Comments on: Just be

By: yseult

yseult — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:13:55 +0000

Thank you for that comment, Diana.

Now that you say it, I can completely agree that there is something profoundly ‘protestant’ about the horror of idleness. But as always, when talking about protestantism and mainly also Calvinism, the next step is: success. So indeed… there can be no immaterial success. And that makes success in… just being… or even in the silence or contemplative life rather impossible.

Funnily enough, I just followed a couple of conferences by Sir Anthony Kenny on Aristotle’s conception of eudaimonia, the good life and… the contemplative life. How about this: without silence, without to unordered and without the un-aimed, there can be no aim, no success and no meaningful word, since it’s through their dichotomies that we even realise their value in the first place.

Looks utterly platitudinous, I know.

By: Diana

Diana — Fri, 29 May 2009 10:55:19 +0000

This special horror vacui of ‘useless’ time I especially found in friends who grew up in a vivid Protestant environment. As if they could’nt feel the immense sensuality and abundance of just being, without doing anything. One of these friends once said, that he couldn’t waste any minute without doing something useful, without thinking, learning, discussing, without STRUGGLE for knowledge. He hated ‘idleness’. But, ah, I’m a great idler, I love the special fertility which blooms only in unintentionality.

By: yseult

yseult — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:04:03 +0000

Yes, but that doesn’t keep me It’s on my amazon list now.

By: RonaldM

RonaldM — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:54:50 +0000

Your welcome
Summarizing the book in English is a bit difficult for me. But I can really recommend it, easy reading (at least in dutch). But I am afraid you have a long list of “have to read sometime”.

By: yseult

yseult — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:23:49 +0000

Thank you, Ronald. No, I don’t know either the author or the book unfortunately, but it sounds like something I should look into.
I’m glad you liked it. Of course being together doing things is extremely important, because it’s through the things that we live through together, where we share experiences, that we forge a common story. But I feel that learning to go for the unplanned and the ‘let’s not do anything’ is just as important.

By: Ronald Marks

Ronald Marks — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:46:36 +0000

Great article yseult, thank you for this (and the mobile version).

Just started reading the dutch version of a book from Henri Nouwen, called “REACHING OUT Three Movements of the Spiritual Life” (assignment for Spirituality). Do you know this book? One of the things he writes about is our need to be together to ‘do things’, us being afraid to be alone and his way to grow in to other ways of being alone and having friends.