A Quote by Clement Greenberg
Once efficiency is universally accepted as a rule, it becomes an inner compulsion and weighs like a sense of sin, simply because no one can ever be efficient enough, just as no one can ever be virtuous enough. And this new sense of sin only contributes further to the enervation of leisure, for the rich as well as the poor. The difficulty of carrying on a leisure-oriented tradition of culture in a work-oriented society is enough in itself to keep the present crisis in our culture unresolved.
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Once efficiency is universally accepted as a rule, it becomes an inner compulsion and weighs like a sense of sin, simply because no one can ever be efficient enough, just as no one can ever be virtuous enough.
The difficulty of carrying on a leisure-oriented tradition of culture in a work-oriented society is enough in itself to keep the present crisis in our culture unresolved.
The U.K. is outward-looking, trade-oriented, growth-oriented, and we do not have enough of that storyline, that tradition, that culture within the European Union.
We talk of the enormous virtues of work, but it turns out that that is mostly for the poor. If you're rich enough or if you're a college professor, the virtue lies in leisure and the use you make of your leisure time.
Nature herself, as has been often said, requires that we should be able, not only to work well, but to use leisure well; for, as I must repeat once again, the first principle of all action is leisure. Both are required, but leisure is better than occupation and is its end.
There is no difficulty that enough LOVE will not conquer, no disease that enough LOVE will not heal, no door that enough LOVE will not open, no gulf that enough LOVE will not bridge, no wall that enough LOVE will not throw down, no sin that enough LOVE will not redeem.
When I teach a new group of students, I introduce some yoga philosophy, but I don't overload them with information. Just enough so they understand the real tradition behind this ancient practice and that it's not a stretching class. Guys come in and they're a little nervous. I tell them that when they cross the threshold of the door, they're crossing to a different dimension. They're moving from an externally-oriented reality to an internally-oriented one.
I want you to forget all your insecurities. I want you to reject anyone of anything that's ever made you feel like you don't belong or don't fit in or made you fell like you're not good enough or pretty enough or thin enough or can't sing well enough or dance well enough or write a song well enough or like you'll never win a Grammy or you'll never sell out Madison Square Garden, you just remember that you're a goddamn superstar and you were born this way!
It is not possible to sin enough to be happy. It isn't possible to buy enough to be happy, or to entertain or indulge or pamper ourselves enough to be happy. It is not possible to hide enough or run far enough away from trials and troubles to be happy. Happiness and joy come only when we are living up to who we are... I have never met anyone who was happier because he was immoral, or because he was addicted to something, or because he was dishonest and compromised his integrity.
There comes a time when you're losing a fight that it just doesn't make sense to keep on fighting. It's not that you're being a quitter, it's just that you've got the sense to know when enough is enough.
Society of leisure perhaps? Indeed, the most remarkable aspect of the transition we are living through is not so much the passage from want to affluence as the passage from labour to leisure. Leisure contains the future, it is the new horizon. The prospect then is one of unremitting labor to bequeath to future generations a chance of founding a society of leisure that will overcome the demands and compulsions of productive labor so that time may be devoted to creative activities or simply to pleasure and happiness.
I speak a lot about what I call "the trance of unworthiness" which is really epidemic in our culture, this sense of "I'm not enough," or "something's wrong with me." Most of us have some level of it because our culture has all these standards (handed down through our families) of what it means to be okay.
Nothing is needed so much as a holy indignation against sin. It is true that there is not enough love for God, and one sign of it is that there is not enough hatred for sin.
Our first problem is that our attitude towards sin is more self-centred than God-centred. We are more concerned about our own "Victory" over sin than we are about the fact that our sin grieve the heart of God. We cannot tolerate failure in our struggle with sin chiefly because we are success oriented, not because we know it is offensive to God.
Would that there were an award for people who come to understand the concept of enough. Good enough. Successful enough. Thin enough. Rich enough. Socially responsible enough. When you have self-respect, you have enough.
As Colin Wilson has written, "modern civilisation, with its mechanised rigidity is producing more outsiders than ever before-people who are too intelligent to do some repetitive job, but not intelligent enough to make their own terms with society." Those "intelligent enough" to make their own terms with society are what we will later refer to as artists of life. The outsider views himself as a product of a culture he rejects-the artist views himself as a culture-builder.
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