“Whereas at the moment we are just about to start on a long-planned and eagerly awaited holiday, our brain, our nerves begin to ask themselves whether it really is worth all the trouble involved, the will, knowing that those lazy masters would at once begin to consider their journey the most wonderful experience, if it became impossible for them to take it, the will leaves them explaining their difficulties outside the station, multiplying their hesitations; but busies itself with taking the tickets and putting us into the carriage before the train starts. It is as invariable as brain and nerves and fickle, but as it is silent, gives no account of its actions, it seems almost non-existent; it is by its dogged determination that the other constituent parts of our personality are led, but without seeing it, while they distinguish clearly all their own uncertainties.”
-Marcel Proust, from Within a Budding Grove
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One response to “Marcel Proust on the Dogged Determination of the Will”
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“as it is silent, gives no account of its actions”
Nice.