'How to be Idle' by Tom Hodgkinson

[PyramidHead]

Ultimately, if we all refused to work, we'd find another system.  Lots of people would do things they enjoy, which overlap with providing services.  Hell, we could have everything automated by robots and computers if we really wanted.

Your arguments are all good, I don't have a problem with them, but I suppose I just can't see a way that we could have avoided the current system.

If we get the robots in to do my job, what happens when I want something that I don't have? Do I have to make it myself or go without?

Once we're providing services through our hobbies, we're not far from trading our goods and services for other people's. Then it'll be re-introducing currency and before you know it, somebody will have enough currency to pay others to do their work for them (for a tiny cut of the profit). As if by magic, we're fucked all over again.

[slim]

Whilst I have nothing of worth to add at the moment, I would like to say these things:

1. This thread is brilliant. As much as I hate using that word, it really is. I think this is the most satisfying and personally interesting thread I've read on CaB. Long may it continue.

2. I'm ordering this book from Amazon after I'm done reading all the other threads I have open. I hope it's as interesting as it sounds.

3. The reason I have nothing to add at the moment, rather aptly, is that I'm too fucking exhausted after a long, busy day at work to want to do anything other than chug a glass of wine and have a smoke.

4. Hurrah!

[weekender]

Is number 1 the false one?

[slim]

Unfortunately, it was actually 3, as I found no wine when I went downstairs. Bah.

[Orias]

Echo Slim's comments.  Fantastic thread

"There comes a time in every man's life when he must realise that he will NEVER play The Dane."

Unlce Monty in Withnail?

[terminallyrelaxed]

Having nothing to do isnt the answer for everyone, and I'm not talking about workaholics or really energetic people.
I'm at the glacial end of the energy scale, basically I'm a lazy cunt. Not at work though, never stayed long at jobs that required me to do very little as I'd then spend all the time thinking about where I'd rather be (almost anywhere than in a room full of suited cyphers), I like to work hard - but then I'm knackered and can't be arsed to compose poetry when I get home, much like everyone else.
I would like to be an idle bastard professionally, but I'd need to win the lottery first; "obviously" you say, but thats not what I mean - I'm sure with enough effort I could wrangle myself some kind of live-in low-paid part time work and then I would have a lot of time to myself - and I'd hate it, because almost everything I enjoy doing recreationally costs money. Even if housing and food etc was taken care of for the rest of my life, I'd have to do something.

I'm unemployed at the moment, and have a couple more weeks in my superbly placed flat in London, close to all the amenities etc. I have barely left the house in weeks, apart from essential food-shopping.
Yes, wasnt August glorious? Blue skies for weeks on end - at least they were when I peered round the curtains occasionally. I felt guilty about the summer going to waste, but like it or not, everything costs money - sure I can go to the park, even with a bottle of tap water, but what am I going to read? Can't afford books at the mo. would have loved to get some art galleries in, but even the free ones will cost a fiver to get there and back. I suppose if I lived on the coast of Cornwall I could spend the time painting moody seascapes and the like - but paints cost money too, and canvasses are extortionate.

Over the last few years, apart from an income I've seen jobs as something to prevent me from spending money for at least 8 hours a day, five days a week.

[fanny splendid]

People who enjoyed that might also like,

The Importance Of Being Idle by Stephen Robins

In an age of increasingly stressed-out, long, mundance working hours "The Importance of Being Idle" is a call to arms for would-be loafers everywhere to man their armchairs and turn their hands to absolutely nothings whatsoever. Offering inspirational advice, age-old proverbs, quotations and philosophical dialogues it argues that idling has a centrally important role to play in both civilization and our day-to-day physical well-being. Covering every aspect from ambition to afternoon tea, Buddhism to beds, capitalism to curiosity, death to doing nothing, employment to excuses, it highlights the wisdom of the great idlers across the centuries to help the novice idler while away the lazy hours.

[Neil]

If we get the robots in to do my job, what happens when I want something that I don't have? Do I have to make it myself or go without?

