How to be Idle - Tom Hodgkinson

A light read about tthe benefits of idleness, and some practical ways to cultivate it.

I am not really good at idleness, but there are lots of positives to be had from idleness.

Interesting idea: that day jobs which were invented during the inducstrial revolution, dropped the quality of peoples lives: no more working in tune with the seasons, variety of work, self-direction.
Ode on Indolence - John Keats
Beethoven wrote music in his head while out on walks
In architecture, imagination is more important than wealth
Having more stuff is inefficient

Let us be lazy in everything except in loving and drinking except in being lazy - Gotthold Lessing
It is a sad fact that from early childhood we are tyrannized by the moral myth that it is right, proper and good to leap out of bed the moment we wake in order to set about some useful work as quickly and cheerfully as possible. In my own case, it was my mother whom I remember very clearly screaming at me to get out of bed every morning. As I lay there in blissful comfort, eyes closed, trying to hang on to a fading dream, doing my utmost to ignore her shouting, I would start to calculate the shortest time it would take me to get up, have breakfast and go to school and still arrive with seconds to spare before assembly started. All this mental ingenuity and effort I expended in order to enjoy a few more moments of slumber. Thus the idler begins to learn his craft.
The oppressive cheerfulness of the DJs is designed to get us into a good mood for the day ahead, or to distract us from our deep woes with daft jokes. I find it simply irritating. There’s nothing worse than the banal chirpiness of another human being when you are in a state of deep, heavy, existential reflection.