On Wasting Time

I

From the point of view of the Higher Criticism, writing an essay on wasting time is itself a kind of wasting of time: because, if it purports to be a defence of it, one may as well give up hope, once and for all, of convincing anybody, and, on the other hand, if it starts out to be a savage attack upon it, one will be only confirming people in the opinion they have held ever since they were privileged to cut their wisdom teeth. On this matter the generality of them are pretty thoroughly unanimous. I have found, from experience, that they are usually pretty thoroughly unanimous on the fundamental verities. To listen to them waxing indignant on the slightest departure from these is a treat never to be missed: one is inevitably led to conclude that the world is full of righteous men and women and that the unrighteous may be counted almost on one’s fingers. In theory everybody appears to be a paragon of virtue: the ideal son, husband, father, friend, associate, citizen, et hoc genus omne. The wonder of wonders is from where the innumerable crimes and torts that undoubtedly besmirch the fair face of the universe issue. All one’s comrades and relations preen themselves on wearing the white flower of a blameless life. ‘Respectability’ is writ large on their countenances. They ooze the sanities of life from every pore of their beings. Let there be the least violation of them in the remotest corner of the globe, and none will be more vociferous in condemnation of it than these very persons. They are a walking advertisement of the maxim that honesty is the best policy. They protest that there is no skeleton in their cupboards. They even insist that their presence in the locality acts as a sort of moral disinfectant for miles and miles around. Christ’s ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’ is, it is to be presumed, the mildest of mild abjurgations before their expressed abhorrence of vice in any shape or form. One may put it that they are not only good themselves but that they are the cause of goodness in others as well. Like Caesar’s wife, they are above suspicion. They are, in short, so upright in character that it may be inscribed on their door-steps: ‘Here dwell those whom scandal dare not touch.’

II

This being so, it is not surprising that the vast majority of our fellow-humans are of one accord when it comes to a consideration of this curious business of wasting time. They simply loathe it. They will, at a pinch, go to the length of magnifying it into one of the seven deadly sins. All honour to them I say! Only, I cannot bring myself to share that lofty view. If wasting time is a sin, I am one of the greatest sinners, alive or dead. I have wasted more time than I shall ever be able to compute; and, what is more, have not succeeded in ridding myself of that habit to this minute. That is why I have been impelled to dissertate on the subject. At last I have discovered one on which I can write like an expert. In respect of it I speak as a Scribe, not as a Pharisee: as a professional not as an amateur. I have been a murderer of time and I have never ceased to feel sorry for it. But what boots it now? The thing has been done. An offer, lawyers will tell you, can be revoked–under certain circumstances: to be precise, before it has been accepted and thus has willy-nilly been converted into a contract. A sin can be atoned for–provided there is sincere repentance, and, as my Bible teacher used to impress upon his class of students, there is a turning over of a new leaf afterwards on the part of the sinner. A building may be demolished and a new one, nearer to the heart’s desire, erected on its site. Why, even a stream can be compelled to change its course. The generalissimo of an army may be recalled in the thick of the fight and another appointed in his place. But there can be no revocation as regards the wasting of time. When the sands in the hour-glass begin running out–why there is an end of the affair: no fresh sands can be put in. The Romans had an expression: ‘Semel heres, semper heres’–which, being interpreted, means: ‘Once an heir, always an heir.’ Once you have wasted time you can do nothing about it: just as you cannot un-scramble an egg again. It is like the Law of the Medes and Persians–absolute, authoritative. One may recover money lost, but not time thrown away. The question, however, remains: Are we, then, to lose our heads over it? There may, indeed, be no remedy, but, taking it all in all, is it as bad as it has been depicted by the moralists? Is it, for example, on the same level as robbing a church or cracking a joke at a funeral? Frankly, I do not think so.

III

Before passing judgment upon it, it would, in my humble opinion, be useful to enquire why, in a particular instance, one is induced to waste one’s time. I am not of the fraternity that believes that anybody–barring the complete imbecile–wastes his time for the mere pleasure of it: especially in these days of fierce competition. Those who are studying in schools and colleges rarely do; and those that have reached man’s estate are so pre-occupied in finding ways and means of earning the wherewithal to support themselves and their kith and kin that they have scarcely, if I may say so, any time to waste time. In other words, ‘the daily round and the common task’ forbid it–almost entirely. We are–and so much the worse for us–living in a world of hard facts, of grim realities; and if one is not careful one just goes under. The age of chivalry is gone–in more senses than one. Perhaps we have not yet realised what extraordinary price we are paying for our remorseless materialism. Nemesis has over- taken us already: but blind are those who will not see. Look at Europe. I shall not be surprised if, at the pace at which events are marching there, not a vestige of its glory will remain ere long. Nay: the ‘white man’s civilisation,’ as we have come to know it, looks like collapsing wholesale within an incredibly short period. And quite deservedly, too, I am tempted to remark. This curse of competition, of the weak having to go to the wall, has originated there–in the West; and, foolishly enough, the East is panting and perspiring to model itself upon it. It is useless telling me of the miraculous progress that Japan has made on account of imitating this same West. Well, for that very reason. Japan, I suggest, is equally doomed. I am prepared to lay a wager that, not Japan that is coercing China, but China that is being coerced by Japan, will, ultimately, survive in the struggle for existence. Let us not allow ourselves to be deceived by appearances. Harking to my theme, we are not, thanks to the Occident, so fancy-free nowadays that we can afford to indulge in the luxury of wasting time. No: our lot is to grind away–till kindly death intervenes and puts a stop to this madness. We live–in order to work; and when there is no work to be done, We mope away. It is recorded of the late Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Randall Davidson, that, after relinquishing office, he ceased to be his old self and literally declined into desuetude. He had been so used to managing affairs that, when he found that there were no affairs to manage, he simply languished. Unfortunately, he had not cultivated the graces: if he had, he would not have felt the time hanging on his hands to such an extent. We are as our ideals make us. If we are for ever doing things, we fare ill when the doing of them is taken from us. It is to people of this sort that Milton addresses his famous lines:

"To measure life learn thou betimes, and know
Toward solid good what leads the nearest way;
For other things mild Heaven a time ordains,
And disapproves that care, though wise in show,
That with superfluous burden loads the day,
And when God sends a cheerful hour, refrains."

