Some things I can do without doing: I'm sure there are some things which are a genuine waste of time. However — and this list may reveal to you something of my temperament — there are certain things which I do not think, however untimely they may be, I could ever classify as true wastes of time.
   Reading a book is one. No time spent reading would I ever call a man into account for, even had much loss occurred because of it. Reading, and in a general sense, learning is in my view one of the truest acts in which a man can engage, since it makes use of the very faculty which separates him from the animals: reason. (My apologies to Aristotle.)
   Writing is kin next to reading, and provides for learning and improvement in much the same way. Writing not only fits when something as pragmatic as learning is to be shown, but as well it is an art, I would say, above all others. Though a painting can very nearly tell a story, no two people will see the same story. Though a piece of music may carry the heart on high emotion and low; be it never so well-played, two men will hear two different songs. I do not mean to say that by writing I can produce an identical impression on two different men, but certainly I may come closer to it than an artist of any other medium.
   Another thing which is no waste is time spent with nature, wheter in the roaming of woods and deserts or the watering of a garden. Again, like learning, the self-betterment which such provokes is worth, I think, more than anything which may be missed because of it, whether it be supper, or a train, or a thirty-thousand dollar bequest. (My apologies to a wise philosopher.)
   Time spent with a beloved I was going to say is no waste. However, that is neither strictly nor consistently true. Very many times, too much time spent with a loved one may destroy what time apart would build up; and too much doting may make for accidental bitterness towards the one doted upon. No, as cold as it may sound, time spent with one's beloved has a far greater danger of becoming a waste than does time spent alone with nature and nature's God, and even than time spent with Estella and Miss Havisham — as cruel as they are.
   There are certain needful things: things without which life, lived for its own sake, would not be worth the paper it would be printed on if a biography were to accidentally be written about such a life. There are certain things which are no waste, and if I don't hurry, I may miss them instead of dinner.

Crosspost: Scraps, Harbour in the Scramble, and Random Quill