I think Pulped Yam covered this one over the page, but in brief, there are thousands of things we don't actually need, and if we spent less time worrying about getting an iPod that's the same colour as our knickers, we'd have more time to think, create, write, play, walk, day-dream.

Once we're providing services through our hobbies, we're not far from trading our goods and services for other people's. Then it'll be re-introducing currency and before you know it, somebody will have enough currency to pay others to do their work for them (for a tiny cut of the profit). As if by magic, we're fucked all over again.

Interesting question, I've been thinking about this and so far I've came up with a few alternatives.  Firstly, you're working on the assumption that one thing needs to be traded for another, in the same way we trade money for services these days.  The internet disproves this, it works because there are people who are willing to do things because they enjoy them, and because they know others will enjoy the results as well.  Look at how fan-sites are always better than official ones for instance.  If I make pottery for a hobby, and you need something to eat your dinner off, then why should I necessarily want something in return?  

After some more consideration I think that bartering would probably be a much better system for obtaining things than the current one anyway.  This thread revolves around the notion that more people should have time to do what they actually want to do, which would encompass developing skills and talents that they otherwise wouldn't have time for.  So, take one of my plates, but in return play me a bitching guitar solo that you've wrote, or tell me some of the theories and ideas you've come up with, or read me one of your poems.  That all seems massively more satisfying than just handing over cash, not to mention a lot more sociable.

[fanny splendid]

but paints cost money too, and canvasses are extortionate.

I realise you haven't got any cash now, but if down there you have a publishers outlet called The Works, you can get really cheap paints and canvases from there. Today I bought a 50" x 40" canvas for £22.99 (or two for £40), and a load of 150ml tubes of acrylic (or oil) for £2.49 each (or 5 for £10).

Sorry if you're thinking, 'but I already said I haven't got any money', but I thought you might want to know for when you have some cash?

[slim]

I forgot to say that I count myself very lucky that I am something of an insomniac (or probably more like a bad sleeper, I don't want to devalue any medical conditions) and I have plenty of time for idling.

As it doesn't seem to make me any more tired than usual, I actually enjoy the fact that I regularly can't sleep 'til somewhere between 2am and 4am. It means I can read forums like this, learn, write music, write prose, doodle, contemplate, etc. in relative peace as most of the rest of the country are in bed, not bothering me.

I greatly value my idling time, and not just because I was born a bit lazy. I really feel some time alone each day makes you more comfortable with yourself. I worry sometimes that other people indulge themselves in entertainment too much. Don't get me wrong, I love watching comedy, listening to music, reading and all things like that, but it's just a part of my everyday life. Some people seem to immerse themselves in television; destroying, in my opinion, time they should value greatly.

Maybe this energy and enthusiasm I have for the consumption of knowledge will dissipate as I age, or will wane as the lack of sleep starts to affect me. It probably means I'll die younger too, but I don't care, as I'd have had a much more interesting time in the interim. :)

[MojoJojo]

At the beginning of the century, the industrial revolution had created a surplus of labour. It was predicted by some that in a mere 100 years, we could be living a life of leisure as machines did all the work that was needed.

Of course, some people would need to work, and the rich and powerful weren't willing to give up all that power.

What good is money if it can't inspire terror in your fellow man?

So the consumer society was born, and we work our arses off not to survive, but so we can buy a load of tat. Tat that will need replacing in 3 years, because it is "obsolete", even though it still does exactly the same as it always has done.

Heh, but that's progress isn't it.

[Ambient Sheep]

One thing that's stuck with me...is the point he indirectly makes about the coming of machines - ie why, when whoever it was invented these industrial machines, did they not say, okay, we can do things twice as fast - let's all take half the day off..?

That's easy: Darwinian competition.  If everybody did that, fine.  But one person or firm (there's always one, isn't there?) realises that if he uses his machines all day rather than half a day, then he gets a competitive advantage, and the rest have to follow or die.

This process continues today, with the modern workforce being pushed right to the point where things become counterproductive, but by definition no further.  (Even if things are counterproductive to the individual, rather than the company.)

[butnut]

Damn that crash. Pages 3 and 4 of this thread got really interesting, with some interesting discussion on Marx et al, and now its gone forever.

