Sports are too much with us. Late and soon, sitting and watching - mostly watching on television - we lay waste our powers of identification and enthusiasm and, in time, attention as more and more closing rallies and crucial putts and late field goals and final playoffs and sudden deaths and world records and world championships unreel themselves ceaselessly before our half-lidded eyes.
Clever
ReplyDeleteThere's probably a general rule in there about pleasures of any kind.
ReplyDeleteI remember once reading something Benjamin Franklin wrote in which he suggested that every now and then he would read a novel for an hour or two. I can't recall if the term he used was "despoil" or "debauch," but he clearly suggested that this form of entertainment -- which many regard as a fairly high-tone way to spend your free time -- also was draining.