In chapter 6 of Surprised by Joy, there is a passage (pp. 96-100) where Lewis talks of his extreme weariness. He said "Never, except in the front-line trenches (and not always there) do I remember such aching and continuous weariness as at Wyvern." I thought that it was interesting that he could compare his weariness at school to that of his fatigue from his experience of trench warfare. He also wrote "Consciousness itself was becoming the supreme evil; sleep, the prime good. To lie down, to be out of the sound of voices, to pretend and grimace and evade and sling no more, that was the object of all desire--if only there were not another morning ahead--if only sleep could last for ever!" Don't we all feel like this sometimes? I know that I have, especially now that I have been in college.
posted by Gena at 7:35 PM
2 Comments:
Its so true. During my first years of college there were points at which the only inducement for getting through the day was the chance of a spell in bed at the end. I can't imaging how hard it was to try to learn in such an environment, on top of all the brutality doled out by the social heirarchy. This brings to mind the oddity of the English tradition of instaling one's young children in a boarding school, sometimes only a few miles away, and then seeing them only on the holidays. So these kids are effectively left to raise themselves- or to be raised by strangers. It seems so cold.
War fatique versus intellectual fatique is something I could fathom a little bit, although I have never been on the fighting lines before. Seeing your life at risk in war is definitely scary, but I find it at least as nerve-racking in the long-run when I look at the intellectual spectrum of things. There is a different fight going on. Ecclesiastes talks about how much study and reading will weary you.
So, the pursuit of truth through the intellectual path is very tough. Thinking of questions concerning God through intellectualism is a very scary and difficult "front-line" fight.
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