaps do some snailing. These mild pleasures were all his simple soul demanded. He wanted nothing more. Just the quiet life, with nobody to fuss him.
---P. G. Wodehouse, Lord Emsworh & Others.
I'm not much for pigs or roses or snails, and yet I think His Lordship and I are in all the essentials kindred spirits.
"Why?"
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
“No…I mean, ‘why should I get out of the house and do something?’.
"Why?! ...Because!..."
(Arms spread wide to indicate that the reasons for ‘getting out’ and ‘doing something’ are so multifarious as to literally fill the empty spaces surrounding us like music, like dust).
“I mean, are you really going to just sit there all day?”
“Well, I had been planning to. Evidently you know better than I do how I should spend my time.”
(Sad shake of the head).
“It’s a beautiful day…the sun is shining…and your wasting it just sitting around reading, for God's sake…it’s almost a crime…”
Maybe you’ve had the above conversation or one just like it at some time in the past. Perhaps it’s even a regular occurrence. If you’re like me you’re the person who asks ‘Why?’ rather than the one who insists ‘Because!” Of course, living alone, these conversations are for me mostly imaginary. But you get the idea: I have internalized my own voice of societal disapproval.
Not that I am a hermit or completely sedentary. I love spending time with my extended family, the children especially. I try to fit a long walk into my day Mondays through Fridays. I particularly love nature trails, lakes and brooks, even beaches. And anyplace that’s leafy and quiet---in other words, lots of trees and no people. Anyplace where I can snap some good pictures. Heck, I’ve even been known to lift weights now and then in a desperate attempt to ‘stay in shape’.
But to the ‘well-intentioned’, these simple pleasures do not count. No---they insist we always be doing something.
I need hardly point out that, to these noodges, reading certainly does not constitute doing something.
No. By 'doing something' is meant: rock climbing, camping, cycling (uphill, naturally), ‘kayaking’, or otherwise courting death in a half- dozen sweaty ways. And for the less vigorous, there is always stuffing oneself at barbecues, drinking too much beer, and pulling calf muscles playing paunchy, middle-aged softball in the park. Above all else, we must be “Having a Good Time.”
And as Raymond Chandler pointed out, in America ‘having a good time’ consists in the main of imbibing prodigious amounts of alcohol and making lots of noise.
Sorry, but I don’t want to have what other people call a ‘good time’. I do not crave excitement or challenge. I have no interest in testing my mettle against raging rapids or my footing against the sheer sides of steep mountains. And I don’t have to always be doing something.
I can sit in a room all day. Why not? The room is warm and dry and contains everything I need: Books, coffee, my computer, my video collection, food, books. So the sun is shining---fine! Nothing better! But I can see it well enough from the window. In a room I can enter into conversation with the likes of Plato, Shakespeare, and Charles Dickens. But if I step out of my house, depend upon it that within five minutes some idiot has collared me with ceaseless and inane chatter. What’s to choose? I take my stand with Lord Emsworth:
He was humming as he approached the terrace. He had his programme all mapped out. For perhaps an hour, until the day cooled off a little, he would read a pig book in the library. After that he would go and take a sniff of a rose or two and perhaps do some snailing. These mild pleasures were all his simple soul demanded. He wanted nothing more. Just the quiet life, with nobody to fuss him.
---P. G. Wodehouse, Lord Emsworh & Others.
I'm not much for pigs or roses or snails, and yet I think His Lordship and I are in all the essentials kindred spirits.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
In Their Own Words
"--and so long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him,--pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?"
Lawrence Sterne, Tristram Shandy
Lawrence Sterne, Tristram Shandy
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