Ralph Nader, for example. Does he ever enjoy life, rest in contemplation, put aside for a time all his views and projects and schemes for improving the world? Does he consider consuming less jet fuel in his zeal to improve the unimprovable?
Chalk it up to my contemplative, quietistic bias, but activism as a way of life strikes me as ultimately meaningless. It is similar in meaninglessness to money-making as a way of life. And it doesn't matter whether one's activism points Left, Right, or sideways.
It is self-evident that money can only be reasonably pursued as a means to an end, and not as an end in itself. I would say the same about activism: the only reason to be active is to secure the conditions of contemplation. I intend the latter in a broad sense to include scientific and philosophical theorizing, artistic and literary creation, and the like.
But don't suppose that quietism rules out action and involvement: there are malefactors to smite and wrongs to right. One should do one's bit. I stay informed about the passing scene, I vote, I speak out. But that's all at the margin of my life, where it belongs. There is more reality in an hour of meditation or a ten mile run than in political activities.
If I had Nader's ear, I would say: You need to be more and do less. Enjoy what is, which, after all, is the constant and irremovable basis of all your frenetic advocacy and activity.
Setting aside his policies and programs, I admire Nader the man. His honesty and integrity are manifest. He is not in public life to feather his nest or advance himself in the usual ways. Still, a life consumed with activism falls short of the ideal.
If you can 'relate' — as we used to say in the 'Sixties — to what I have just written, then you have more than a few paleoconservative bones in your body.