Idleism
Not to be confused with “idealism.” Not everything needs to be productive. Life happens in the idle margins, margins that are shrinking by the day.
Idleism
The internet doesn’t have to demand our presence the way it currently does. It shouldn’t be something we have to look at all time. If it wasn’t, maybe we’d finally be free to hang out. The first time I ever heard about Facebook, back in 2004, was from someone proudly declaring that she had just spent four hours using it. At the time, it was... See more
Drew Austin • It's Time to Lie Down and Be Counted
Even if you don’t plan a whole trip around them, libraries are excellent spots for weary travelers: free, quiet, cool, full of locals, and staffed by people whose job is to help any visitors who walk in the door.
Austin Kleon • Library Tourism - Austin Kleon
Once we were camping outside of Savannah, GA, in the middle of December. The weather was mild, but gloomy. We spent the better part of a day in the downtown library - wifi, quiet, just getting out of the campsite for a bit. Free, which was nice. A good break from our usual bar-hopping tourism.
Capitalism tells us this. Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey takes a deep dive into this link exploring how capitalism and white supremacy are at the heart of our inability to rest. These learnings have been crucial to my rest practices and are now weaved into my Yoga classes and wellbeing offerings because of it.
Jodie Melissa Rogers • Why we feel guilty & uncomfortable when resting
I think that “doing nothing”—in the sense of refusing productivity and stopping to listen—entails an active process of listening that seeks out the effects of racial, environmental, and economic injustice and brings about real change.
Jenny Odell • How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
His biggest worry, though, is that we still mostly fail to acknowledge that we live in a roaring attention economy. In other words, we tend to ignore his favorite maxim, from the writer Howard Rheingold: “Attention is a limited resource, so pay attention to where you pay attention.”
nytimes.com • Opinion | Michael Goldhaber, the Cassandra of the Internet Age - The New York Times
Michael Goldhaber is the internet prophet you’ve never heard of. Here’s a short list of things he saw coming: the complete dominance of the internet, increased shamelessness in politics, terrorists co-opting social media, the rise of reality television, personal websites, oversharing, personal essay, fandoms and online influencer culture — along with the near destruction of our ability to focus.
Sometimes when I’m parenting alone, I slip into a mental state I call “idling.” It happens when my toddler’s nearby but playing on her own, meaning I only need to pay her half of my attention.
Haley Nahman • #208: What is rotting, if not rest?
“People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy.”
The God you find in the pub
"One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane."
- Nikola Tesla
- Nikola Tesla
Trudeau Resignation, Live TV Merger, and Reminiscing Y2K
Today you rarely see the word “idle” except when used as a pejorative; to be idle is to be wasteful, and several of the most popular Internet startup companies have targeted underutilized resources such as idle cars (Turo, ZipCar), household equipment (SnapGoods), or empty bedrooms (Airbnb), allowing people to make use of them by renting them out... See more