THE "VITA ACTIVA"

WORK


Illustration from Frank Tashlin's, The Bear That Wasn't (1946)

Frank Tashlin (born Francis Fredrick von Taschlein) (February 19, 1913 – May 5, 1972)

NIETZSCHE: ON THE VITA ACTIVA

George Grosz, Ameisen (Ants), 1920



From Nietzsche's Human, All Too Human, 1878 (trans. H. Zimmerman), 283:

Principal deficiency of active men. - Active men are generally wanting in the higher activity: I mean that of the individual. They are active as officials, businessmen, scholars, that is to say as generic creatures, but not as distinct individual and unique human beings; in this regard they are lazy. - It is the misfortune of the active that their activity is always a little irrational. One ought not to ask the cash-amassing banker, for example, what the purpose of his restless activity is: it is irrational. The active roll as the stone rolls, in obedience to the stupidity of the laws of mechanics. - As at all times, so now too, men are divided into the slaves and the free; for he who does not have two-thirds of his day to himself is a slave, let him be what he may otherwise: statesman, businessman, official, scholar.

Grosz, Metropolis, 1916-1917

The sufferings inflicted by the contemplatives

Friederich Nietzsche, MORGENRÖTE: Gedanken über die moralischen Vorurteile

(1873)

[DAYBREAK: Thoughts on the prejudices of morality]

Section 41

Nietzsche in 1876

"Section 41. Towards an evaluation of the vita contemplativa. – Let us, as men of the vita contemplativa, not forget what kind of evil and ill-fortune has come upon the man of the vita activa through the after-effects of contemplation – in short, what counter-reckoning the vita activa has in store for us if we boast too proudly before it of our good deeds.

First: the so-called religious natures, whose numbers preponderate among the contemplative and who consequently constitute their commonest species, have at all times had the effect of making life hard for practical men and, where possible, intolerable to them: to darken the heavens, to blot out the sun, to cast suspicion on joy, to deprive hope of its value, to paralyze the active hand – this is what they have known how to do, just as much as they have had their consolations, alms, helping hand and benedictions for wretched feelings and times of misery.

Dürer, St. Jerome in his study, 1514

Secondly: the artists, somewhat rarer than the religious yet still a not uncommon kind of man of the vita contemplativa, have as individuals usually been unbearable, capricious, envious, violent and unpeaceable: this effect has to be set against the cheering and exalting effects of their works.

Thirdly: the philosophers, a species in which religious and artistic powers exist together but in such a fashion that a third thing, dialectics, love of demonstrating, has a place beside them, have been the author of evils in the manner of the religious and the artists and have in addition through their inclination for dialectics brought boredom to many people; but their number has always been very small.

Fourthly: the thinkers and the workers in science; they have rarely aimed at producing effects but have dug away quietly under their mole-hills. They have thus caused little annoyance or discomfort, and often, as objects of mockery and laughter, have without desiring it even alleviated the life of the men of the vita activa. Science has, moreover, become something very useful to everyone: if on account of this utility very many predestined for the vita activa now, in the sweat of their brow and not without brain-racking and imprecations, beat out for themselves a path to science, this distress is not the fault of the host of thinkers and workers in science; it is “self-inflicted pain.”"

Dürer, Melancolia, 1514

 
PLINY THE YOUNGER
LETTER TO FUSCUS
(Spanish translation below)
















Pliny the Younger Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo (61 AD – ca. 112 AD)
















Model of Pliny's Villa at Laurentium







 

[ABAJO, EN CASTELLANO]




LETTER CVIII



To Fuscus:


You want to know how I portion out my day, in my summer villa at Tuscum? I get up just when I please; generally about sunrise, often earlier, but seldom later than this. I keep the shutters closed, as darkness and silence wonderfully promote meditation.


Thus free and abstracted from those outward objects which dissipate attention, I am left to my own thoughts; nor suffer my mind to wander with my eyes, but keep my eyes in subjection to my mind, which, when they are not distracted by a multiplicity of external objects, see nothing but what the imagination represents to them. If I have any work in hand, this is the time I choose for thinking it out, word for word, even to the minutest accuracy of expression. In this way I compose more or less, according as the subject is more or less difficult, and I find myself able to retain it. I then call my secretary, and, opening the shutters, dictate to him what I have put into shape, after which I dismiss him, then call him in again, and again dismiss him. About ten or eleven o'clock (for I do not observe one fixed hour), according to the weather, I either walk upon my terrace or in the covered portico, and there I continue to meditate or dictate what remains upon the subject in which I am engaged.



























