Day 0048

A fabulously busy, arty, Parisian sort of day. Lots of coffee, bread, cheese, cakes, walking, sun, art. I went back to the Louvre and looked at Italian and Greek sculpture for a few hours, before going across town to a vernissage of some contemporary art in a small gallery, featuring some kinetic art by Elias Crespin, which was rather hypnotic.

Going from sitting in front of Michelangelo's rebellious slave and taking a study to talking to the artist behind a sculpture of rising and falling metal beads on nylon string was quite a mental leap.

What happens when you buy one of these kinetic sculptures and the motors fail? Are you covered by some kind of warranty?

I spent most of the day with a friend who lives in Paris and has not read Proust.

The artist who gives up an hour of work for an hour of conversation with a friend knows that he is sacrificing a reality for something does not exist (our friends being friends only in the light of an agreeable folly which travels with us through life and to which we readily accommodate ourselves, but which at the bottom of our hearts we know to be no more reasonable than the delusion of the man who talks to the furniture because he believes that it is alive).Marcel Proust - In Search of Lost Time

The thing is -- and Proust knew this too -- idle conversation is never really wasted, it's a vital part of the human condition. Socializing is part of the hierarchy of needs, and to neglect it will be detrimental to everything else you try to do. Like everything, you just need to dose it right. Too much, you don't do any work, but too little and you risk going bonkers. That is my concern about becoming a hermit artist in a cottage somewhere; attractive though it may be, the lack of sociability would probably grind me down and I'd achieve even less than I would living a normal life with normal human interactions. The middle course! The compromise! The balance of work and play that actually optimises your ability to work.