Anyway, I was going to post last night about how much I was enjoying this thread, and how I'd ordered the book, and had some interesting questions to ask about Marx, but then the crash meant I couldn't post and it all seems a bit pointless now. Oh well...

[Neil]

Has noone got it cached?  Surely someone has.

[slim]

Unfortunately, I use Firefox, which, although better than IE at everything else, helpfully stores everything in one generic file which is then broken down into chunks.

Besides which, after reading the thread in WW about someone having problems, and the consequent advice to clear the cache and restart the browser, that's exactly what I did last night when the forum went down...

Buggerit, I was enjoying this thread too.

[Johnny Yesno]

I just wish I could work part time.  Being at work ten hours a day has really dried my creative juices, though my job wouldn't be half as bad if it was half as long. I too had a long period of unemployment which certainly showed me how much tat exists that I really don't need.
The Dadaists reckoned that play is the highest form of of human endeavour and I'm inclined to agree. It's not doing nothing yet it's quite benign, unlike acquiring wealth.

[poison popcorn]

that book looks interesting, can't afford the bugger at the mo, saving dole pennies to go see shellac in nov. seems like a similar outlook to that of a guy called bob black in 'the abolition of work' http://www.zpub.com/notes/black-work.html

i read that when i was in high school and here i am age 31 and still on the dole, so something must've stuck...

i had a dole meeting today and i'm now on fucking new deal again, so will be offered various stamp licking courses soon. that seems to be the latest govt ploy to get more folk into work, making it as much hassle as possible to stay on the dole, so you'd be as well to get a crap job just to avoid having to jump through very silly hoops...

edit to add better link

[Clinton Morgan]

Extract from book here...
http://www.resurgence.org/2005/hodgkinson231.htm

Slow plodding is nice, I find fast pace walking causes myself to be stressed and can develop a headache. The "I've gotta get to 'B'" march creates a horrible feeling of uptightness. I'm curious to know, is it possible to be a plodder in the city or does the 'vibrancy' of the place cause one to rush like Mr. Busy?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

The work culture is hammered into us so that many of us simply don't know what to do when we have spare time

A super comment from Neil, there.

I can't agree with this comment enough. I always complain about not having enough time to do what I want to do, and then people (even memebers of my family) say "Oh you'd have far too much time on your hands?"

It's a crazy notion! I can't remember being bored when I've had time to myself for years. There is so much to do when you're not working that the desire to work vanishes- not out of idleness, but the desire to deploy the limited time you have in a better way.

I've started working as little as I can get away with, and spending as little as possible in order to free up time to do whatI want to do- write, draw, compose music, as well as watch TV and play games. I prefer doing things creative and challenging and destest routine and subservience.

Having time to think, as Ambient Sheep pointed out earlier, is a dangerous thing. It turns people into independent thinkers.

Re: walking.

I like to walk very quickly, everywhere. The way I look at it is, if you walk quickly you can spend more time at your original place and mre time at your destination. Surely walking from place to place is just an irritating commercial break that interludes actual living.

If I don't have to be somewhere then yes, it's good to stop and take things in- especially when walking through parks or open spaces but otherwise I can't stand being a pedestrian, because the other pedestrians appear to all have their eyes closed.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I like to walk very quickly, everywhere. The way I look at it is, if you walk quickly you can spend more time at your original place and mre time at your destination. Surely walking from place to place is just an irritating commercial break that interludes actual living.

But then Hodgkinson would argue that there's much to be enjoyed from the journey itself. Especially in London, which is full of all sorts of weird, higgledy piggledy stuff.

I find the 'getting to B' concept to be incredibly stressful, myself - even if I'm just meeting a friend in a pub, I get incredibly nervous and agitated getting there. Walking quickly seems to make it worse, because I'm telling my brain that I'm getting impatient.

[Suttonpubcrawl]

Haha! I was reading through the thread from the start and found some post by Ambient Sheep talking about the Police song "Dead End Job". I couldn't remember what it was like so I put it on and I just found myself very amused by Sting's exclamation of "CUNTS!" quite near the end.

