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

The more I heal, the less ambitious I become.

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?

Anne Helen Petersen • The Diminishing Returns of Calendar Culture

“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

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?

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

Emil Cioran never had a real job. ‘I avoided at any price the humiliation of a career,’ he observed toward the end of his life. ‘I preferred to live like a parasite [rather] than to destroy myself by keeping a job.’

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

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 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”