Sunday, November 26, 2006

This is the sort of thing ...

... Bryan Appleyard does to perfection: Playing With Ideas. This isn't quite up to that lvel, but it's well worth reading.

"I take refuge in the fact that I can’t change anything by agonizing about it, so I don’t." This is pretty much how I feel.
This too: “My disinclination to analyze myself suggests I wouldn’t pay someone else to do it.”

One can reflect upon oneself and observe oneself quite dispassionately without feeling any need to get to the bottom of oneself. At least I feel no such need. Moreover, I am a eudaemonist: I devote myself to feeling as good as I can, and can discern no virtue in feeling badly.

Postscript: I didn't notice until after I had posted this - and then checked my email - that Dave Lull had sent me the link. Thanks, Dave. Great mids at work again!

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:29 PM

    I agree with the general sentiment.
    Yet if one finds oneself not coping, what is one to do?
    I think paying someone to analyse can help, though it is greatly over-rated, especially if one pays too much and for too long!

    But spare a tought for those who are not as robust as you and Bryan Appleyard. Life can be very tough.

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  2. Hi Maxine,
    I don't think I'm tough. I think I'm shallow. (I can't speak for Bryan.)
    I have had little experience of depression. Since my last birthday I have found myself repeatedly thinking how it represented the curtain rising on the last act of my life - and I don't find that a particularly exhilarating idea. But there's nothing I can do about it, so I focus my attention elsewhere.
    See what I mean? Shallow.

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