My Era of Otium

I just learned the most fascinating word: otium. Here is the Wikipedia definition:

Otium is a Latin abstract term which has a variety of meanings, including leisure time for "self-realization activities"^[1] such as eating, playing, relaxing, contemplation, and academic endeavors. It sometimes relates to a time in a person's retirement after previous service to the public or private sector, as opposed to "active public life" (the negative negotium meaning "busy-ness"). Otium can be a temporary or sporadic time of leisure. It can have intellectual, virtuous, or immoral implications.

The concept originally expressed the idea of withdrawing from one's daily business or affairs to engage in activities that were considered to be artistically valuable or enlightening (i.e., speaking, writing, philosophy), and had particular meaning to businessmen, diplomats, philosophers, and poets.

This blog is a project of otium in that it is an activity of my leisure time. Hopefully it has virtuous rather than immoral implications! My goal is simply to notice things, in other words, to speak the truth. As it is a leisure activity and earns me no money and as I have no music-related earnings, I am able to ignore any and all commercial pressures. If I were to be pontificating in areas like politics or economics I would potentially fear censorship from some mega-corporation. But as Spotify or Universal Music doesn't have that kind of power, I think I can live free of fear. One hopes, at least.

Please be careful to distinguish otium from the similarly-sourced word otiose, meaning idle or indolent!

Some appropriate listening. This is Artur Schnabel, recorded in 1937, playing the Beethoven Bagatelles, op. 126. For many years Schnabel, the leading Beethoven interpreter of his day, refused to do recordings because, the story goes, he was afraid that someday, someone would listen to his Beethoven while eating a ham sandwich.