The Idler

Letter from the Editor: 2

IDLENESS AND INDUSTRY

It is a common myth that idlers are incapable of working. The term “idler” is used as a pejorative by the forces of dullness and authority as they like the idea that idleness equates to evil, and they want society at large to despise the idler. The non-idler cannot understand the paradox of the working idler. He likes things to be simple: you are either working, or not working.

But the truth is that idlers are mostly creative souls. This means that they like to create things, and this inevitably involves a degree of labour.

Idlers can work, they do work, but they work in a different way to non-idlers. Where the non-idler will patiently put in the hours and enjoy a steady routine, the idler’s work is performed in a chaotic and random fashion. “The diligence of an idler is rapid and impetuous,”wrote the estimable idler Dr Johnson in 1758. Dr Johnson actually managed to complete an enormous amount of work in his lifetime, but he tended to produce it in a great hurry, right on deadline. The story goes that Johnson tended to write so close to his deadline that the printer’s boy had to stand next to him as he wrote, and run each page of manuscript round to the printer’s to ensure that the paper was published on time. This procrastination and particular relationship with deadlines will be familiar to all idlers.

The idler’s outburst of frenetic toil is often motivated by his hatred of work. He wants to get it completed as quickly as possible so he can go down to the pub. It is also essential that the work is preceeded by as much thinking time as possible. A lot of the idler’s work is performed when is apparently doing nothing, when is staring out of the window, dawdling around the house or going for a ramble.

For Johnson, the working practices of an idler had something in common with the principle of momentum. Idlers, he wrote, are like “ponderous bodies which, forced into velocity, move with a violence proportionate to their own weight”.

In other words, the longer the build-up of thinking time, the quicker the work will be accomplished.

Another characteristic of the idler’s work is that it looks suspiciously like play. This, again, makes the non-idler feel uncomfortable. Victims of the Protestant work ethic would like all work to be unpleasant. They feel that work is a curse, that we must suffer on this earth to earn our place in the next. The idler, on the other hand, sees no reason not to use his brain to organise a life for himself where his play is his work, and so attempt to create his own little paradise in the here and now.

The Idler will also set his own working schedule. He may work all night, all weekend and sleep till noon in the week. This is because the idler is more interested in the results of his labour than in the amount of hours he has put in. Again, these unpredictable working habits disturb the non-idler, who likes to see workers arranged neatly in rows and working to certain schedules.

The non-idler is suspicious of poets, of artists, of writers, and even of entrepreneurs. He doesn’t like the way they control their own lives. He doesn’t like the way they wander round thinking.

He doesn’t like the way they wander round thinking, because when they think, they see the truth..

But that’s another story.

IDLENESS AND INDUSTRY

It is a common myth that idlers are incapable of working. The term “idler” is used as a pejorative by the forces of dullness and authority as they like the idea that idleness equates to evil, and they want society at large to despise the idler. The non-idler cannot understand the paradox of the working idler. He likes things to be simple: you are either working, or not working.

But the truth is that idlers are mostly creative souls. This means that they like to create things, and this inevitably involves a degree of labour.

Idlers can work, they do work, but they work in a different way to non-idlers. Where the non-idler will patiently put in the hours and enjoy a steady routine, the idler’s work is performed in a chaotic and random fashion. “The diligence of an idler is rapid and impetuous,”wrote the estimable idler Dr Johnson in 1758. Dr Johnson actually managed to complete an enormous amount of work in his lifetime, but he tended to produce it in a great hurry, right on deadline. The story goes that Johnson tended to write so close to his deadline that the printer’s boy had to stand next to him as he wrote, and run each page of manuscript round to the printer’s to ensure that the paper was published on time. This procrastination and particular relationship with deadlines will be familiar to all idlers.

The idler’s outburst of frenetic toil is often motivated by his hatred of work. He wants to get it completed as quickly as possible so he can go down to the pub. It is also essential that the work is preceeded by as much thinking time as possible. A lot of the idler’s work is performed when is apparently doing nothing, when is staring out of the window, dawdling around the house or going for a ramble.

For Johnson, the working practices of an idler had something in common with the principle of momentum. Idlers, he wrote, are like “ponderous bodies which, forced into velocity, move with a violence proportionate to their own weight”.

In other words, the longer the build-up of thinking time, the quicker the work will be accomplished.

Another characteristic of the idler’s work is that it looks suspiciously like play. This, again, makes the non-idler feel uncomfortable. Victims of the Protestant work ethic would like all work to be unpleasant. They feel that work is a curse, that we must suffer on this earth to earn our place in the next. The idler, on the other hand, sees no reason not to use his brain to organise a life for himself where his play is his work, and so attempt to create his own little paradise in the here and now.

The Idler will also set his own working schedule. He may work all night, all weekend and sleep till noon in the week. This is because the idler is more interested in the results of his labour than in the amount of hours he has put in. Again, these unpredictable working habits disturb the non-idler, who likes to see workers arranged neatly in rows and working to certain schedules.

The non-idler is suspicious of poets, of artists, of writers, and even of entrepreneurs. He doesn’t like the way they control their own lives. He doesn’t like the way they wander round thinking.

He doesn’t like the way they wander round thinking, because when they think, they see the truth..

But that’s another story.