Life on the Unemployment Line

It is a weird feeling being employment-free when everyone is working. It is especially weird living in a house with three other people that do have day jobs. I often will sit alone in my chair reading. I will more often sit alone in my chair thinking.

When I, in the past, have had a job, I often tell myself that I do not have enough time to sit in solitude to pray, read and just think. Now that I have all the time in the world, I still feel as if I do not have enough time to think. Sitting and thinking is a funny thing because it never produces any real tangible fruit. At least when I read and when I pray, I at the bare minimum, get the satisfaction of knowing that I have done those things which I firmly believe are good for my mental and spiritual health. I can also say that I have read a certain number of chapters or a certain number of books. I can say that I have successfully prayed x amount of rosaries, or I have prayed with the entire Gospel of Matthew this month.

When I sit and think, I cannot put my name to any accomplishment in particular. I cannot claim to have learned something or to have completed a concrete task.  All I can say is that I have sat and thought. When I speak with others about what I have done in a day, I will tell them that I have prayed and I have read and I have done other things that feel concrete, but I will never say to them that I took an hour to sit in my leather armchair and think. I wonder how one would react if I said that to them. I imagine that the listener would be confused or would perhaps make a joke about how I am probably impossibly bored with all my free-time. How would I react if someone included the thought in the description of their day? Would I think them unproductive? Probably. Maybe less so now that I have explored this line of thought myself.

We uphold many great thinkers as important people in the history of the world. I think of Socrates first. Did he think by sitting alone in an armchair and staring out a window or staring at a drawing of a black bear? Perhaps he did. I do not think that they had armchairs back then like they do now and he probably never even heard of a bear before. He did not even write things himself. Others wrote down his great ideas for him. Did he come up with his ideas in the moment or did he prepare his thoughts? Many of his thoughts in the Republic were products of conversations, so it seems as if what he was quoted as saying would be something that was not prepared. Perhaps he was prepared for such conversations because he had spent time considering many thoughts alone in his armchair beforehand, just as I have claimed that I would be prepared for a conversation about sitting and thinking because I have spent time considering the topic. Is this thought productive only if it comes up in conversation later or is it fruitful because it is forming my future thoughts? It is hard to tell what makes thought itself fruitful. Is it always a concrete product? I do not think anybody would say that the fruit of thought is always a singular concrete product. Thought can have an infinite effect on all future output of an individual.

Do I only consider myself or my moments valuable if they are not productive in the eyes of the world? if they produce measurable results? Perhaps. It is at least the way I am considering this conversation. What if I step back and evaluate my time sitting in my armchair thinking as something that is valuable because of the experience I have in the moment? Can I even allow myself to think in this way? How can I consider the value of a moment if the moment passes and the value is only present in the moment? This line of thought seems to me as a worldly and secular thought. It is the line of thought that an alcoholic takes. A drunkard thinks that his experience of getting drunk is worthwhile because of what he experiences in the moment, even if he has no memories of the moment the next day. That is foolish. That is vice. That only makes sense if the man is addicted to his drink, because then he does not think of what comes next, he only thinks of the relief he experiences in the moment. This seems to me as an unproductive perspective, but is the only other one the  utilitarian route, where I consider the value of a moment to only exist if it produces fruit? There must be another answer. 

Did Our Lord sit and think? I do not recall any passage from the New Testament describing Him just thinking. I have memory of passages where He spent time alone in prayer. Is there a difference between sitting in solitude in a state of mental prayer and sitting in solitude in a state of abstract thought? To a Christian, God is present in all he thinks of. When I sit in my armchair, look out the window, and think I am reflecting on myself and the world around me in the presence of God. When I sit in that same armchair and pray, I am reflecting on God in the presence of myself and the world around me. Are these two states different or are they the same? I will often sit in that armchair with the goal of praying and find myself distracted. What am I distracted by? I am distracted by thoughts. Therefore, I must believe there is a difference between mental prayer and thinking, but I cannot put my finger on what that would be.

Perhaps I should return to my armchair and discover it.


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