Inactivity

“ When idleness and inactivity are so common, and apathy and ennui, like the dry rot in a ship of the line pervades the community, and entails disease, both bodily and mental, any rational amusement that would ventilate society, and give a fillip to the languid pulse of passing events, that would break the monotony of time, and set the moral elements into circulation, ought to be hailed as a public good. ”

“ I have been in constant dread of the effect upon my mind of the forced inactivity to which I am subject, for the uncongenial work at which I have been plodding away has been of little use as an intellectual training. ”

“ My decided opinion then is, that I think a state of no inactive character would most quickly be ruined by a change to inactivity: and that those men live most securely, who regulate their affairs in accordance with their existing habits and institutions, even though they may be of an inferior character, with the least variation. ”

“ Inactivity, unaspiringness, absence of desire, are a more fatal hindrance to improvement than any misdirection of energy, and is that through which alone, when existing in the mass, any very formidable misdirection by an energetic few becomes possible. ”

“ Our present repose is no more a proof of our inability to act than the state of inertness and inactivity in which I have seen those mighty masses that float in the waters above your town is a proof they are devoid of strength and incapable of being fitted for action. ”

“ The inactivity that is advocated is the principle that has ever had us left behind, and will leave us again, unless we arouse from lethargy and arm ourselves as men and patriots against the common enemy of God and man. For six months I have labored to arouse our people to the necessity of action, and I have the satisfaction to say not without success. I have seen companies organized and under the most proficient modern drill in that time. ”

“ A disposition to inactivity generates imbecility of character; diligence ceases, indolence prevails, unnatural feelings generate unnatural desires, and the individual not only neglects positive duties, but becomes sensual and vicious. ”

“ On the other hand, total inactivity is sometimes prescribed as a remedy for overwork, when restlessness is so great that enforced idleness maddens. The patience to gain the confidence of the sufferer, and the sympathy to understand her ills and their causes, are attributes of the higher order of mind that our sieves so often weed out. ”

“ The tone of it is also impaired by permanent inactivity, and it becomes less fit to manifest the mental powers with readiness and energy.” It is “the withdrawal of the stimulus necessary for its healthy exercise which renders solitary confinement so severe a punishment, even to the most daring minds. ”

“ If they be not quite so mobile in the field as more experienced troops, there is no doubt that they present a determined front to the fire of the enemy. They have a keen relish for any preparation which appears to lead to some immediate collision, while they profess an equally profound disgust at their enforced inactivity. ”

“ If directed, it shows tendency. The tendency may or may not be resisted. If not, we call the activity immanent, as when a body moves in empty space by its momentum, or our thoughts wander at their own sweet will. If resistance is met, its agent complicates the situation. If now, in spite of resistance, the original tendency continues, effort makes its appearance, and along with effort, strain or squeeze. ”

“ The prohibition of a proposed action arouses all the resentment of thwarted desire and unfulfilled attainment. Such consequences may be avoided by the suggestion of better plans, methods, or acts, concurrent with the reasons why such change is desirable or necessary. The substitution of other activities or another course of conduct fills the void made by denial and satisfies his psychological requirement of being kept busy. ”

“ We have but one more process to undergo, and the attendant already stands at the head of our couch. This is the course of passive gymnastics, which excites so much alarm and resistance in the ignorant Franks. It is only resistance that is dangerous, completely neutralizing the enjoyment of the process. Give yourself with a blind submission into the arms of the brown Fate, and he will lead you to new chambers of delight. ”

“ The 'slow,' who sink into dull inertia, and the 'fast,' who get rid of their superfluous energy in silly extravagances, have alike the excuse, that at the moment when they need the support of a routine explained and justified by a reasonable purpose, discipline and stimulus are at once withdrawn, leaving in their place no external support beyond the trivial demands and restraints of conventional society. ”

“ And by not being uitimated, their perverse tendencies gradually lose their strength and activity: for it is a universal law, that, whatever is endowed with life loses its vital force just in the degree that exercise, or freedom of action, is denied it. ”

“ Their operations alone discover them; when unapplied, they lie hid even from the person to whom they pertain; and their action is so much a part of their nature, that the faculty itself, in many cases, is scarcely to be distinguished from a habit acquired in its frequent exertion. ”

“ If, however, this inner summons to activity (diese innere Aufforderung zur Thätigkeit) meets with outer hindrance, especially such a one as the will of the parents, which cannot be set aside, the power is at once weakened in itself, and with many repetitions of this weakening, falls into inaction.”—E., p. ”

“ When I look back and reflect upon a voluntary action, I seem to find that it differs from an involuntary action in the fact that a certain portion of my character has been consulted. There is always a suggestion of some sort, either the end of a train of thought or a new sensation; and there is an action ensuing, either the movement of a muscle or set of muscles, or the fixing of attention upon something. ”

“ With private persons, or in governments, or in public bodies of any description, there is no experiment or course of action more pregnant with danger, than is the exercise or the effort to exercise forbidden or even doubtful powers. ”

“ And some of those persons who are accustomed to pass their time in idleness and inaction, sitting around, occupied themselves in watching those who, as I have said before, were thus driven together and crammed into a very small space, as if they were a force which they were blockading; lest any one should secretly escape without their perceiving it. ”

“ But, after all, the main cause of progress is agitation, and though the agitation may be "eminently disagreeable to many, even friends, who are brought within its immediate action, it will be eminently beneficial in the end." ”

“ The experience, soon made, that regular attendance was not necessary to secure selection on days when work happened to be plentiful, and the daily alternations of hard exercise and idleness rapidly developed in those who came, if they had it not before, the greatest irregularity of habits, and physical or moral incapacity for continuous exertion. ”

