<SPAN name="II"></SPAN>
<h2>II</h2>
<h2>AMATEURS IN THE ART OF LIVING</h2>
<br/>
<p>Considering that we have to spend the
whole of our lives in this human machine,
considering that it is our sole means of
contact and compromise with the rest of
the world, we really do devote to it very
little attention. When I say 'we,' I
mean our inmost spirits, the instinctive
part, the mystery within that exists.
And when I say 'the human machine'
I mean the brain and the body—and
chiefly the brain. The expression of the
soul by means of the brain and body is
what we call the art of 'living.' We
certainly do not learn this art at school
to any appreciable extent. At school we
are taught that it is necessary to fling our
arms and legs to and fro for so many hours
per diem. We are also shown, practically,
that our brains are capable of
performing certain useful tricks, and that
if we do not compel our brains to perform
those tricks we shall suffer. Thus one
day we run home and proclaim to our
delighted parents that eleven twelves are
132. A feat of the brain! So it goes
on until our parents begin to look up to
us because we can chatter of cosines or
sketch the foreign policy of Louis XIV.
Good! But not a word about the principles
of the art of living yet! Only a
few detached rules from our parents, to
be blindly followed when particular crises
supervene. And, indeed, it would be
absurd to talk to a schoolboy about the
expression of his soul. He would probably
mutter a monosyllable which is not
'mice.'</p>
<p>Of course, school is merely a preparation
for living; unless one goes to a university,
in which case it is a preparation for
university. One is supposed to turn
one's attention to living when these preliminaries
are over—say at the age of
about twenty. Assuredly one lives then;
there is, however, nothing new in that,
for one has been living all the time, in a
fashion; all the time one has been using
the machine without understanding it.
But does one, school and college being
over, enter upon a study of the machine?
Not a bit. The question then becomes,
not how to live, but how to obtain and
retain a position in which one will be able
to live; how to get minute portions of
dead animals and plants which one can
swallow, in order not to die of hunger;
how to acquire and constantly renew a
stock of other portions of dead animals
and plants in which one can envelop oneself
in order not to die of cold; how to
procure the exclusive right of entry into
certain huts where one may sleep and eat
without being rained upon by the clouds
of heaven. And so forth. And when
one has realised this ambition, there
comes the desire to be able to double the
operation and do it, not for oneself alone,
but for oneself and another. Marriage!
But no scientific sustained attention is
yet given to the real business of living,
of smooth intercourse, of self-expression,
of conscious adaptation to environment—in
brief, to the study of the machine.
At thirty the chances are that a man
will understand better the draught of
a chimney than his own respiratory apparatus—to
name one of the simple,
obvious things—and as for understanding
the working of his own brain—what an
idea! As for the skill to avoid the waste
of power involved by friction in the business
of living, do we give an hour to it in
a month? Do we ever at all examine it
save in an amateurish and clumsy fashion?
A young lady produces a water-colour
drawing. 'Very nice!' we say, and add,
to ourselves, 'For an amateur.' But our
living is more amateurish than that young
lady's drawing; though surely we ought
every one of us to be professionals at
living!</p>
<p>When we have been engaged in the
preliminaries to living for about fifty-five
years, we begin to think about slacking
off. Up till this period our reason for
not having scientifically studied the art
of living—the perfecting and use of the
finer parts of the machine—is not that
we have lacked leisure (most of us have
enormous heaps of leisure), but that we
have simply been too absorbed in the
preliminaries, have, in fact, treated the
preliminaries to the business as the business
itself. Then at fifty-five we ought
at last to begin to live our lives with
professional skill, as a professional painter
paints pictures. Yes, but we can't. It
is too late then. Neither painters, nor
acrobats, nor any professionals can be
formed at the age of fifty-five. Thus we
finish our lives amateurishly, as we have
begun them. And when the machine
creaks and sets our teeth on edge, or
refuses to obey the steering-wheel and
deposits us in the ditch, we say: 'Can't
be helped!' or 'Doesn't matter! It
will be all the same a hundred years
hence!' or: 'I must make the best of
things.' And we try to believe that in
accepting the <i>status quo</i> we have justified
the <i>status quo</i>, and all the time we feel
our insincerity.</p>
<p>You exclaim that I exaggerate. I do.
To force into prominence an aspect of
affairs usually overlooked, it is absolutely
necessary to exaggerate. Poetic licence is
one name for this kind of exaggeration.
But I exaggerate very little indeed, much
less than perhaps you think. I know
that you are going to point out to me that
vast numbers of people regularly spend a
considerable portion of their leisure in
striving after self-improvement. Granted!
And I am glad of it. But I should be
gladder if their strivings bore more closely
upon the daily business of living, of self-expression
without friction and without
futile desires. See this man who regularly
studies every evening of his life! He has
genuinely understood the nature of poetry,
and his taste is admirable. He recites
verse with true feeling, and may be
said to be highly cultivated. Poetry is
a continual source of pleasure to him.
True! But why is he always complaining
about not receiving his deserts in the
office? Why is he worried about finance?
Why does he so often sulk with his wife?
Why does he persist in eating more than
his digestion will tolerate? It was not
written in the book of fate that he should
complain and worry and sulk and suffer.
And if he was a professional at living
he would not do these things. There
is no reason why he should do them,
except the reason that he has never learnt
his business, never studied the human
machine as a whole, never really thought
rationally about living. Supposing you
encountered an automobilist who was
swerving and grinding all over the road,
and you stopped to ask what was the
matter, and he replied: 'Never mind
what's the matter. Just look at my
lovely acetylene lamps, how they shine,
and how I've polished them!' You
would not regard him as a Clifford-Earp,
or even as an entirely sane man. So with
our student of poetry. It is indubitable
that a large amount of what is known
as self-improvement is simply self-indulgence—a
form of pleasure which only
incidentally improves a particular part
of the machine, and even that to the
neglect of far more important parts.</p>
<p>My aim is to direct a man's attention
to himself as a whole, considered as a
machine, complex and capable of quite
extraordinary efficiency, for travelling
through this world smoothly, in any
desired manner, with satisfaction not only
to himself but to the people he meets <i>en
route</i>, and the people who are overtaking
him and whom he is overtaking. My
aim is to show that only an inappreciable
fraction of our ordered and sustained
efforts is given to the business of actual
living, as distinguished from the preliminaries
to living.</p>
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