Essays in Idleness

It seems that I am pulled down, or sucked up, by “events,” in these essays. I try hard to keep away from them, and to the Buddhist customs of Yoshida no Kaneyoshi, whom the reader may know by his nom-de-pimceau, as Kenko. My mistake may have been not to move into an isolated cabin in the mountains, in which to write my short, insignificant pieces (and paste them harmlessly on the walls); and instead to have cut-and-pasted them onto the Internet (which is like writing on water). But as I have endeavoured to show, “relevance is irrelevant,” and one should have little to say until that moment when one becomes permanently silent.

The Internet is such a loud and offensive source of mindless relevance; and it is constantly interrupted by advertisements to keep everyone teased, distracted, and worried.

I was reminded, this morning, while consulting Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man. This work exhibits a serene proclivity to coherence; to be brilliantly reasoned, and irrefutable, &c. But no one can take it seriously, as a guide to life and letters, or even as a reminder to brew a pot of tea. This is because it has grown unfashionable, like most other things made too widely available.

Like Donald Trump, Pope is an Anglo-humanist and gentle Jacobite — as we see after adjusting our eyes. Nothing he presents or recommends is a novelty, not even the peace treaties, or the return to sanity and good manners, including non-violence. Had he not been previously enmired in commerce and politics, he, too, might have chosen a life of retirement; it is a tragedy to be known. Let us at least avoid fame and ostentation.

Most particularly, we should make an heroic effort not to be captured by “events.” No good can possibly come of it. Of course, one may choose to be martyred, in good time, when the chance arises; but to leap at the opportunity to accomplish anything by death is to pursue hard relevance, to the end. It is to be vulgarly topical.

Well, it could have been worse for Trump. He might easily have won a Nobel Prize. That would have been so utterly distasteful.