One can point to the dreamy procession of boats that Claude Monet drew at Argenteuil, conveniently leaving out the smokestacks of factories that surrounded the town in order to capture what could be real than what really was. The various methods that humans have crafted to seek a temporary reprieve from everyday life are well-represented in artistic traditions around the world, and examples of renditions abound among Harvard’s collections. And if social interaction is ever insufficient in helping us withstand the monotony of the workweek, we can always briefly go full Byron: venturing literally into the “pathless woods” to seek Nature herself. After all, the conversations we have every day, from Sunday brunch gossip to water cooler talk and barista banter, represent some of the most potent social glues holding communities together in America. Of course, we do not only find escape in following the lives of fictional others. Whether it’s Ross Geller or Superman, these are figures whose desires and destinies are more limited by the screenwriter’s pen than traffic or bounced checks. For instance, we watch movies and television sitcoms, melding ourselves into the characters onscreen who seemingly never have to pay rent or file a W-4. Lucia?Īs escaping to the Caribbean is rarely a viable course of action - at least for those of us who wish to maintain our obligations, livelihoods, and grade point averages - we naturally drift to less ambitious ways to abscond from the diktats of reality. To put it another way: How many of you have ever had the desire, however fleeting, to drop everything and take a two-week sojourn to St. Even so, there certainly lies in all of us to some degree, a tiny Mephistophelian voice that, rather than tempt with material pleasures, goads us to gleefully abandon the present. It comes to no surprise then that we often use our brief moments of respite to mentally teleport to a fantastical world, where all is forgiven and life is a lot more simple and serene.įor those more burdened than others by the drudgery of daily life, this escapist itch is predictably stronger. Defined by motion and unforgiving of sloth, the demands of modernity offer but few opportunities to stop and catch one’s breath. So waxed Lord Byron’s “Childe Harold” about what surely has been the unspoken sentiment of many. I love not man the less, but Nature more…” To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice.“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |