I once heard a priest give a sermon in which he said that most of the problems in the world come from people leaving their houses. In a more secular vein, Henry Miller wrote, “The problem with the world is no one knows how to sit on their ass anymore.” There are different forms of sitting on one’s ass, vegetative or constructive. For the priest, the world’s a place of temptation which, unless one’s very strong, makes staying in relation with God difficult. For Miller, sitting around doing nothing is a form of thought where the mind unconsciously sorts its contents resulting in a work of some sort. The priest and Miller are concerned with focusing the mind on something of value, spiritual or artistic. The least constructive form of sitting on one’s ass is depression, where one stares at the wall and the mind’s in limbo, unable to fix itself on anything.
Leaving the house is almost always a conscious decision in my case. On many occasions I’ve showered and dressed and then, when at the door’s threshold, stopped, turned around and stayed in. It may be because an idea strikes me, so I sit down, coat still on, and start to work. But also, the world is often menacing, a place of confusion, if not danger. When I was a child someone close to me said, “Look at the equation! There’s you versus the billions of people in the world, do the math! You haven’t got a chance.” Whether true or not, perhaps not the most useful advice.
Why do we leave the house? One reason is employment. More and more people supposedly are working at home via the internet. I’ve never done that and feel no attraction for it. Home is a very personal space for me and to open that via a Zoom conference risks some collision of worlds. Once a conversation starts down the path of personal idiosyncrasy, there’s no guarantee where it will end. While I can’t say I always like going to my job, I’m aware that it saves me from being a hermit.
And then there’s sexual instinct. It drives us out into the world to meet a partner. This results in a series of one-night stands, a relationship of unknown duration, maybe a trip to the local sex club, or perhaps but rarely marriage. I often go to poetry readings and have heard a large number of young women read poems about meeting a guy on the internet, having sex with him, getting ditched, and experiencing heartbreak. Their poems often seem like attempts to justify this unhappy situation in self-affirming quasi-feminist verses.
Gertrude Stein said, “It takes a lot of time to be a genius. You have to sit around so much, doing nothing, really doing nothing.” There are rare occasions where a group of artists act together to explore unknown territories. This happens once every century, so it’s not something to count on. In general, we must make space for others. A quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes: “My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.”
But what if you really love swinging your fist? In that case, the best thing is to stay in as much as possible. If one creates art in a social context, it’s unavoidable that the desire to please will enter into question. And since the only way to please is to try to give some version of what’s been pleasing in the past, there’s the risk of losing a personal voice. I noticed this when I wrote and performed songs. The ones I wrote where I was thinking of performing them and getting a reaction now seem vacant, the ones I wrote when in my own mental space have value to me.
There’s a reason why religious figures seek out lonely caves, forests and isolated cells; why artists extract themselves from the world in small cottages, retreats, or just turn their phones off. Leaving the house can get complicated. Misunderstandings are common when one wrong word, one misplaced look, can lead to havoc. This is compounded when a main destination is usually a bar in search of the Ineffable. It’s like an algorithm, particularly for the young. This contact leads to that, then the next and the next, and before long you’re in the middle of a living room screaming hysterically about cat food.