This is the same common sense that paid the former CEO of Lehman Brothers $US17,000 for every hour he spent leading the Institution into ruin. The same no-nonsense certainty that allows traders to legally gamble other people's futures without fear of personal consequences.

Well, as I write this it's the end of the day. Wall Street has been bailed out and socialism has triumphed (some Republicans actually believe this). At the end of the day I have realised, once again, that all I need do to avoid bullshit is to stop listening and to stop caring.

To become literally carefree, as Tom Hodgkinson would say.

At the end of the day you know it makes sense.

La questione è che queste due dipendenze, come ci si aspetta dalle dipendenze, sono portate a “struttura”. Fumo dopo un caffè, quindi sono.
Ovvio che quando leggo cose come questa di blog52 sul caffè o questa di Upuaut sul polonio nella coltivazione del tabacco, le ginocchia mi cedono leggermente.

Per quel che riguarda il caffè lo scenario è da post catastrofe, quindi ho ancora un po’ di tempo, ma il polonio nel tabacco…

Capiamoci, il fumo non è un’attività difendibile.
Già nel 1604, in Inghilterra, re Giacomo I (uno con l’hobby di bruciar streghe) pubblicava la sua INVETTIVA condannando l’usanza del fumare.

“Quale onore o condotta possono indurci a imitare le maniere barbare e bestiali di indiani primitivi, ignobili e senza dio, specialmente in un costume tanto vile e puzzolente? […] Perché non li imitiamo anche mettendoci a camminare nudi come fanno loro? Preferendo le perline di vetro, le piume, e altre simili sciocchezze, all’oro e alle pietre preziose, come fanno loro? Perché non rinneghiamo Dio e adoriamo il Diavolo come fanno loro […] Un costume disgustoso per gli occhi, odioso per il naso, dannoso per il cervello, pericoloso per i polmoni, e nel suo nero e puteolente vapore, somigliantissimo all’orribile fumo stigio dell’abisso infernale”.

Secondo Richard Klein, autore di Seduzione della sigaretta (1993),

“L’introduzione del tabacco in Europa nel XVI secolo corrispose all’avvento dell’Età dell’Ansia […] ed alla conseguente perdita delle certezze teologiche medievali.”
“Il momento in cui si fuma una sigaretta consente di aprire una parentesi nel tempo dell’ordinaria esperienza, uno spazio e un tempo di attenzione più intensa che dà origine a un sentimento di trascendenza evocato attraverso il rituale del fuoco, del fumo, della brace unita alla mano, ai polmoni, al respiro, alla bocca. Esso procura un piccolo afflusso di infinità che altera – quantunque in misura minima – le prospettive e ci consente – pur se per un breve tempo – un estatico distacco da noi stessi.”

Più prosaicamente, e cinicamente, Barbara Ehrenreich in Una paga da fame ne dà questa definizione:

“Lavorare è ciò che fai per gli altri; fumare è ciò che fai per te. Strano che i promotori delle campagne contro il fumo non abbiano colto l’elemento di auto-maternage che lega questo vizio alle sue vittime: è come se, nei posti di lavoro americani, l’unica proprietà indiscussa del lavoratore siano il tumore alle vie respiratorie e i momenti liberi dedicati al suo accadimento”

Tom Hodgkinson, dal cui libro L’ozio come stile di vita sono tratte queste citazioni, sostiene comunque che:

“In effetti il fumo ha la funzione che dovrebbe avere la grande satira: conforta l’afflitto ed affligge l’agiato. Il virtuoso lo odia; gli opinionisti liberali ancora si domandano perché i poveri sprechino le loro misere risorse per fumare, senza comprendere che in realtà il fumo rende la loro vita degna di essere vissuta. L’oppresso lo ama. […] Noi fumatori dovremmo acquistare fez e smoking. Dovremmo arrotolarci le nostre sigarette. Per farla breve dovremmo celebrare il fumo, rimuovere i sensi di colpa che lo circondano. Potremmo scoprire, paradossalmente, che se facessimo così fumeremmo meno. La libertà porta responsabilità.”

Ma, scavalcati i problemi “morali” e riunitisi in pace alla propria sigaretta Upuaut ci inserisce la coscienza di un problematica non solvibile con la dialettica e l’esilio volontario sul balcone a -10° in inverno e +40° in estate.
Il problema è lo stesso di sempre, la coltivazione massificata porta a stravolgimenti e danni.

