[qwerty9191]

Hi,

I have been thinking over this quote for sometime, I just do not get the meaning. Can someone explain to me ?

I doubt sometimes whether a quiet & unagitated life would have suited me--yet I sometimes long for it.
~Byron

[Perna]

Do you know Byron's history? Imagine a quiet and unagitated life. For me, it would be kind of boring; where is the "drama", where the interest? Yes, I could sit around by myself and read all day but. . . I want the color and the other people in there, I want to try and do things, interact with others. But interaction is about negotiation; we have to let others know our boundaries and find out theirs and figure out ourselves and how the world works, etc.

However, sometimes things go too far in the other direction? Sometimes we have too much going on and we're confused and angry and anxious, etc. and just wish we could be the one, the homebody, that just didn't have to deal with all that crap?

Think of your great great grandparents on their little farm or he in his trade, doing the same thing day in/day out; no Internet, no hobbies, having to just work to survive; could you be that person? Byron lived in the 1700's/early 1800's but was wealthy, did a lot of travelling, etc. Was depressed, maybe bipolar, had lovers and friends committing suicide, etc. One can't imagine him down on the farm, waking at 4:30 every day, 365 days a year, to care for the livestock, going to bed at dark so he could rest enough to get up the next day and do it all over again.

[Obscure-Angel]

I think also that some people (myself maybe included) prefer having some kind of drama, worry, troubles in their life, when you've had a whole world of it and then things go quiet and peaceful, and there is talk of things such as contentment, although you may have wished for it everyday for years the reality is you simply work better when there is some kind of trauma in your life.

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[avlady]

I tend to be the homebody, because of my disabilities from car accidents and other accidents. I do wish i had more action every day but i have to accept my life will not be very exciting from now on, and before too. I don't get out much but am married with a 22 yr old son, I've had a lot of negative things happen lately with my son, like a few car accidents, and he is having some drinking problems and school problems. That is why I don't like too much happening as lately I am having problems coping with what comes my way. I ask people who pray to please send some my way as I'm in need and I pray for people here too.

[qwerty9191]

I am looking at Bryon's context and also if possible how the quote would could also be used in modern context

[Perna]

It is interesting thinking of all the different connotations of "quiet" and/or "agitated". I think I could have done well as a professional student; I imagine that would have been quiet and unagitated but I don't know since I've never experienced that lifestyle.

I imagine Byron had the same problem; he lived a busy, "noisy" agitated life so what he imagined as "quiet" or "unagitated" was not necessarily actually quiet or unagitated. We all have a grass-is-greener (better or worse) tendencies. We can only know our own experience and imagine something else, not truly know it and how we would do were we to live it. But it sounds like Byron is saying he "likes" the agitation, hustle, bustle, and madness of his life because he says quiet and unagitated might not have suited him.