"Readers often ask me why I did not become a musician, since my essays, indirectly, tell a musician what music he should or should not be making. Other readers accuse critics of being merely frustrated people who would like to be the very musicians and stars they "criticize". Again, in my case it goes back to my passion for history and for knowledge. Pythagora, who had a mystic attitude towards things, thought that the audience was more important than the athletes: the athletes were entertaining the audience but the audience was "contemplating" the athletes, and to Pythagora that was more important. Understanding nature was more important than being a part of it. In a sense, when you "contemplate" nature you manage not to be part of it, to be something else, above and beyond it, almost divine."
*tips fedora*