“ May we not say, that in those bodies, or masses, of which their whole become evident from appearances to us to be at rest, there is notwithstanding, a continual action, and counter-action, constant efforts, uninterrupted or communicated force, and continued opposition? ”

“ Nothing will stand in the way of thy acting justly and soberly and considerately. But perhaps some of thy active powers will be hindered? Well, by acquiescing in the hindrance, and being content to transfer thy efforts to that which is allowed, another opportunity of action is immediately put before thee in place of that which was hindered. ”

“ Karl Weiss (Vienna) [66] of a case of forgetting impressively describes the futile effort to accomplish something in the face of opposition. “How persistently the unconscious activity can achieve its purpose if it has cause to prevent a resolution from being executed, and how difficult it is to guard against this tendency, will be illustrated by the following incident: An acquaintance requested me to lend him a book and bring it to him the next day. ”

“ It is by the alternation of these tendencies that the active and industrious are saved from the ruinous consequences of overtasked limbs or brain, and that the indolent are urged to the reluctant activity without which health and life itself would be sacrificed. ”

“ Activism, however, demonstrates its unique character and develops its capacity only if it is definitely distinguished from all other apparently related tendencies. Neither a sudden resolution nor even a mere incitement of power brings us at once into the condition of activity. ”

“ The popular mind regards cause as a straining agency which acts in agony of labor on resisting material, finally fashioning it and giving rise to the effect; such a relation is considered as constituting the very essence of activity. ”

“ They confuse the meaning of agitation and action. It is a terrible confusion, which arose in society principally since the Eighteenth Century. That century began to disturb the springs of our inward life. ”

“ And there are those men, such as myself, for instance, who from their position, their vast interests and heavy responsibilities, from the almost incalculable issues dependent on their judgment and their action, are called upon to endure this strain in its most exhausting manifestations, who are compelled to subordinate personal case, even health itself, to public obligation. ”

“ In the first place, according to the evidence, there developed a tendency in what we have called the rebellious complex to take on independent activity, or an automatism after the nature of an obsession, outside the domain of the will and self-control. ”

“ When either alone or in company they sit still without doing of anything, I like it worse. For surely all disposition to idleness and vacancie, even before they grow habits, are dangerous; and there is commonly but little distance in time between doing of nothing and doing of ill. ”

“ When a person of some mental capacity is confined for a long time to an unvarying round of employment which affords neither scope nor stimulus for one half of the faculties, and, from want of education or society, has no external resources; the mental powers, for want of exercise, become blunted, and the perceptions slow and dull.” “The intellect and feelings, not being provided with interests external to themselves, must either become inactive and weak, or work upon themselves and become diseased.” ”

“ What a rupture of the inward equilibrium which maintains man passive and tranquil! The consequent mental agitation will lead to agitation, impulsion, ambitions, lassitude, despondency, and disorder in all the sentiments which had thus far maintained every species of society, the family, the commune, the Church, free association and the State!—Now, along with the immediate effects of science on the intellectual habits of men consider the effects of its application to their material condition ”

“ But we were not doing that; we were in constant motion. The arduous exercise that we were undergoing, our fatigue, the anxieties and fears that preyed upon the mind—each was contributing its quota to the dire and steady work of enervation. ”

“ Men need some kind of external activity, because they are inactive within. ”

“ They are frequently useful in rank and file, supporting their activity upon that of their comrades. A changed situation, and occurrence, which with a marked disposition needs only to be very trifling, upsets the balance, making the previously weakly-active man wholly passive. ”

“ In such a crisis, two facts are prominent: the unusual range of activity offered to the individual—may he not traverse the whole scale of experience?—and the dependence of the individual upon himself. ”

“ These special cases we disregard. ↑ We cannot say the will, for, though many, perhaps most, human habits were once voluntary actions, no action, as we shall see in a later chapter, can be primarily such. While an habitual action may once have been voluntary, the voluntary action must before that, at least once, have been impulsive or reflex. ”

“ Their work had been confined for countless ages to a multiplicity of petty tasks--hand work and finger work--tasks wearing to body and mind in the extreme, but of a sort wholly failing to provoke that reaction of the vital forces which builds up and develops the parts exercised. ”

“ What painful restraint—what constant effort to struggle against the strongest impulses are habitually practiced elsewhere, and by other classes? And they must be practiced, unless greater evils would be encountered. ”

“ Most changes of the kind I am referring to—fundamental changes in outlook, in daily thoughts and feelings, in behavior—can be made only gradually. Since any move in the direction of change will threaten your existing defenses, resistance and protest are likely to well up from within you. New ways of being will feel intimidating, unpleasant, or just plain unnatural. And this is understandable, is it not? You must confront and do battle against habits that may have been with you for a long time. ”

“ And are we not, we mortals, so many billiard-balls, launched forth upon our little arena by we know not what force, and rolling we know not whither? It may be a little wider or a trifle narrower, perhaps, the stage on which we play our several parts; but all the same, around it rise the unscalable barriers of human life, the adamantine limitations of human endeavor. ”

“ Either the work at the office suddenly does itself up in a tangle, or the domestic arrangements show signs of incipient paralysis, which it takes all my available energy to avert, or else it is people who inflict themselves upon me when I’m at my final gasp without a moment, or a single company smile, to spare for anybody. And of all the three forms of irritation, the uninvited people are the worst ”

“ When our voluntary endeavors are successful, a distinct throb of pleasure is the result, which counts among our valuable enjoyments: when they fail, a painful and depressing state ensues. The more complicated operations of the will, as in adjusting many opposite interests, bring in the element of conflict, which is always painful and wasting. ”