a certain "femme fatale" who examines her head in minute detail on occasion has recently updated her blog with some thoughts on wasting time/idleness and, underlying, her "guilt" in not being a more productive entity when playing solitaire. ah, the irony of it all.
does she realize, in her ruminations, that she has joined with some most respected minds that have relected on this same subject?
as far back as the old testament as in ecclesiaste (10:18).... "by slouthness the roof sinketh in, and through idleness of the hands the house leaketh", or from a christian perspective John Bunyan's admonition..."an idle's man's brain is the devil's workshop".
in a secular vein voltaire stated: "Shun idleness. It is the rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals". benjamin franklin offered "idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings..." and john quincy adams felt he had pinned the tail on the donkey with "idlenes is sweet and its consequences are cruel".
samuel johnson in his essay "The Idler" asks "who can be more idle than the reader of the idler" to which i might add...who can be more idle than the writer of being idle?
didn't bunyan have souls to save? why was he wasting time coming up with nifty quotes? voltaire could have been writing another "Candide" to make some money, and if jqa hadn't been wasting his time doodling perhaps he could have worked on the slavery situation.
so...and i plead guilty to responding to this crafty woman's blog... is not blogging about idleness the equivalent of playing solitaire? should she not be engaged in purposeful business, or at least, as mother ann would say..."hands to work, hearts to god" (although one could support the argument that praying is idle behavior).
however, having said the preceding, my own thoughts on the subject would run contrary to the good mr. buyan (of "Pilgrim's Progress" fame) and the ethic of "work is it's own reward", because i can say, without the femme's guilt, that idleness has its own rewards...reflection, imagination, occasional profound thoughts and is good for the tired, aching body (caused by non-idleness). as virginia woolf so eloquently put it: "yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top"
so idle away ms. smc....it is relaxation for the brain!