And still another danger is the danger of developing a policy of
rush, of being gradually more and more obsessed by what one has to
do next. In this way one may come to exist as in a prison, and one's
life may cease to be one's own. One may take the dog out for a walk
at eight o'clock, and meditate the whole time on the fact that one
must begin to read at a quarter to nine, and that one must not be
late.
And the occasional deliberate breaking of one's programme will not
help to mend matters. The evil springs not from persisting without
elasticity in what one has attempted, but from originally attempting
too much, from filling one's programme till it runs over. The only
cure is to reconstitute the programme, and to attempt less.
But the appetite for knowledge grows by what it feeds on, and there
are men who come to like a constant breathless hurry of endeavour.
Of them it may be said that a constant breathless hurry is better
than an eternal doze.
In any case, if the programme exhibits a tendency to be oppressive,
and yet one wishes not to modify it, an excellent palliative is to
pass with exaggerated deliberation from one portion of it to
another; for example, to spend five minutes in perfect mental
quiescence between chaining up the St.
Pages:
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73