[Beagle 2]

The work culture is hammered into us so that many of us simply don't know what to do when we have spare time

A super comment from Neil, there.

I can't agree with this comment enough. I always complain about not having enough time to do what I want to do, and then p
eople (even memebers of my family) say "Oh you'd have far too much time on your hands?"

It's too true, I went from uni to unemployment to temping to dole and round again for years and was pratically never bored and often creative and really poor but happy. Actually this did eventually spiral into idle vacant nothingness but you can tak these things too far :-)

Now I'm working far too much and on my one, occaisionally two days off in a week i'm at a loose end, I feel like I shoud be up doing something practical, not actually enjoyable or productive in the self-worth way rather than pure self-preservation. And I see it in the old men in the family who can't even sit down and watch a film or anything vaguely "unreal", comedy isn't funny unless it's home video falling over and it's the news and whining about a culture they don't even attempt to connect wih if it's anything.

What are we working more and more for, when does progress become progressed to the point when it means we can take another day off, or cut out the chaff and concentrate on the stuff that really needs doing to keep us upright and find out that eveybody's a bit happier? I don't kno whether that's  socialist sentiment or against state intervention full stop. All I do know is that McEwens is quite strong and I need a piss and I'm having a nice lie in tomorrow so jobs a fucking goodun.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Yeah I can understand where you're coming from. I think living in a culture where technology has actually suceeded individual invention is quite desperate really. The only way you can contribute to the world is through working for people who will most likely have different interests to you. It's no wonder that people question and sometimes rebel against the system, even through insults and abuse from people who defend it.

As a student I've experienced quite a lot of abuse from ordinary people who are incredibly resentful towards students, and have the stereotypical view that stuents are lazy, have their education payed for by the tax payer and are antisocial. Whilst, like most stereotypes, there is a degree of truth in my own personal experience, every student I have come across has been hardworking, and people I know who have dropped out are in full-time work, and now that the mass privatisation of our public institutions are underway, and grants have been replaced by loans, with long-term fees added on, students don't have it free at all, but are pushed into a headlock financially, and have to spend the rest of their lives slowly releasing the grip. In any case, most resentment I've experienced has been from people who never went to university, jealous that they aren't there themselves, and people who simply resent the fact that as a student you aren't so obliged to work as hard, and appear to have more options than previously thought.

I know that personally, I'm under pressure to get a good degree and follow my brother and sister into good jobs, in the areas they were interested in, but I've found it a lot harder to focus on any skill in particular- I'm reasonably interested in plenty of topics, and I find it annoying to have to specialise in one, and neglect learning more about other topics as a result. This puts me in an odd position because I don't have any clear ambition career-wise, and whilst I still don't, I'm inclined to withdraw from working life to do things like play music, draw, write that require only your imagination but are all extremely fulfilling.That's why I'm budgeting for survival, so I can spend more time doing the things I enjoy.

And after all, why even bother listening to the people who criticize- as Moz said 'it's my life to wreck, my own way'. So Il'l shut up and get some sleep.

[Make me smile]

I like to walk very quickly, everywhere. The way I look at it is, if you walk quickly you can spend more time at your original place and mre time at your destination. Surely walking from place to place is just an irritating commercial break that interludes actual living.

But then Hodgkinson would argue that there's much to be enjoyed from the journey itself. Especially in London, which is full of all sorts of weird, higgledy piggledy stuff.

I find the 'getting to B' concept to be incredibly stressful, myself - even if I'm just meeting a friend in a pub, I get incredibly nervous and agitated getting there. Walking quickly seems to make it worse, because I'm telling my brain that I'm getting impatient.

I think you would like a book called Lights Out for the Territory by Iain Sinclair. Here's some review stuff http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/sinclairi/lightsout.htm

[Clinton Morgan]

Came across a brilliant anti-Bob The Builder article by Mr. Hodgkinson on The Idler website.

http://www.idler.co.uk/archives/?page_id=37

In an episode I was watching the other day, Bob comes out into the yard one morning and announces to all his machines that he is giving them a day off. Rather than cheering and sprinting to the pub, as any sane person would, these employees actually complain. What were they to do all day without work to distract their poor little minds? Later in that same episode, the machines were to be seen running around in a sort of parody of work; they were working even when there was no work to be done – what can I say?

