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Maddenation
Justification for the essayist
Said Honore Balzac (according to my A Word A Day email):
Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn’t, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence.
Thus am I an essayist, whose purpose it is to pursue all vocations, to never get pigeonholed, to write what interests me, to say in hard words what I think today, though it contradict everything I said yesterday. I love it!
Patrick • Quotes • 10/07/05 • 2 comments
Comments
Dad • 10/14/05 • 11:35 PM:Ah, but you are not pursuing all vocations, but only thinking and writing about them, which is not the same. The problem (actually, he doesn’t say it’s a problem) Balzac is so aptly referring to is one of having missed your calling to pursue another, perhaps more lucrative or less competitive or more “acceptable” profession. While being an essayist is a great calling, and one that perhaps fits you best, it is, nonetheless a specific vocation. The bleeding Balzac refers to relates more to the salesman who always wanted to be an actor; the engineer who should have been a scientist; the housewife who never sought a singing career.
Patrick • 10/15/05 • 10:38 AM:I agree with you mostly, but I hold on to my argument that an essayist can pursue a number of “vocations” or at least interests. Especially when I see how my colleagues (in English or in other departments) pretty much have to become experts on a very small area of knowledge, always writing about, say, Samuel Beckett, and within Beckett Studies, finding some small niche that hasn’t been explored yet, that’s when I’m plum pleased to be an essayist who can write about whatever strikes his fancy.
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