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A review by mcoussens
The Art of the Wasted Day by Patricia Hampl
4.0
The title grabbed me when I saw it on the shelf. It seemed like the perfect book to bring to the beach. Once I started reading it, I looked forward to finding it in my beach bag each time I returned to the lakefront.
Early on, the author highlights the religious teaching in her youth that characterized daydreaming as a sin, exclaiming that if it is a sin, she joyfully embraces the choice of sinner. Aside from the fact that I found that to be yet another validation of my disdain of religion and its institutions, I would have still found the book to be of great value had she not included that perspective.
Her writing brings many gifts. For instance, she characterizes words as music and the mind as orchestral conductor. And, she describes what day dreaming is and isn't as: “… daydreaming doesn’t make things up. It sees things. Claims things, twirls them around, takes a good look. Possesses them. Embraces them. Makes something of them. Makes sense. Or music. How restful it is, how full of motion. My first paradox… this is what is called the life of the mind” (p. 9).
I similarly loved her description of life: “Life is not a story, a settled version. It’s an unsorted heap of images we keep going through, the familiar snaps taken up and regarded, then tossed back until, unbidden, they rise again, images that float to the surface of the mind, rise, fall, drift—and return only to drift away again in shadow. They never quite die, and they never achieve form. They are the makings of a life, not of a narrative. Not art, but life trailing its poignant desire for art..." (p. 100).
Interspersed in her own reflections and journeys, she notes her own, and others', value of solitude, detachment, and the irony that a lack of focus on accomplishment may be the most important of life's true accomplishments. Just as important, she also defines grief in a uniquely meaningful way, saying: “Grief is the unbearable inverse of resonant solitude; it is solitary confinement...” (p. 244).
I recommend reading this book not as a way to waste your day, but as a way to appreciate your day.
Early on, the author highlights the religious teaching in her youth that characterized daydreaming as a sin, exclaiming that if it is a sin, she joyfully embraces the choice of sinner. Aside from the fact that I found that to be yet another validation of my disdain of religion and its institutions, I would have still found the book to be of great value had she not included that perspective.
Her writing brings many gifts. For instance, she characterizes words as music and the mind as orchestral conductor. And, she describes what day dreaming is and isn't as: “… daydreaming doesn’t make things up. It sees things. Claims things, twirls them around, takes a good look. Possesses them. Embraces them. Makes something of them. Makes sense. Or music. How restful it is, how full of motion. My first paradox… this is what is called the life of the mind” (p. 9).
I similarly loved her description of life: “Life is not a story, a settled version. It’s an unsorted heap of images we keep going through, the familiar snaps taken up and regarded, then tossed back until, unbidden, they rise again, images that float to the surface of the mind, rise, fall, drift—and return only to drift away again in shadow. They never quite die, and they never achieve form. They are the makings of a life, not of a narrative. Not art, but life trailing its poignant desire for art..." (p. 100).
Interspersed in her own reflections and journeys, she notes her own, and others', value of solitude, detachment, and the irony that a lack of focus on accomplishment may be the most important of life's true accomplishments. Just as important, she also defines grief in a uniquely meaningful way, saying: “Grief is the unbearable inverse of resonant solitude; it is solitary confinement...” (p. 244).
I recommend reading this book not as a way to waste your day, but as a way to appreciate your day.