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Feast of Joy

Continuing to read My Reminiscences and can't help wondering if Tagore's genius might have been helped atleast in part by the lack of sensory overload paired with abundance of time to let his mind wander, find ways to overcome boredom without being gainfully occupied:

In that golden age of pipe water, it used to flow even up to my father's third storey rooms. And turning on the shower tap I would indulge to my heart's content in an untimely bath. Not so much for the comfort of it, as to give rein to my desire to do just as I fancied. The alternation of the joy of liberty, and the fear of being caught, made that shower of municipal water send arrows of delight thrilling into me. 

It was perhaps because the possibility of contact with the outside was so remote that the joy of it came to me so much more readily. When material is in profusion, the mind gets lazy and leaves everything to it, forgetting that for a successful feast of joy its internal equipment counts for more than the external. This is the chief lesson which his infant state has to teach to man. There his possessions are few and trivial, yet he needs no more for his happiness. The world of play is spoilt for the unfortunate youngster who is burdened with an unlimited quantity of playthings.

As he describes it: When material is in profusion, the mind gets lazy and leaves everything to it, forgetting that for a successful feast of joy its internal equipment counts for more than the external.

The world of today is makes every youngster who has adults in his life to meet his needs and wants an unfortunate one - burdened with an unlimited quantity of playthings and no ability to exercise the power of their internal equipment.

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