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.

David Pennington

"One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane."

- Nikola Tesla

Trudeau Resignation, Live TV Merger, and Reminiscing Y2K

The dulling of an era.

With more consumption of TikTok, you find your brain begins to replace facts, figures, and important cognitive skills with nothing but the endless ruminating of dances and made-up songs you’ve spent your day digesting — yes, you have begun stage one of brain fog.

Is TikTok making you stupid-erer?

The Wrong Kind Of Idle

He took up this path not out of some particularly lazy disposition, but because of his unquenchable thirst for knowledge and understanding. ‘[T]o do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual,’ Oscar Wilde observed decades before Cioran.

Costica Bradatan • Learning to Be a Loser: A Philosopher’s Case for Doing Nothing

I Talked to the Cassandra of the Internet Age

archive.ph

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.

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

only when we have shifted into the rest-and-digest response of the nervous system will our brains allow us to reclaim our attention, access the power of our imagination, and unlock our subconscious.

James Doty • Mind Magic

It’s ok to wait, and it’s definitely ok to de-wheel from the hamsterism of today’s productivity theatre. In fact, you might need to if you really want to dream up a monster story.

Kristin Posehn • Mary Shelley (and a bit of Steve Jobs)—On the Art of Creative Waiting

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

Or what about a calendar that was simply, as one reader imagined, oriented around protecting time, instead of filling it? What would an un-calendar be?