Concerning Lethargy
In graduating from college, I had one worry that overshadowed the rest. Employment I could find. People have found work throughout the ages and the modern world is unable to let its citizens starve. I need not concern myself with survival. Hence, the greatest concern is not one of fulfilling the base needs but in fulfilling the existential needs: living a meaningful life be that an aesthetic one or a virtuous one. I did not wish to become another casualty of our culture that overemphasizes luxury over survival and sacrifice of real value for fictive value. It is, I think unfortunate that we encourage intellectual growth for the first twenty-some years then dump the louts onto the street to scramble about needlessly for forty years as they accomplish nothing.
I detest the cycle of work, vegetate, sleep that so many cling to as though work is necessary for the other two. One need not work in order to vegetate and sleep. Nor should work necessitate the latter. I know too many who were ambitious in college. They aspired to great feats of scientific and creative progress. Nevertheless, when they left school they fell into that same cycle that the middle-class is doomed to repeat. Take the best eight hours of the day, dedicate them to solving someone else’s problems. Take the best you have and dedicate it to someone else’s work. Return home exhausted. Sit before the television. Sleep. Repeat. Their ambitious dreams evaporate like spit in Death Valley. Each dream swallowed into the black hole that consumes all time and energy. Employment is to become the tool in another man’s hand. It saps the individual of his goals and ambitions. None properly reared in academia should ever be so foolish as dream themselves into such a position, unless they first enter it knowing that they shall use it to turn upon their employer and ravenously consume him until it is he who fuels your ambitions and not vies-versa.
The master knows this already, and so hires no journeyman. Rather, he will keep them as apprentices long after they deserve better. What is to become of the scholar? The unwanted, detested fool would upset it all. Train them well, but do not train them too well. Less they begin to think and realize they may be happy with only crumbs and not the stale bread at the table. Behold, the world tempts with luxuries, and if only they had the master’s gold they could bask in them. They do not know that gold is just a useless shiny metal. They slave away the meager hours of their lives and so trade away something of real value for the promise of something false. And once they have their luxuries however shall they enjoy them from the comfort of their offices?
In the past, I slipped too easily into this cycle. The summer comes. I work my eight hours and return spent. I hated it. The tired lethargy overcomes the brain - I lose time for my time from my own projects, my own work. At college, I could always say that I was productive. I could say no careless moment was ever lost to idleness. Since graduation, I fought against idleness. My inclination on returning home is to nap. My inclination on the weekend is to sit idly before my computer. I refused. I set heavy tasks for myself, and no matter how exhausted my faculties were I would never let them rest until the end of a sixteen hour day. A month later, I am over the lethargy. My mind returns home alert, ready to set itself to the next task.
I detest the cycle of work, vegetate, sleep that so many cling to as though work is necessary for the other two. One need not work in order to vegetate and sleep. Nor should work necessitate the latter. I know too many who were ambitious in college. They aspired to great feats of scientific and creative progress. Nevertheless, when they left school they fell into that same cycle that the middle-class is doomed to repeat. Take the best eight hours of the day, dedicate them to solving someone else’s problems. Take the best you have and dedicate it to someone else’s work. Return home exhausted. Sit before the television. Sleep. Repeat. Their ambitious dreams evaporate like spit in Death Valley. Each dream swallowed into the black hole that consumes all time and energy. Employment is to become the tool in another man’s hand. It saps the individual of his goals and ambitions. None properly reared in academia should ever be so foolish as dream themselves into such a position, unless they first enter it knowing that they shall use it to turn upon their employer and ravenously consume him until it is he who fuels your ambitions and not vies-versa.
The master knows this already, and so hires no journeyman. Rather, he will keep them as apprentices long after they deserve better. What is to become of the scholar? The unwanted, detested fool would upset it all. Train them well, but do not train them too well. Less they begin to think and realize they may be happy with only crumbs and not the stale bread at the table. Behold, the world tempts with luxuries, and if only they had the master’s gold they could bask in them. They do not know that gold is just a useless shiny metal. They slave away the meager hours of their lives and so trade away something of real value for the promise of something false. And once they have their luxuries however shall they enjoy them from the comfort of their offices?
In the past, I slipped too easily into this cycle. The summer comes. I work my eight hours and return spent. I hated it. The tired lethargy overcomes the brain - I lose time for my time from my own projects, my own work. At college, I could always say that I was productive. I could say no careless moment was ever lost to idleness. Since graduation, I fought against idleness. My inclination on returning home is to nap. My inclination on the weekend is to sit idly before my computer. I refused. I set heavy tasks for myself, and no matter how exhausted my faculties were I would never let them rest until the end of a sixteen hour day. A month later, I am over the lethargy. My mind returns home alert, ready to set itself to the next task.