"Recently I retired to my estates, determined to devote myself as far as I could to spending what little life I have left quietly and privately; it seemed to me then that the greatest favour I could do for my mind was to leave it in total idleness..."
Michel de Montaigne
Jenny Diski's attempt to keep still and mentally idle resulted in a year in which she travelled to New Zealand, spent two months almost alone in a cottage in the country and visited the Sámi people of Lapland. Montaigne was alarmed to discover that by staying still his mind 'bolted off like a runaway horse'; Diski, failing to keep still, finds much the same problem and like Montaigne keeps a record of her ramblings both mental and physical hoping as he did in time to make her mind ashamed of itself. Interspersed with ill-tempered descriptions of these trips are digressions on the subject of her sore foot; her childhood desire for 'a condition', thoughts about growing older, spiders, fundamentalism and the problems of keeping warm.
Michel de Montaigne
Jenny Diski's attempt to keep still and mentally idle resulted in a year in which she travelled to New Zealand, spent two months almost alone in a cottage in the country and visited the Sámi people of Lapland. Montaigne was alarmed to discover that by staying still his mind 'bolted off like a runaway horse'; Diski, failing to keep still, finds much the same problem and like Montaigne keeps a record of her ramblings both mental and physical hoping as he did in time to make her mind ashamed of itself. Interspersed with ill-tempered descriptions of these trips are digressions on the subject of her sore foot; her childhood desire for 'a condition', thoughts about growing older, spiders, fundamentalism and the problems of keeping warm.
Used availability for Jenny Diski's On Trying to Keep Still