IV

Since one cannot help sliding into autobiography when writing an essay–and, after all, it is not to be denied that autobiographies are the rage just now–I took occasion to confess, earlier, that I have wasted such a lot of time that I may fairly be described as an authority upon it. I have educated myself into sitting in a chair from early morn to dewy eve, and–doing nothing, absolutely nothing, apart from the usual intervals of eating and drinking. I may have been indulging in ‘the Cherub Contemplation’–or, contrary-wise, may not. The fact remains that the habit has grown on me–especially when I am melancholy. During such periods I am not strong-minded enough to go through any course of reading; and often I bemuse myself with the conjecture of what all I have lost thereby. Unfortunately, the days that the locust hath eaten cannot be recalled. It has, however, supplied me with a theory. The learned fellows of this world will, on examination, be found, in the majority of instances, to be those that are at least moderately happy–that are not, and have not been, worried eternally by this anxiety and that. A serene mind is a pre-requisite of scholarship. It is not a question of riches and poverty. A man may be poor–and yet be untroubled by the major catastrophes. I am referring to ‘the spirit, Master Shallow, the spirit!’ Well, whatever the primary cause, then, complete idleness is not a new thing to me; and when I came across, a short while ago, Mr. Wodehouse’s delightful story, The Aunt and the Sluggard, I almost jumped with joy because it looked to me as though I had found my soul-mate at last. Lovers of Jeeves will, surely, remember it. The hero is Bertie Wooster’s friend, Rockmetteller Todd. I must copy out the authors’ own words–otherwise the fun will be lost:

"Rocky, you see, lived down on Long Island somewhere, miles away from New York; and not only that, but he had told me himself more than once that he never got up before twelve, and seldom earlier than one. Constitutionally the laziest young devil in America, he had hit on a walk in life which enabled him to go the limit in that direction. He was a poet. At least, he wrote poems when he did anything; but most of his time, as far as I could make out, he spent in a sort of trance. He told me once that he could sit on a fence, watching a worm and wondering what on earth it was up to, for hours at a stretch. He had his scheme of life worked out to a fine point. About once a month he would take three days writing a few poems; the other 329 days of the year he rested. I didn’t know there was enough money in poetry to support a fellow, even in the way in which Rocky lived; but it seems that if you stick to exhortations to young men to lead the strenuous life and don’t shove in any rhymes, American editors fight for the stuff."

Well, I am not so fortunate as Rockmetteller Todd–his principal source of income was derived from biting the ear of a rich aunt. But, with suitable alterations, I may say that I am his very double.

V

There is a deeper question. Whither does all our extreme busy-ness tend? In the ultimate sense this scrupulous care not to waste one’s time is really nothing but the wasting of one’s time. I am leaving aside for the present the ‘earning of money’ part of it. Even otherwise we are–at any rate, the most of us are–too much occupied with this and that to enjoy sitting calmly and doing the equivalent of "watching a worm and wondering what on earth it is up to, for hours at a stretch." From the philosopher’s point of view, we are toiling in vain. The only form of business that will avail us in the end is prayer: silent and continual prayer. The rest is mere crackling of the thorns under the pot. But somehow we have come to think that the former is so much labour thrown away and that the latter is what we are born for. By this means we are, no doubt, often able to ‘make do,’ but what does it signify? Christ, as usual, put the matter in a nutshell when he asked: "What doth it avail if ye gain the whole world and lose your soul?" Unfortunately, we have been taught to love work for work’s sake: we have been told that the wasting of time is the unpardonable sin. Without intending to moralise, I submit that this is at the root of a large part of our trouble. Why should we not ‘lie fallow’ for a bit? Why should we be in such a tarnation hurry? What is the quest? Do we remember our last year’s labour? Are we not continually forgetting What we did before? The vanity of vanities is work. And, nowadays, we are taking our pleasures, too, in the same spirit. I am coming to think, more and more, that most of the present ills of mankind are due to this unappeasable passion for work: yes, including even wars, and rumours of wars. What the world needs at the moment is an unlimited edition of ‘Mr. Wodehouse’s hero: it would be kept out of mischief at the least. R.L.S. spoke the truth when he wrote:

"We are in such haste to be doing, to be writing, to be gathering gear, to make our voice audible a moment in the derisive silence of eternity, that we forget that one thing, of which these are but the parts–namely, to live. We fall in love, we drink hard, we run to and fro upon the earth like frightened sheep. And now you are to ask yourself if, when all is done, you would not have been better to sit by the fire at home, and be happy thinking. To sit still and contemplate–to remember the faces of women without desire, to be pleased with the great deeds of men without envy, to be everything and everywhere in sympathy, and yet content to remain where and What you are–is not this to know both wisdom and virtue, and to dwell in happiness?"

It is, Indeed. But we have no Robert Louis Stevensons in our midst to remind us of these simple truths.