October 20, 2013

"You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but in conversations with those he cares nothing about on subjects that bore him."

Advice from the devil in "The Screwtape Letters," which I found doing a search in my ebook, looking for boredom, which I did after this outburst of mine on the topic of boredom and the devil.

In "The Screwtape Letters," the devil tells of a man who arrives in hell and says: "I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked." He was damned not because of indulgence in "sweet sins" but because he spent his time "in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off."

14 comments:

Careless said...

Some people would post this as a way of announcing a retirement from blogging

traditionalguy said...

A fuddledness of mind is a sad waste, as the Oxford Don asserts so well.

Professor Lewis had discoveredt hat Christian Scriptures are a cure for that condition.

David said...

Love The Screwtape Letters precisely because Lewis understands the human condition so well. It is why 70 years later the book continues to sell in large numbers.

The fact that Lewis is a master of dry humor doesn't hurt, either.

traditionalguy said...

The NPR program this AM was about treating addictions to videogames which is a new DSM category.

Their last word was that it takes two years of abstinence for "the brain" to heal itself but must be done done with meditation on realty thoughts.

Careless said...

must be done done with meditation on realty thoughts.

Realtors and psychologists make an unholy team

cold pizza said...

And... *this* sums up the majority of the commentariat. -CP

traditionalguy said...

I thought so myself when the announcers kept mispronouncing Real Estate as Reality.



wildswan said...

No question but that getting the internet under control in your own life is now a major issue in current life.

Then also the world comes closer together because separated families can Skype.
And closer because people on every continent can read each others blogs instead of reporters interpretations.

But also people are getting farther apart because they are reading different versions of the news. Liberals are totally clueless about what the Tea Party is thinking and the Tea Party is thinking about facts, like the deficits, that Liberals are hiding from. There isn't news central as there used to be.

And so CS Lewis is describing internet addiction but not the only possible internet experience.

Paddy O said...

I think becoming enlightened to what you actually like and don't like is extremely important, a key part of spiritual development. Paul, the Apostle, talked about this in terms of spiritual gifts, everyone has a part and don't insist people must do that which they aren't made to do. Yet that's how church and society must operate.

We're told to fit, to conform, to walk in line.

Joe versus the Volcano is basically entirely about exactly this. Boredom versus being truly alive. The opening scenes of that movie perfectly capture the quote in the second paragraph.

David said...

I thought about exploring why this quote made me so uncomfortable, but the Packer game was on.

kristinintexas said...

Paddy O, that is a great movie. One of my favorites.

Paddy O said...

kristinintexas, it's my movie litmus test. If someone likes it, I trust their movie opinions.

If they don't, I don't.

There doesn't seem to be a middle ground. People love it or hate it. I guess the truly awake people are in one of those categories...

cold pizza said...

Paddy O, No, I am NOT arguing with you. -CP

JOB said...

In "Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book," Walker Percy points out that the word "boring" finds its etymological roots in the Old English word for "stuffed" - as in stuffed full of one's self - leaving no room for true wonder.

At any rate, "Lost in the Cosmos" might be a good follow-up to Lewis's "Screwtape Letters."

JOB