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
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
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
We can explore the ways in which our attention is generated, manipulated, valued and degraded. Sometimes attention might simply be a lens through which to read the events of the moment. But it can also force us toward a better understanding of how our minds work or how we value our time and the time of others. Perhaps, just by acknowledging its... See more
nytimes.com • Opinion | Michael Goldhaber, the Cassandra of the Internet Age - The New York Times
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.
The Internet is Destroying Your Attention: How to Survive the Attention Economy
highexistence.com
“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
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”
“The culture tells us two things can’t coexist. People say to me ‘I want to love my life but also pay my rent’ or ‘I want to be super mature but also child-like’, or ‘I want to travel but I’m also a homebody’ or ‘I want to be productive and also relaxed.’ Calm down... you can do both.” — Martha Beck
Emma Gannon • The 'both/and' moments of life
“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.”