“You must not imagine,” says Nicole, “that the life of study is an easy life… The reason is that there is nothing more against nature than uniformity and stillness, because nothing gives us more occasion to be alone with ourselves. Change and external occupations take us out of ourselves and distract us by making us forget ourselves. Moreover, this medium of words has always something dead about it, it has nothing that piques our self-love or rouses our passions strongly. It is devoid of action and movement… It speaks little to us of ourselves and gives us little ground for contemplating ourselves with pleasure. It affords little encouragement to our hopes; and all this tends strangely to mortify our self-love, which, be­ing unsatisfied, causes us weariness and distaste in everything that we do.” This analysis, which re­calls Pascal’s theory of diversion^1 might take us far. I merely pick out the fact that as “weariness and distaste” are in our case formidable enemies, we must plan to overcome them.

1: Divertissement: literally, the word means turning aside from ourselves and our destiny to find distraction in occupations, amusements, etc. “The whole calamity of man” (wrote Pascal) “comes from one single thing, that he cannot keep quiet in a room.” That is the cause of all our misfortunes; and if we look for the reason of this restlessness we shall find that there is an effectual one, the craving to evade the vision of our destiny.

Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, 215ff. (quoting Nicole, a 17th century French moralist)