“No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing?” - G.K. Chesterton
Cultivation requires a pessimistic frustration with the lack of productivity combined with an optimistic excitement for how much it could produce. In order to cultivate, one must hate something enough to change it, yet love it enough to see the changes through. It is easier to settle for getting along as is than it is to muster the gusto to get one over on the way things usually go.
Men don't often love things enough to make them better. They either hate them enough to wish they were better or love them so much that they can't stand to bring about any change that could cause them any pain... even if that pain was productive.
Through this practice, men learn to be okay with regular, run-of-the-mill, everyday leakage.
Ecclesiastes 10:18
Through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks.
The roof sinks all at once because it was neglected often over time. It sags because it hasn't sunk. Water seeps where initiative sleeps.
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