"You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don't know wat was in the newspapers that morning, you don't know who your friends are, you don't know what you owe anybody, you don't know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.
For (the hunter) the whole world was a sacred place. But our life has become so economic and practical in its orientation that, as you get older, the claims of the moment upon you are so great, you hardly know where the hell you are, or what it is you intended. You are always doing something that is required of you. Where is your bliss station? You have to try to find it. Get a phonograph and put on the music you really love, even if it's corny music that nobody else respects. Or get the book you like to read. In your sacred place you get the 'thou' feeling of life that these people had for the whole world in which they lived. - Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
I'm going to totally ignore the religious and spiritual connotations of this. Because it's even more obvious, practically.
Think of the most "successful" person you know. If you share society's definition of "successful," this person probably doesn't have an hour a day to listen to his favorite music (not while commuting), read his favorite book, play his favorite game, whatever. He probably doesn't have an hour a day to play, think, create.
If anything, he thinks that sounds dumb as shit. Or maybe it sounds nice, but impractical.
What bullshit.
We can pretend modern society has it all figured out, all we want, but if you don't have an hour in the morning or evening to bliss out, you're not living.
Time free of responsibility, time where you've chosen to do what you want to do, for no other reason than I want to do this, isn't just fun — it's practical, rejuvenative, essential. Carve out the time. Do whatever it takes.
