dead time (miller)

The most difficult thing to adjust to, apparently, is peace and contentment. As long as there is something to fight, people seem able to brave all manner of hardships. Remove the element of struggle, and they are like fish out of water. Those who no longer have anything to worry about will, in desperation, often take on the burdens of the world. This not through idealism but because they must have something to do, or at least something to talk about. Were these empty souls truly concerned about the plight of their fellow-men they would consume themselves in the flames of devotion. One need hardly go beyond his own doorstep to discover a realm large enough to exhaust the energies of a giant, or better, a saint.
- Henry Miller, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch, page 28

Homer, the aged poet: What is wrong with peace that its inspiration doesn't endure?
- Wings of Desire/ Der Himmel uber Berlin, 1987