Eppure il tabacco ha una sua profonda storia di civile e sostenibile coltivazione (per quanto in ambito di agricoltura organica vi sia un grosso dibattito su se abbia senso coltivare in maniera biologica qualcosa che non può, per definizione, essere sano…) ne sono prova personaggi come Wendell Berry (conosciuto soprattutto per il suo “manifesto del contadino impazzito” un po’ meno per le sue posizioni da conservatore ed antiabortista, ma si sa… i radical sono difficilmente inquadrabili, un secondo prima sono anarchici il secondo dopo sono degli ultranazionalisti), coltivatore di tabacco cosciente dell’importanza sociale della coltivazione su piccola scala o come le testimonianze portate da Ste di vogliaditerra.

Detto questo... mi rimane da studiare come le concimazioni sedimentino nel tabacco in forma di polonio.
Ed aggiungo il tassello ad un nutrito numero di altri tasselli che mi spingono a cercare di coltivare concimando il meno possibile...

Vado a bermi un caffè e a farmi una sigaretta…
…per favore: non abbinatemi la coltivazione del tabacco a quella della cannabis, dei papaveri da oppio o dei funghetti trallalà… pena il rimbalzo su tutto ciò che crea dipendenza fisica o psicologica cacao, fragole, lamponi e nel caso di mio figlio i pisellini freschi appena raccolti…

Aggiornamento: leggo questo articolo del New York Times (oddio, una fonte come un'altra...) e penso: il tabacco è una solanacea come i pomodori, le melanzane ecc... ecc..., il polonio probabilmente presente naturalmente nel terreno viene assorbito dalla pianta "legandosi" ai concimi "iperfosfati". La tecnica delle concimazioni iperfosfatiche riguarda tutta l'agricoltura, non solo quella del tabacco.
Polonio nei "cuori di bue"?

No, così, per andare a dormire tutti più tranquilli, non solo i fumatori! :)

PS. - il post di Upuaut e ottimo... il mio è degno di "Strange days": "la paranoia è la realtà vista su una scala di misura più piccola..." :)

PPS. - e comunque ad essere paranoici non si casca troppo lontano... qui un'articolo con molti link sui problemi dati dalle concimazioni fosfatiche (ammesse anche in agricoltura bio a quanto io ne sappia...)
Un'altro paio di link interessanti:
Fosforo: il cerchio da chiudere
Crisi alimentare, fosforo e concimi rincarano più del petrolio

A pioneer of all things GTD, Mr Tom Hodgkinson of the Idler magazine wrote in the Guardian today how;

Faffing is good. It is an important part of life. Faffing is when we disconnect from the matrix and idle for a while, like a car. Our body and spirit know deep down that human beings were not made for constant toil so subconsciously creates space through the mechanism of faffing.

and also how;

Faffing is completely harmless, whereas its opposite - dynamic, purposeful activity - is often very harmful. Faffers do not tend to kill people or make them work 12-hour days or sell them shoddy merchandise or lend them vast sums of money that they cannot pay back.

The Alternative GTD approach to life is behind Tom Hodgkinson on this matter. With the current credit crisis so evident in the UK maybe a little faffing around would do us all some good!

Tom encourages us to;

Stare out of the window. Bend paperclips. Stand in the middle of the room trying to remember what you came downstairs for. Pace. Drum your fingertips. Move papers around. Hum. Look at the garden. Go to the shed with the intention of tidying up and instead fall asleep. Make mental notes. Read every single word of the newspaper - even the job ads - before getting down to work. Lose yourself in erotic reveries. Pat your pockets. Resolve to be more organised in future. Be useless.

Therefore especially with the impending credit crisis, doing nothing (aka not spending) this weekend, should be encouraged. So this weekend's top 3 tips to faffing are:

• to light up a doobie/crack open a beer and sit in your favourite chair and just do nothing. Listening to your favourite cd optional.
• go for a walk on the beach and just listen and watch the waves.
• find a good fence/gate in the countryside and just lean.

The Alternative GTD approach to life - pushing for a better tomorrow, today.

By the way, Have you read Tom Hodgkinson's How to Be Idle? It is a marvelous treatise on the creative efficacy of laziness. For Hodkinson, this does not mean occasional laziness, but laziness as a lifestyle. He makes a convincing argument in support of sustained idleness and roundly professes to practicing what he preaches. I doubt that Hodgkinson is as lazy as he claims, though. This book is so full of erudition and skillful writing that I can't help but think that he must have been doing something with all that time on his hands. Check out his online magazine, The Idler: www.idler.co.uk. It's brilliant!

