Bestand this, bee-yotch!

So, due in no small part to a continuing conversation with Mighty Maya (fellow: 1.  Exonian, 2. layabout, and 3. semi-latent creative genius) I have been thinking about... well... lying about. Specifically, I've been wondering about the difference between laying low, limbo, paralysis, biding one's time, recouping, shoring up one's creative juices, etcetera. Is there a productive sort of lying about? When does that productivity tip over the edge into non-productivity? Is it possible to spend most of one's life not being productive, but still being meaningfully productive, if that makes sense? It's enough to give one a headache. Perhaps it's time for a nap.

Instead, a poem: (Bear with me). It's by Milton. (No--really. Bear with me)

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide 

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest He returning chide;

"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent 

that murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need 

Either man's work or His own gifts. Who best

bear his mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state

is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,

and post o'er land and ocean without rest;

They also serve who only stand and wait.

Okay, on a religious level, I'm not particularly down with this. I'm not certain I even understand it on a religious level. But there's something incredibly resonant about this poem even outside of its subject matter, and I wonder if it's just the shock of the last line, which CLEARLY says it's better to get stoned and play Katamari than to make a difference in the world.

Another pretentious guy I can turn to for some back up for the layabout's lifestyle is Heidegger, who basically says that the only way to get close to the world is to stand back and observe it. When we take things apart in an attempt to understand them, when we get too close, in other words, we loose perspective. The "essence" of the thing escapes, and we're left with an empty shell. Much like eating a pistachio, in fact.

Okay: from the quasi-atheistic (at least in the old-fashioned sense of "theos"), fairly existential, absurdist point of view I happen to be party to, basically what matters in the world is what I think matters. If I think religion matters, it matters. If I think the ethics of my culture matter, they matter (Hi Soren!!) If it all should go hang, it should all go hang. And if the world is populated with fairies and pigs have wings and everyone wants to have sex with me, but they're all really good at hiding their true natures, then that's the world I live in. (Which is, by the way, the world I live in.)

So the question is, I guess, how important is it to me to DO something in the world, and what is it to do something in the world, and how can one be sure that by doing something, you're not harming? I wonder how many of us fence-sitters there are in academia, theorizing our lives away. That all being said, I can't help but hope that the artists in the world, whether in academia or no, give us something to aspire to, something by which to be inspired. 

Especially when they take pictures of cowgirls.