One of the chief draws of living here at a remote lighthouse is the time and space to pursue what I like to call the contemplative life. And as you might suspect, the winter is especially conducive to curling up with a good book, a hot drink, and some relaxing music to get the creative juices flowing. What is more, cutting the cable television from our lives has made a radical contribution toward a more contemplative atmosphere.
Not long ago I read a moving book titled We Were an Island: The Maine Life of Art and Nan Kellam by Peter P. Blanchard III. It is the amazing story of a couple who bought an island off the coast of Maine last century to retreat from society and live the contemplative life on their own terms. As Blanchard writes, “Art and Nan were in open rebellion against the practices and priorities of their media-dominated century. They knew that, on the mainland, cherished moments of undistracted, mutual enjoyment in reading, writing, and listening had become a rarity.”
And another book I recently read is titled In Praise of Wasting Time, based on a TED talk by renowned scientist Alan Lightman, who describes a couple different types of time: “The ancient Romans also distinguished between two different kinds of time: negotium and otium. Negotium was time spent at work and duty. Business time. Otium was leisure time, time spent away from the job. Otium was time for reflection, reading, writing, thinking, philosophizing, self-examination.”
Yet lest anyone confuse contemplation with complacency, author Robert Walser defends us creative types by clarifying:“In a word, by thinking, pondering, drilling, digging, speculating, writing, investigating, researching, and walking, I earn my daily bread with as much sweat on my brow as anybody.” It is this very type of cerebral lifestyle that originally motivated me to become more of a minimalist in order to experience it on a daily basis.
As Linda and I are both big readers, one of our favorite activities is reading together during what we call “library evenings.” If we come upon a passage that we feel might interest the other we share from our reading and thus double our pleasure. And sometimes we even put down our books and pursue another pleasurable pastime together!