It's a bright sunny day of November -- a brilliant blue sky; fluffy white clouds; pleasant breeze; fluttering trees. You open the windows wide, sunshine streams in, and you break into a happy chuckle.
It's a day you want to spend alone. Lying on your back, with a book in your hand, occasionally looking out of the window. You don't have anything particular to do today; you can spend your time as you wish.
Lying still on the bed, you let your mind wander. You can also take a nap, by the way, probably hoping that you'll be taken over by a pleasant day-dream. But even if you have to keep awake, you might be pleasantly surprised to hear -- a few twittering birds from somewhere on the trees, a rhythmic hammering sound coming from a distance, the diffused sound of vehicles coming from the road outside, the faint shout of children playing somewhere, the hiss of a pressure cooker from a neighboring house, and many other indistinguishable sound -- a lot of which you do not catch on a busy day. You feel happy this way -- lying down, doing nothing, while the world passes you by.
There are a bunch of people who are compulsively active. Their calendars are always packed, they always have to rush somewhere, and they always need to keep doing something. To be idle, for them, is the most difficult thing to do.
And then, as if to balance things out, like all laws of nature, there's an exact opposite bunch of people -- those who can lie on their back for hours, simply do nothing, and still enjoy it.
4 comments:
Have you read "The Man Without Qualities" by Robert Musil? It's wonderful to hold this book in your hand and occasionally look out of the window. Each sentence allows one to pause, look up and reflect for a moment before continuing on with the next. That's how books should be enjoyed. No need to rush at all.
I always enjoy reading your words. You are a thoughtful person who is aware of the futility of striving after the wind. I admire you.
Alexandre FABBRI: Umpteen thanks! You'll probably understand what it is like for a writer, however insignificant, to receive such words of appreciation. I'll treasure them.
And well, I haven't read Musil. I know, if I'm at all a serious reader, I should read him. Hopefully, very soon.
Thank you too. Musil is not really popular outside of Germany. Few people have even heard of him, including at one time, myself. It was someone else that mentioned him in a comment that got me interested in finding his work. But in Volume III of the book mentioned here, he touches upon something that interests me a lot. The thought of whether it's possible that one may have a counterpart living somewhere else on the earth with almost if not identical feelings as one's own as Kieslowski may have been implying in his film The Double Life Of Veronique. Alternatively, Kieslowski may have been suggesting Weronika was a spiritual side of Veronique coming alive. More likely though, Kieslowski was simply making us think a bit and not necessarily implying anything at all. He was like that. A film director who asked questions while others supplied the answers. I continue to look forward to reading more of your posts.
hey my dear friend pranab, you forced me to recall painfully some ten year-old beautiful memories of indian winter afternoon spent in local neighbourhood in winter vacations from school,
but while listening to Elton John right now when I am putting the comments here I will go by as 'This Train Don't Stop, This Train Don't Stop, This Train Don't Stop There Anymore'
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