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
Does the act of sitting in a park, patiently looking through a pair of binoculars and reading through field guides really deserve to be described with the same adjective usually reserved for angsty hardcore punk music, crusty anarchos and angry outcasts with ripped leather jackets?
If one considers punk as anything defiantly anti-capitalist,... See more
If one considers punk as anything defiantly anti-capitalist,... See more
Alexi Gunner • idle gaze 067: slowpunk
“Slowpunk”
Dogs have nowhere to be, but they
always seem to be down to go
just about anywhere.
“People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing—refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.”
Simon Sarris • Careful Technology
“Under the pretext of saving labor, the ultimate end of this technics is to displace life, or rather, to transfer the attributes of life to the machine and the mechanical collective, allowing only so much of the organism to remain as may be controlled and manipulated.”
L. M. Sacasas • (100) Waste Your Time, Your Life May Depend On It Waste Your Time, Your Life May Depend On It
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
Christine Rosen • On The Death of Daydreaming
A High-Level Introduction to Idleism
Not to be confused with idealism. Although, I wouldn’t mind making the argument that idle is the ideal. Some principles of Idleism, in no particular order:
You are more than an hourly rate.
You will never get paid “what you are worth” by an employer. The entire precept of capitalism is that they make more from your
“The villain here is not necessarily the internet, or even the idea of social media,” she writes. “It is the invasive logic of commercial social media, and its financial incentive to keep us in a profitable state of anxiety, envy, and distraction.” The business model of platforms like this — which rely on advertising and clicks and “engagement”
... See moreJenny Odell • How to quit Facebook without quitting Facebook
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.