[Blue Jam]

Quick unimpressive fact: I was at the launch for this, I met Tom Hodgkinson and he signed my book- nice bloke. The launch was on Clerkenwell green and there was free booze. Aphex Twin was also there for some reason.

[eric claptop]

This really is an excellent thread, quite inspiring with some fine observations by many. It's been fascinating to read about how peoples' outlook on the "to work or not to work" ethic differ. And that to not work doesn't particularly mean that one is being a lazy so and so. Something I've been fighting within myself has been stirred now!

The thing is, is that only yesterday I was feeling quite low about not really having done anything all day and then the dreaded guilt monster comes a-poking at me. The most frustrating thing about this is that I don't even know what I was feeling guilty about in the first place! Only three or four weeks ago I came out of self-employment and am now in a position where I have a bit of money saved and can consider my options (a bit, I aint no fuckin millionaire!). But I have now realised that I'm looking at myself from the point of view of another person/collective and that I also haven't been looking from a particularly creative point of view. It's this nagging tone of "What are doing? You don't know what to do next do you?" type shit that I have to erase to be ABLE to think clearly about what to do next! And surely that's a creative decision?!?

I even went into Manchester to try a bit of retail therapy but, as has been mentioned in this thread already, it would just be stuff that I don't really need. Just a new toy to go "ooh" at to occupy my mind until I'm bored of it.

Life . . . oh life . . . oh li-i-i-fe, oh life . . . doo do do doo

[Clinton Morgan]

I used to get paranoid during one of my bouts of unemployment which is why when I ended up signing on the third time round I thought, "Fuck it. I will look for work but I will also give myself time to be happy." It's taboo to smile when you're unemployed and you get a visitation from the general public ghoul wailing, " You must keep looking. You must keep looking." During the first several months of my redundancy I decided not to sign on because I knew that after a while the thumbscrews would be fitted in order to persuade me to get another office job. I did work at the time (well, to me it was work) painting, drawing, writing, reading books for inspiration and ideas. Which is why (due to myself working Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday) I am more lazy (though Hodgkinson has written about the difference between idleness and laziness) on my days off whenever I can be. Monday was a good day in that I stayed in bed till 1:50pm and went for a stroll to my library and wrote in my "moleskine" book.

However Dr Samuel Johnson sleeping in till 2:30pm puts me to shame. Apparently he would lay in bed thinking and then wrote his essays at breakneck speed whilst the copy boy was waiting outside ready to take them to the publishers.

Incidentally Tom Hodgkinson is thinking of having a classified section on his website consisting of jobs for idlers.

Gardening, sorting out the library, house-sitting, dog-walking, painting and decorating, hermit, poet-in-residence, Saturday in the bookshop, grotto builder, mural painter...

I've got an old book of Dr. Johnson's essays, some of which are written for a magazine called 'The Idler'. I must read it one of these days.

[23 Daves]

I really must read this book.

Most of you will know that most of the jobs I've had over the last ten years have been freelance or temporary numbers, purely and simply because:

a/ although it does leave me a bit worse off,  I can dictate my terms a little bit more
and
b/ I have a low tolerance threshold for spectacularly dull work, which is mostly what I get offered.

I would honestly say that of the thirty or so jobs I've had over the last ten years, at least half were utterly unnecessary, and in a properly organised workplace there would have been no need for me to be there.  It's churlish to complain when these people are paying your rent for you, sure, but then again it's enormously depressing to be sat in an often dull, open plan space going through work you know is actually only there as a result of managerial incompetence.

And please don't tell me that most of the managers are necessary, either - industry and public service are ridiculously top heavy a lot of the time, and sadly that's often where conflict enters into the equation as well.  If working hours in the UK were reduced and ways of improving efficiency in most firms were looked into, I honestly doubt anyone would notice the difference except in (of course) emergency services and suchlike.

[slim]

You really must; it's fantastic. Changed my outlook somewhat. Some amazing revelations about industry and what the ruling class have done to us poor proles.