The Art of Life

The reason I post so many quotes from literature is to show that the desire to escape is neither uncommon nor certifiable.

On the contrary, it’s perfectly normal and has been with us since, oh, around the time of the industrial revolution. But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

Here are some diary entries from 1909, written when W. N. P. Barbellion was but 19 years old. He wanted to escape the career chosen for him by his father (“journalism,” which actually meant the transcribing of local council meetings) and to take up his ikigai of zoology.

June 2nd. I have been for ever cogitating, worrying, devising means of escape.

October 14th. Returned home from London. Felt horribly defeated in crossing the threshold. It was so obviously returning after an unsuccessful flight.

December 23rd. I nearly escaped into a seaside laboratory, and now suddenly to be flung back into the dirt and sweat … seems very hard, and it is very hard.

Self-adorbed? Well, it is a diary. On the other hand, H. G. Wells, writes in a preface to the published diaries:

An egotism, like an eggshell, is a thing from which to escape; the art of life is that escape.

He escaped in the end, by the way. To rockpools and countryside woods in the short term, then all the way to the British Museum.

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New Escapologist Issue 19 and the anniversary edition of Escape Everything! are both available now.