Doing nothing, getting things done

I would caution that what one wants to think about is not hours of work but rather disutility of work--the extent to which work is not play, but rather something that alienates one from one's essence.

Brad DeLong, here.

Indeed, but this week it seems my work's become play again, a nice mix of conversation and exam prep classes along with some proofreading, but mainly time to cook, exercise, read, rest and play [GTA mayhem amid beauty], and so my essence, for good or ill, is starting to bloom again.

Taken somewhat out of context:

...for when we have abandoned our natural temperament, there are no longer any limits to hold us back.

From the Sixth Walk in Rousseau's The Reveries of a Solitary Walker, p 80

Henry Miller, by Peter Gowland

"To move forward clinging to the past is like dragging a ball and chain. The prisoner is not the one who has committed a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over. We are all guilty of crime, the great crime of not living life to the full. But we are all potentially free. We can stop thinking of what we have failed to do and do whatever lies within our power. What these powers are that are in us may be no one has truly dared to imagine."

Henry Miller, The Rosy Crucifixion, p341