Good Advice from C.S. Lewis

Source

This is an essay written by C.S. Lewis in 1948. He was discussing the "new normal" of living with the hovering threat of the atomic bomb. For those of my generation, we remember it well because "they" scared us to death with that threat every week of our school year with bomb warnings and drills. Under the desk, under the windows, to the halls, covered with coats, curled up in balls...

But enough of that. See if you think, as I do, that this could also relate to our current circumstances with Covid-19. 

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. 'How are we to live in an atomic age?' I am tempted to reply: Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds...

— “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948) in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays

Comments are closed. Busy week; Enjoy yours! 

A Successful Day

She has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; Who has enjoyed the trust of intelligent women, the respect of pure men, and the love of little children; Who has filled her niche and accomplished her task; Who has never lacked appreciation of Earth's beauty or failed to express it; Who has left the world better than she found it, whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem or a rescued soul; Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best she had; Whose life was an inspiration; Whose memory a benediction.

~Bessie Anderson Stanley

(This quote has been feminized.)

Well now, that is lofty *thud*— and more a description of a successful life rather than a single, successful day.

So let's take it in small chunks. What do you consider a successful day? Lately, I have been calling a day successful if I get something accomplished. Preferably, lots of somethings.

 ~last Friday morning when it was warm enough to be misty~

Last Friday, I had what I now consider the most successful day of the year thus far. Please don't laugh ☺, but it was so good that I made a list:

1. stripped the bed
2. dressed
3. swept basement floor
4. pushed laundry
5. remade the bed before noon
6. did the dishes
7. cleaned the kitchen

 ~cute napkins...PW's at Wal*Mart for $4.97 a pak~

8. grocery shopped
9. gassed up the car
10. visited dentist and paid the remainder of my bill
11. visited my mother's grave, cleaned it, and binned the Christmas decor (first day the fence had not been locked)
12. delivered the large Easter cactus to my niece...a late birthday gift

13. made a nice supper
14. dishes done by 7
15. in bed by 10

ETA: To clarify, I made the list after the things were accomplished not before.

Now was that so hard? Not on Friday. Let us not discuss Saturday and Sunday, thank you.

What makes the doing and the checking off the things from my list so satisfactory? Am I more loved? (No) Does my husband pat me on the back? (No, he rarely notices; though he always compliments me on a meal.) Do I feel better about myself? (Decidedly, Yes!) I am not meant to sit too long, even if I am hurting.

And nowhere on that list did I count as important any time spent on the computer. Progress right there, my friend!

Thanks to the Polar Vortex, this week means that I must be inside doing my chores and not outside as I had hoped. Last autumn's leaves still cover the tender plants. I hope that it is enough of a blanket to get them through. Poor things!

~meant to show you the howling wind, yet all one can hear is the coffee percolating~

Hope that you are not in the dreaded PV's blast...

See you next week, The Lord willing and the PV departing.