My Years With Proust - Day 501

   Since I endeavoured as far as possible to leave the Duchess before Albertine had returned, it often happened, because of the hour, that I met in the courtyard as I came away from her door M. de Charlus and Morel on their way to have tea at Jupien's, a supreme treat for the Baron!  I did not encounter them every day but they went there every day.  It may, incidentally, be observed that the regularity of a habit is usually in direct proportion to its absurdity.  Really striking things we do as a rule only by fits and starts.  But insensate lives, of a kind in which a crackpot deprives himself of all pleasure and inflicts the greatest discomforts upon himself, are those that change least.  Ever ten years, if we had the curiosity to inquire, we should find the poor wretch still asleep at the hours when he might be living his life, going out at the hours when there is nothing to do but get oneself murdered in the streets, sipping iced drinks when he is hot, still trying desperately to cure a cold.  A slight burst of energy, for a single day, would be sufficient to change these habits for good and all.  But the fact is that lives of this sort are on the whole peculiar to people who are incapable of energy.  Vices are another aspect of these monotonous existences which the exercise of will power would suffice to render less painful.

Marcel Proust, The Captive, pp. 36-37

As we all know, Henry David Thoreau noted that "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."  How do we know these things without knowing them?  Well, that's an interesting question which at least one of my friends struggles with, but we'll let that go for the moment. Proust takes a moment in the process of unfolding a bizarre story to reflect upon habit, and especially the human predisposition to mindlessly repeat the most inane habits.  He tells us, "It may, incidentally, be observed that the regularity of a habit is usually in direct proportion to its absurdity."  This brings me back to our discussion of Internal vs External Locus of Control in the Forty Studies That Changed Psychology book that our first year students read.  Essentially, those who possess an Internal Locus believe that they control their own lives, while those with an External Locus tend to be believe in fate and powers beyond their control.  When Proust proposes that "insensate lives, of a kind in which a crackpot deprives himself of all pleasure and inflicts the greatest discomforts upon himself, are those that change least" I can't help but think of those folks with an External Locus of Control.  I've often proposed that we should all recreate ourselves every five years, because if we don't we'll get increasingly bored and slide into the intellectual quicksand, and I think I have changed pretty dramatically every few years (which is one of the reasons why I'm looking at the fall of 2019 as my last student trip - time to move on to other things before I get bored).  Now, it could be argued that I believe that, and can generally accomplish it, because I'm an Internal Locus (which the dopey online tests suggests). However, I think this is also a generational thing, and doubtless our generations views the inevitability of change much more readily than Proust's did a century ago.