Essay in Idleness

What a strange, demented feeling it gives me when I realize I have spent whole days before this inkstone, with nothing better to do, jotting down at random whatever nonsensical thoughts have entered my head.

Essays in Idleness, Kenko (1283-1350)

I sat in a bar—where else?—by the window yesterday, and twirled my pen over my composition notebook as if it would conjure words on the page. I never lack for theses, most of which are uninventive and uninteresting and scarcely signify anything at all. Sometimes, I hesitate writing them down.

I had fortunately brought along The Art of the Personal Essay, an anthology fun and enlightening to ramble through. That is where I found the Kenko quotation. I also discovered some selections from Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book. She lists some hateful things such as this.

Sometimes one greatly dislikes a person for no particular reason—and then that person goes and does something hateful.

I imagined Shonagon and Kenko as the first bloggers.

Last night, I also imagined writing something like this. I should write about the avaricious and golden haired young woman I met last night, but I’m not feeling particularly inventive or interesting again today—another hateful thing.