The Frivoloties of the Mind

What sorts of frivolities has your mind been indulging in lately? In this way I mean, what silly pointless and yet lovely things have you been thinking about? The things that are comparable to delectable little chocolates that are so tasty and yet so unhealthy if it makes up the constitution of your entire diet. I could begin to list all the different things that I consider to be frivolities but I won't for two reasons. My list would be too long, and it would make anyone who is lax with their imagination to despair of ever having a non frivolous thought.
written: 1/28/09 8:22 pm

Let me first begin by telling you that the above paragraph I wrote several days ago and decided not to continue because of the stuck up nature of the article. Now I return to it with a renewed vigor because I have just read the essay Life without Principle, by Henry David Thoreau. Now, I don't agree with everything he has to say the therein but it has both inspired me and challenged me.

I would highly recommend to anyone to read his essay, because it makes us think and challenges us to clear our minds of simple purposeless thoughts and try delving into the greater riches of life. He doesn't approach it from a Christian perspective, but I believe that if he had it would have attained a much greater height of purpose then it did. Scoff me all you'd like, I'm no brilliant mind and am just expressing my opinion. I'm full of Thoreau right now so let me say, in the words of Thoreau:

I take it for granted, when I am invited to lecture anywhere, that the desire to hear what I think on some subject, though I may be the greatest fool in the country, --and not that I should say pleasant things merely, or such as the audience will assent to; and I resolve, accordingly, that I will give them a strong dose of myself. They have sent for me, and engaged to pay for me, and I am determined that they shall have me, though I bore them beyond all precedent.

You are not paying for me nor is this a lecture, but since you are on my blog you are here at your own risk :). Leave whenever you feel inclined.

One of the examples of a time when he delved into a deep topic, but missed the mark because of lack of perspective is this. (Remember all is simply in my own perspective and I'm just adding this to edit out all the I thinks that might make it sound a bit less presumptuous.)
Aaa..well..I cannot find the quote at the moment so if I do I'll post it back here but for now I'm moving on.

There are a lot of memorable and good lovely ideas in this essay. I'll just give you some quotes and my ideas.

When I first started reading this essay I read it silently and while lieing down in the early afternoon. That was a mistake. I hadn't the brainpower to process the ideas expressed and...I soon fell asleep. The next day when I tried to take it up around the same time as the day before I nearly fell asleep again! The appeal for this essay was draining away and my moral was dropping...Then my mom came in to join me and I ended up reading it to her. That helped a whole lot to read it out loud.

These last few days I have been feeling a bit down and out. I was having a hard time seeing any purpose or meaningfulness in my current life, mainly in the last few days. It's mostly to the credit of my laziness in not focusing on school work as much as I should. I didn't feel that my mind or body was being exercised anywhere near it's lowest potential.

Chatting became dull and uninteresting because it felt so pointless and without meaning. Conversations never getting deeper then what kind of livelihood do you plan on having once you're out of school. There wasn't a way of exchanging deeper concepts of life or discussing ideas...I am in search of that now. The lack of imagination in my conversations was getting to be very mundane.

Now, my advice to anyone who gets into the same rut I've been in is exactly what I did. It was hard to get started and I needed my mom to get me into it :), but once I was going I started getting into it. You have no idea how smart it makes you feel reading aloud the writings of someone who has a brilliant way with words and ideas and understanding them. Try it sometime.

After a page or two I hit upon the thought that made me start this post a while back. That's when my interest was sparked. I began this post before I read this essay and it was beginning along the lines of what he talks about in this essay. I barely touched the surface like a butterfly brushes it's wings on a leaf, but I did start something along the lines of this adept philosopher, and that's what stirred my excitement. Did I really start along the same train of thought?
He said:

I often accuse my finest acquaintances of an immense frivolity; for, while there are manners and compliments we do not meet, we do not teach one another the lessons of honesty and sincerity that the brutes do, or of steadiness and solidity that the rocks do.

Now, I do not pretend to fully understand this statement nor to claim I came to this conclusion. It was the frivolity that caught my interest and made me remember the way I had begun to write about it here. Along the line of the idleness of our daily chatter is this next quote that comes from a little farther down the page:

Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip.

Isn't this so true sometimes? I have definitely felt this. If we arn't barely speaking about superficial surfaces of our lives such as how our day has been, the movies we watch, the music we listen to, and all other 'small talk' as it is labeled, then we speak of each other's feelings and heart issues in derogatory ways.

We stab each other in the back when we are left to discuss the actions and attitudes of those we know and often delight in turning against in malice once they are out of earshot. Honeyed words that they hear are the covering for our sometime cruel gossip. Ok, yes, I know I just went about in describing it in a dark and morbid way. This is not what I think my current friends are like, but I have had friends of this kind.

I don't fault them wholly for it though, I think in the past it has not always come out of an intent to hurt, though it does, and does intensely, but more out of an ignorance of the pain it can cause. An opening of the part of our mind subject to our fallen nature and the reason we cannot read each other's thoughts. They could be far too hurtful to know. In the privacy of our minds we sometimes think of others what we would never say. Yet sometimes before we truly learn the weight words can have, we let those evil fallen thoughts to slip out in words. Gossip. As the wise words of Proverbs put it:

A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends.

As you can see I was swept away on a current of thought provoking ideas from Thoreau. I hope to do another post on him and even on the Frivolities of the mind but as night wanes and I grow weary I must get some sleep :). I hope someone will enjoy this. Once again...I'm developing a habit of just posting and not looking over it beforehand...I hope it is alright.

More Thoreau later. My dad is going to read this essay and we're going to discuss it :).

Your's (The Lord's) )Truly!(.
Amy