Forced withdrawal made Muir see factory work as wasting time on trivia.

Evidence

In the second introduction, Badè writes that this period of reflection convinced Muir that “life was too brief and uncertain, and time too precious, to waste upon belts and saws; that while he was pottering in a wagon factory, God was making a world; and he determined that, if his eyesight was spared, he would devote the remainder of his life to a study of the process.” Muir himself said, “This affliction has driven me to the sweet fields.” — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 70

Categorization

• XREF: Muir’s redirection toward ‘the sweet fields’ parallels Deep Listening’s turn to the natural soundscape and the book’s broader bioregional turn, which the reader is tracking as one of Odell’s three redirections.