Saturday, February 16, 2008

The Fine Art of Doing Nothing.




Once or twice a year I read an essay or article I especially like. Today was one of those days. It's a good post for a Saturday. I am posting the first few paragraphs, if you like it, the link will bring you the rest.
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All Nothing All the Time

Neil Genzlinger / February 16, 2008 / NY Times


IF you’re wearing a cast right now, this advice comes too late, but file it away for next winter: There’s nothing wrong with doing nothing. And there’s a bed-and-breakfast out there, framed in snow but with plush rooms and welcoming fires inside, that is made for helping you remember how.

A certain high-powered personality type, the kind that advertises itself with a ski rack on the car, doesn’t grasp this concept. These folks may check into a cozy B & B on a chilly day, but then it’s eat and run run run, to the slopes or the snowmobile trails or the icy sidewalks of some antiques alley.

People like this guarantee full employment for paramedics and anyone in the crutch or quick-set-plaster business. But we travelers who have attained more of what I like to think of as maturity — “slothfulness” and “decrepitude” seem like such harsh words — know that human beings are supposed to hibernate in the winter. A bed-and-breakfast or small inn is, to us, a well-appointed cave where we go with the goal of doing nothing. Not just a little bit of nothing between bursts of something. I’m talking about all nothing, all the time.

for the balance of the essay:

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/travel/escapes/?8dpc

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I want to try this.