Cui dono meum lepidum novum weblogum?

To you, my friend, and to me. This is my outlet, my sanctuary, my holy of holies. It won't be well researched, frequently updated, or intellectually stimulating, but I've lost my train of thought.

So here it is, inchoate but existent. Apologies are due as I meant to start writing here well before now. I intend to toss any entertaining bits of literature on here as I read them, and add any other insights of my own as I see fit. Quite omphalic, but it is my venue. (I briefly considered the profile name 'Onan the Barbarian'). Shakespeare, Latin Poetry, Umberto Eco, Homer -- I plod through them all, and you get to read about it. But enough introductory blathering, now for the topic of my first post. To honor the long delay in its inception, I'll inaugurate this blog with a few notable quotes on everyone's second-favorite pastime -- being lazy. Please enjoy.

Better is a handful with quietness, than both the hands full with travail and vexation of spirit.

Ecclesiastes 4

For Poesy! - no, - she has not a joy, -
At least for me, - so sweet as drowsy noons,
And evenings steep'd in honied indolence;
O, for an age so shelter'd from annoy,
That I may never know how change the moons,
Or hear the voice of busy common-sense!

Keats, Ode on Indolence

Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
All things have rest: why should we toil alone,
We only toil, who are the first of things,
And make perpetual moan,
Still from one sorrow to another thrown:
Nor ever fold our wings,
And cease from wanderings,
Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;
Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,
"There is no joy but calm!"
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?

Tennyson, The Lotos-Eaters

Yea, I hated all my labor which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.
...

For what hath man of all his labor, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath labored
under the sun?

For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief: yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night.
This is also vanity.

There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labor...

Ecclesiastes 2