“I have seen most people kill time in the strangest ways… I likened them to people chatting on a ship that is carrying them along, unaware of it.”

Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597 AH / 1201 CE), preacher and polymath of Baghdad, called this book Sayd al-Khatir, “catching passing thoughts,” because he wrote his reflections down before they escaped. The omitted middle of this entry is the part that has not aged: if the night is long, they fill it with talk that benefits no one or a book of battles and night-tales; if the day is long, with sleep; and at either end of it they are down by the Tigris or in the markets. The next entry turns to the rare few who understood what life is for, and spend it packing provisions for the journey.