Sunday, March 18, 2007

Worries about wasted time

A budding little philosophical concern: among the things one loves to do, is there a difference between the things that are the foundation of a life, and the things that are done in absence of a real life.
For example, my dad loves all things horses, and horse related activity, such as riding his horse or making horse accessories, give him real happiness and seem to be building blocks of his life. For me, a few things I do give me genuine joy, likeplaying basketball, but they are more pastime than passion. What if most of my so called interests are things that I do to escape life, because I don’t have the passions to fill a life?
Books and movies are easy to see in this light.Whether or not I remember them or even think about them, reading books and watching movies are activities that simply take time, without much real participation on my part. To say I love books and movies is to say I love to spend a lot of time alone, devouring someone else's perspective on the world. And yet people seem to accept books as a serious and almost admirable interest. Same goes for travel, which is the more worrisome piece.
Travel is something that sounds exciting and passionate, but that's the danger of it. If I go to another country and just sit onthe stoop for a week, I’ve barely participated, but itstill counts as travel.
Clearly the idea needs some refining. Is it gross overanalysis to second guess whether the things I do are true interests or simply escapes?
And where in that spectrum does blogging fall?

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