How to Be Idle
As Oscar Wilde said, doing nothing is hard work. The Protestant work ethic has most of us in its thrall, and the idlers of this world have the odds stacked against them. But here, at last, is a book that can help. From Tom Hodgkinson, editor of the Idler, comes HOW TO BE IDLE, an antidote to the work-obsessed culture which puts so many obstacles between ourselves and our dreams. Hodgkinson presents us with a laid-back argument for a new contract between routine and chaos, an argument for experiencing life to the full and living in the moment. Ranging across a host of issues that may affect the modern idler – sleep, the world of work, pleasure and hedonism, relationships, bohemian living, revolution – he draws on the writings of such well-known apologists for idleness as Dr Johnson, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson and Nietzsche. His message is clear: take control of your life and reclaim your right to be idle.
Stats for nerds
9recommend
14mentions
11people
2013–2026years
86% recommend14% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I started with “How to Be Idle” by Hodgkinson about 20 years ago. Found “The importance of living “ by Lin yutang. I now have a small collection of books about idleness… yet here i am working and then throwing myself into working on a century house in my spare time… feeling starved for idleness. Yet my most creative ideas for it come when I’m idle.
Idleness led to Taoism, the pursuit of being useless. Led to Buddhism: just sit.
As the quote sort of goes: The great preponderance of society’s problems come from people’s inability to sit quietly in a room by themselves.
It’s a noble pursuit, idleness. Really. If you haven’t tried it, give it a real shake. A little more might fall out than you expect.
- Next step: reading Charles Bukowski and just absolutely not giving a f*ck. I always seen him as the ultimate slacker and hoped some of that energy will trickle down to me when I was being workaholic.
On another note I really liked "How to Be Idle" by Tom Hodgkinson https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/623922.How_to_Be_Idle In case you get some guilt feelings.
- The book "How to Be Idle" by Tom Hodgkinson is an interesting read that has a similar viewpoint
- How To Be Idle and the Idler magazine might tickle your fancy if you like this theme. I enjoyed both greatly.
The Protestant worker ethic, work hard and be closer to God, has a lot to answer for, both good and bad.
We’ve linked our worth to our consumable output. We’re worried if AI can become human yet we’ve met the machines halfway.
- I think Hodgkinson in "How to be idle" nailed it.
Smoking is one of the few things that changes your status by simply doing it: from being a John Doe you become a smoker.
«The smoker simultaneously injects and excuses idleness in his life with every cigarette»
«Many idlers love to smoke. It gives us something to do when we’re not doing anything.»
As a smoker who quit several times over the past 20 years and went from few cigarettes a week to 20 a day, back to 1 or 2 and then 20 again after the lockdown, I think the real threat is not the physical need, that is really easy to overcome, a few days and it's gone.
It's the idea of losing your status and missing the habit of being that kind of person that is really, really hard to win.
But it really sucks, we all know it, it's probably the most stupid thing a person can do, but we still fall for it.
- I haven't read either, but O'Connor sounds more on the right track. The value of idleness is not that it will make you more productive or better at your job after you stop being idle; it's valuable in its own right. Work is important, but I think it's pathological to vaunt it as we do in our society, just as it's pathological to completely shirk it and live in squalor.
Basically, I just want to take a nap, much like O'Connor apparently. There is a note of desperation, perhaps nervous disavowal of death, in our society's insistence on always doing, always improving, always producing.
I haven't read either of these but I did enjoy "How to be Idle" by Tom Hodgkinson years back: https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Idle-Loafers-Manifesto/dp/0060...
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