otium is one thing; but what about the dignitas eh? in past periods of fallow i've filled my time with activities -- exhibitions and films and dance performances, talks and causes and languages -- exercise (oh loathed thing) even -- what i once described to steve as a kind of true inner life between the parentheses, experience, self-growth, real joy. yet now -- restless but without motivation. not that i want work, not per se, work isn't and has never been (heaven forbid it becomes) centering for me, as it seems to be for many -- most of the time it simply gets in the way of things one wants to do, and that truly matter -- to write, for instance, to learn, to travel, the mental space to think. i'd have no compunction about not working at all if i came into a fortune from an unknown and eccentric south american aunt. the idea of labour -- bought and sold -- repels -- that's why all my utopias are post-scarcity, i suppose. one does out of pleasure, self-actualisation, compassion, personal will, but not for the tedious cycle of self-sustenance. there is no true dignitas when it is measured against the shadowy need of work.