Franz Kafka, frustrated with his living quarters and day
job, wrote in a letter to Felice Bauer in 1912, “time is
short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the
apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life
is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by
subtle maneuvers.”
Kafka is one of 161
inspired—and inspiring—minds, among them, novelists, poets,
playwrights, painters, philosophers, scientists, and
mathematicians, who describe how they subtly maneuver the
many (self-inflicted) obstacles and (self-imposed) daily
rituals to get done the work they love to do, whether by
waking early or staying up late; whether by self-medicating
with doughnuts or bathing, drinking vast quantities of
coffee, or taking long daily walks. Thomas Wolfe wrote
standing up in the kitchen, the top of the refrigerator as
his desk, dreamily fondling his “male configurations”. . .
Jean-Paul Sartre chewed on Corydrane tablets (a mix of
amphetamine and aspirin), ingesting ten times the
recommended dose each day . . . Descartes liked to linger in
bed, his mind wandering in sleep through woods, gardens, and
enchanted palaces where he experienced “every pleasure
imaginable.”
Here are: Anthony Trollope, who
demanded of himself that each morning he write three
thousand words (250 words every fifteen minutes for three
hours) before going off to his job at the postal service,
which he kept for thirty-three years during the writing of
more than two dozen books . . . Karl Marx . . . Woody Allen
. . . Agatha Christie . . . George Balanchine, who did most
of his work while ironing . . . Leo Tolstoy . . . Charles
Dickens . . . Pablo Picasso . . . George Gershwin, who, said
his brother Ira, worked for twelve hours a day from late
morning to midnight, composing at the piano in pajamas,
bathrobe, and slippers . . .
Here also are the daily
rituals of Charles Darwin, Andy Warhol, John Updike, Twyla
Tharp, Benjamin Franklin, William Faulkner, Jane Austen,
Anne Rice, and Igor Stravinsky (he was never able to compose
unless he was sure no one could hear him and, when blocked,
stood on his head to “clear the brain”).
Brilliantly
compiled and edited, and filled with detail and anecdote,
Daily Rituals is irresistible, addictive, magically
inspiring.
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