While Shell turns up her sleeves to slug through 85A, a task I do not envy, I will be taking another turn through The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I read it one summer in high school and, for one reason or another, it didn't grip me. But I read it cover to cover on an eight-hour flight from Paris to New York this past May. It was outstanding, kept my attention riveted the whole time. I was already writing 85A and couldn't help but recognize the parallels between Seamus and Holden's haplessness. I'll read it again. It might give me ideas for a second draft of my own book.

Okay, that's all for now. Check back with me later.

Reading the Idle Parent column in the newspaper this morning made me smile and reconfirmed to me that it was OK to lie in bed and do absolutely nothing whilst the children entertained themselves. Here is one of Tom Hodgkinson's previous articles in The Telegraph. I love his philosophy on life, which boils down to 'hands-off' parenting.

Here is Tom's manifesto (from The Idler):

We reject the idea that parenting requires hard work
We pledge to leave our children alone
That should mean that they leave us alone, too
We reject the rampant consumerism that invades children from the moment they are born
We read them poetry and fantastic stories without morals
We drink alcohol without guilt
We reject the inner Puritan
We fill the house with music and laughter
We don't waste money on family days out and holidays
We lie in bed for as long as possible
We try not to interfere
We push them into the garden and shut the door so that we can clean the house
We both work as little as possible, particularly when the kids are small
Time is more important than money
Happy mess is better than miserable tidiness
Down with school
We fill the house with music and merriment

He is also against things that have been 'designed' especially for kids, things that dumb them down to the lowest common denominator and give them a simplified and naïve view of the world. He is all for adults spending as much time pursing things that adults themselves enjoy without guilt, refusing to become embroiled in this rampant consumerism that targets children nowadays.

So this morning at ten, when my children awoke, I made them breakfast, went back to bed and let them get on with it. There were protests, of course, Squeak needed the dvd player turned on for her and Bubble needed a drink. I told them that they would have to help each other and left it at that. After five minutes of milling around they went off to entertain themselves, sorting out the dvd player and a drink. Plus they helped themselves to a lolly and two sweets each, no more. An hour later they were doing jigsaws together quite happily.

I am saddened that parents nowadays feel that they are not good parents unless they occupy their children with something to do 100% of the time (and then feel guilty when they have to plonk kids in front of the t.v. because they run out of steam and the kids are still raring to go). It is certainly true that children who have everything handed to them on a plate day after day forget how to entertain themselves, whether this be at school or at home.

I know a mother who spends most of her time when her 5 y.o. son is out of school taking him places; going for walks, bike shows, hockey matches etc. and staying there with him. Every moment of the day is mapped out with a meaningful activity. I remember her asking me once if I knew of a playground in an obscure little town 15 kms away. When I replied that I didn't, (and why should I?) she replied with,

"Oh, you don't get out much do you?"

Don't get me wrong, I love doing things with my children, but I try not to let it take up most of my time. I am learning, from people like Tom Hodgkinson, that children need their own space to discover who they are; they need to push through boredom in order to become more self reliant, more independent and curious about the world.

Boredom was something that Bubble used to pronounce to the world at any given opportunity,

"Oh Mummy, I am SO BORED!" with a huge shrug of the shoulders to accompany this statement.

We used to entertain her quite a bit. All her games revolved around us and she seemed incapable of doing anything that involved free-form imagination without help. But then I started putting her out in the garden in all weathers and letting her work through her boredom on her own. This was after I read 'Last Child in the Woods' by Richard Louv. Now she is spending more and more time lost in a world of her own imagining, not so reliant on us to create that world for her.

It seems that in previous generations, this was what children of all backgrounds did whilst the parents worked. I remember playing for hours in the garden as a child, on my bike in the street or with my sister playing fantastical games together. Sure, we went places as a family, but I never remember my mother or father coming out into the garden and playing organised games with us. I used to do things like build bird boxes with my father, but it was so that I could go away and do it for myself later if I wanted.

I once read an article about how much it would cost a family to entertain their children for the whole summer. It made me mad. The total amount came to thousands. The activities included theme parks, outdoor events, cinema tickets, restaurants, museums and swimming pools.

Why?

Would children have any less fun if they spent all summer building a tree house in the woods on their own? I doubt it. What they would actually miss out on though, is this artificial world created for them by adults who feel better knowing their children were kept happy at all times. Doesn't stop them whining though, does it? No wonder parents today burn-out so quickly and we have a generation of children who cannot do much else for themselves except sitting in front of the t.v. or computer screen.

