Extreme busyness . . . is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity. There is a sort of dead-alive, hackneyed people about, who are scarcely conscious of living except in the exercise of some conventional occupation. Bring these fellows into the country, or set them aboard ship, and you will see how they pine for their desk or their study. They have no curiosity; they cannot give themselves to random provocations; they do not take pleasure in the exercise of their faculties for its own sake . . . they cannot be idle, their nature is not generous enough; and they pass those hours in a sort of coma, which are not dedicated to furious moiling in the gold-mill.
Robert Louis Stevenson, qtd. Phillip Lopate in The Art of the Personal Essay
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6 comments:
My god, how well put. I have always held this view and honor it daily by ignoring it. At night I wonder why; then, the next morning, I do it again...
And out goes "vitality" by a thousand small leaks...e
You're not alone, my friend. Any blogger understands.
go to the third world and you will find many people who are not afflicted by this condition. In a way they are more at peace with themselves and have no qualms or difficulties about watching life pass them by. Westerners are too worried about wasting "precious" time...
Yes, but how do we escape our affliction. The scarry thing is that the disease only seems to get worse with time. I'm more driven than I was five years ago. God, I got to go back to meditation.
Stevenson was ill at a very young age, which is where this sentiment evokes from. He would rather travel and study the beauty of the world, than waste away as a work "drone," and subjected himself to the harsh, cruel reality around him.
A true artist mindset.
thanks for your interesting comment Lauren; it seems like many artists were sick from a young age, Proust, Flaubert, or had weak constitutions rather . . .
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