I was recommended this book by a woman sitting next to me on a plane from Boston to Seattle. She had a very good job, I can’t remember what it was, something in the government or finance, but she was very well put together and self-assured and avuncular when she was speaking to me. I was 18 at the time, and had just dropped out of college (for the first time) and I admired her demeanor and appreciated her advice. After speaking for a while, probably explaining my situation, directionless-ness and confusion, she recommended me Voltaire’s Candide. This book ended up having a profound influence on my life. Some books find their way to me, or the proverbial you, in very strange and meaningful ways that nudge you to acknowledge it as serendipity.
In the book, the main character has been through many difficulties, lost his riches and has nothing to do. After speaking to an old man he discovers that the old man, despite simplicity, is living a fulfilled life because him and his family cultivate their garden and their land by themselves; they have no time for boredom.
Pangloss says that when man was put into the Garden of Eden, he was put there with the idea that he should work the land, and this proves that man was not born to be idle. “Let’s work,” he continues, “it’s the only way to make life bearable”. One interesting etymological connection referred to the book of Genesis and the punishment of ‘labour’ that was given to Adam and Eve for deceiving God. For man this meant having to work and suffer for his food (labour over the Earth and the animals and the harvest) and for women this meant having to suffer through childbirth (labour). They must both suffer in order to reap what they sew, to birth what they grow, and to harvest the seeds that they planted.
So goes the phrase ‘idle hands are the devil’s workshop’. Having purpose and keeping busy working towards various goals, either at work or in our personal lives, seem to be an innate need. Even when the whole world is engulfed in madness, the end of this book offers the idea that mankind can find relief from suffering through ‘cultivating their own garden’. In this perspective, hard work can alleviate some suffering on an individual level.
I’ve been thinking of this concept ad nauseam recently because I am unemployed, and been spending a lot of time alone, in solitude. I’ve found that entertainment doesn’t provide my mind or soul with the nourishment it used to when it was a reward versus a norm. I’ve deleted instagram and reddit because I found that I kept opening my phone looking for constant dopamine hits, and I learned recently that our brains actually restock on our stores of dopamine while we’re bored. So I’ve been exploring this daunting terrain; boredom. But I find myself so desperately wanting to escape it.
I fill my days with reading multiple books- the current reads are Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, The Wager, by David Grann, and a book on Investing. (My winter reads need to be much denser than my summer reads… winter is rough.) There’s a lot of hours in the day though, so besides reading and working on my portfolio and slaving away at job applications, I’m trying to improve and practice my Italian, learn some new Chess skills, teach myself Python, do some of my own art projects and personal essays, and also do my exercises, learn new recipes, and meditate. Because god forbid I have a second alone with my thoughts un-entertained. My self efficacy plummets, my social skills wither, and my excitement about the future darkens. Because what is there to hope for when you’re not actively lighting the way yourself. For this we need to be building something. This is our benefit in existing in time; our toils produce something, what we work for now we can enjoy at a later date. The bricks we lay in the present can, with patience, become cathedrals.
And this is the thing I figure about all of this; we’re here to learn, we’re here to pursue, we’re here to follow our hearts and comfort is the enemy of progress. We have whatever time we have on this Earth, and only we can do the things we can do, and only we want the things we want. I don’t think anyone is born without an inkling of something in them that wants to grow, and be fed. And this is our toil, this is our labour, which, I think, is more of a gift than a punishment. Although maybe that is why it came with the eating of the apple and the receiving of knowledge — suddenly we had minds to escape from.
Currently listening to:
Crippled Black Phoenix
Godspeed you! Black Emperor
Planning For Burial
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