“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars.”
—Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Musician James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem has taken up fishing during the pandemic.
“I’m somehow able to get outside myself,” he says, “unburdened for a few hours by whatever it is I really should be doing, while I, instead, do this repeated motion, over and over…”
He says that there’s “a meditative quality to the work” and he often repeats to himself, “Slow is fast. Slow is fast.”
“I needed for time to be meaningless so I could justify spending a few weeks learning how to do this new thing.”
It tickles me that he talks about learning to fish the way some people would talk about learning to play music.
I’m also thinking, well beyond the pandemic, we can declare time “meaningless” any time we want, and give ourself permission to learn new things…
Filed under: fishing