This completed, I get into my chariot, where I employ myself as before, when I was walking, or in my study; and find this change of scene refreshes and keeps up my attention. On my return home, I take a little nap, then a walk, and after that repeat out loud and distinctly some Greek or Latin speech, not so much for the sake of strengthening my voice as my digestion; though indeed the voice at the same time is strengthened by this practice. I then take another walk, am anointed, do my exercises, and go into the bath. At supper, if I have only my wife or a few friends with me, some author is read to us; and after supper we are entertained either with music or an interlude. When that is finished, I take my walk with my family, among whom I am not without some scholars. Thus we pass our evenings in varied conversation; and the day, even when at the longest, steals imperceptibly away. Upon some occasions I change the order in certain of the articles above - mentioned. For instance, if I have studied longer or walked more than usual, after my second sleep, and reading a speech or two aloud, instead of using my chariot I get on horseback; by which means I ensure as much exercise and lose less time.



The visits of my friends from the neighboring villages claim some part of the day; and sometimes, by an agreeable interruption, they come in very seasonably to relieve me when I am feeling tired. I now and then amuse myself with hunting, but always take my tablets into the field, that, if I should meet with no game, I may at least bring home something. Part of my time too (though not so much as they desire) is allotted to my tenants; whose rustic complaints, along with these city occupations, make my literary studies still more delightful to me.



 Farewell.























Ruins of Pliny's Villa at Tifernum











Carta de Plinio el Joven a Fusco:Me preguntas cómo paso la jornada de verano en mi casa de Tuscum, en Etruria. Me despierto cuando quiero, habitualmente a las seis, con frequencia antes, rara vez mas tarde. . . . Reflexiono sobre el trabajo que estoy haciendo y lo hago con gran cuidado, como si lo escribiera palabra por palabra y lo corrigiera . . . Después llamo a mi secretario, le hago abrir las ventanas y le dicto lo que he elaborado en la mente . . . Hacia las diez o las once –no subdivido las horas de manera rígida, precisa, sino según aconseje el tiempo -, voy a la terraza o al atrio, sigo reflexionando, y dicto lo que he pensado. Después, subo a la carroza y también en ella continúo haciendo lo que hago, caminando o acostado. La tensión mental permanence, revigorizada por el cambio. A continuación, me echo una siesta y doy otro paseo; al final leo algún discurso griego o latino, en voz alta y clara, más para el beneficio del estómago que para el entrenamiento de la voz; aunque, de todos modos, esto sirve también para fortalecer la voz. Doy un nuevo paseo, vienen después los masajes, la gimnasia y el baño. A la mesa, cuando está mi mujer o un par de amigos, hago leer algún libro; tras la cena, la comedia o el sonido del laúd; doy a continuación, un paseo con mi gente, que incluye también a hombres cultos. De este modo transcurre la velada en discursos varios y agradables, y hasta el día más largo pasa como un soplo . . . . A veces voy a cazar, aunque nunca sin mi mesita de escribir, que gracias a ella, aunque no cace nada, siempre llevo a casa algo de valor . . . También dedico algún tiempo a mis arrendatarios (coloni), aunque, según ellos, nunca es suficiente; sus quejas labriegas despiertan en mí el deseo de pensar en nuestras ciencias y en las actividades y asuntos politicos de la ciudad.
Me despido.

Welcome to the vita contemplativa

Dear Reader:

I welcome you here to a letting-go of your self, to an abandon of the pursuit of intentions, and to an attempt at a transfiguration of your relationship to the objective, which is the world you inhabit day to day in your striving. I welcome you to a place where you can hopefully abandon all hope, all ambition, all intent, all striving and all making, and rise instead to the pure contemplation of things without purpose, without your self in them. I welcome you to perceive and contemplate a painting, look at a photograph, read a poem, listen to a musical composition, in every case as if they were pure objects independent of your self, which is what they in fact are, thus releasing you from the world of will, strife and desire, to a state of total detachment, with no egoistic purpose. I invite you, in short, to abandon your will for the sake of the aesthetic. Come with me and walk towards this objective, and I shall have achieved my goal.