So, during my agonising confinement this morning (when I actually felt bored myself), I left the children to do what they wanted to do. After all, I couldn't even make it down the stairs. They were fine, they didn't put themselves in danger, they didn't wreck the house nor did they gorge on sweets and chocolates.

It went so well in fact, that I may consider doing this 'lying in bed' thing once a week from now on, especially if I can drink alcohol without guilt once in a while as Hodgkinson suggests.

TH: "Respinge cariera"

Ai absolvit liceul, te-ai inscris la facultate cu gandul sa devii un stralucit manager intr-o stralucita multinationala, la finalizarea studiilor. Ai terminat facultatea dar vezi ca lucrurile nu sunt asa simple precum visai la varsta adolescentei si trebuie sa pleci de la joburi mai mici , la firme mai mult sau mai putin dubioase.Poate o sa lucrezi si la negru. Asta-i realitatea. Esti la inceput si vrei sa capeti experienta.Si trec cativa ani in care tot schimbi joburile sau poate cu putin noroc intri direct la multinationala visata si incepi cu un job de Junior____ .Multinationalele te trimit la formare , o sa ai parte de cursuri si nu poti sa le pierzi, o sa faci si ore suplimentare, trebuie ... ca doar vrei sa fii si tu Senior___, sa fii si tu sef de departament. (Ti-ai fixat tu acum zece an ca obiectiv ca la 30 de ani sa fii sef) Si pentru asta o sa fie o concurenta, cu siguranta. Poate o sa trebuiasca sa lingusesti sefii, sa-i suporti frustrarile si mitocaniile. Sau cu putin/mult noroc ai un sef minunat care a vazut in tine potentialul de stralucit manager si te va propulsa foarte repede pe postul dorit.Acum esti sef, esti manager, ai oameni in subordine. Dar ramai pana pe la 9 seara la servici, uneori mai apar urgente si in weekend/vacante. Un manager adevarat isi asuma responsabilitatile, si tot de decurge de aici , mai ales stressul.N-am mai poment celelalte variabile ( familie, prieteni) .Iti mai permiti asa ceva? Am zis ceva neadevarat? Eu am vazut toate aceste situatii in jurul meu, probabil si voi recunosteti acesti oameni.

Personal, realizarea unei cariere e o sintagma care-mi suna foarte frumos pana la primul job (in timpul studentiei), acum vreo 7 ani.Dupa aceea jobul a devenit un mijloc de a -mi ameliora existenta. Si a disparut notiunea de cariera .For good :) . Fac cariera sau aleg sa traiesc? E vorba de o alegere la urma urmei. Insa pentru ca timpul afectat jobului reprezinta o mare pondere in viatza noastra, cred cu tarie ca trebuie sa facem ca acest timp sa fie cat mai placut pentru noi.Si aici e de discutat...

TH: "Feriti-va de datorii! ...Traiti fara ipoteci!Fiti niste ratacitori fericiti!"

Poti trai fara sa apelezi la banci? Poate cineva?

Eu nu am fost niciodata adepta creditelor pentru vacante/masini/zugravirea casei/achizitionare de electrocasnice sau alte facilitati de credit acordate si de unele magazine (care te incurajeaza sa cumperi si sa te indatorezi inutil). Chiar sunt impotriva acestor tipuri de credite.

Singurul pentru care inca militez (chiar daca s-au innasprit conditiile) este cel pentru achizitionarea unei case.

Casa este insa o responsabilitate, creditul ipotecar este o responsabilitate , care aduce griji si stress. Cunosc insa foarte multi care mi-ar spune ca e si asta o alegere. A sta cu chirie sau a avea propria casa indatorat 30 de ani la o banca ce creste continuu ratele.True , dar pentru mine casa (desi stiu ca a devenit un lux acum) reprezinta un minim pentru o viatza decenta. Deci, Mr THodgkinson , asta cred eu...nu stiu daca e rau sau bine sa fii "fiu ratacitor", dar mie imi place sa am casa . (Aici ca o paranteza : am citit ieri articolul acesta in Ziarul financiar, legat de gradul de informare a "consumatorilor de credite", e trist...)

Pornisem de la responsabilitati si griji : si cu siguranta e un raport direct proportional intre acestea. Cel mai bine si mai sanatos e SA NE FACEM CAT MAI PUTINE GRIJI oricum belelele curg :) nu?

People have complemented my choice of title. In the spirit of full disclosure though, I must admit that it is not my combination of words. It originated as the title of the final chapter of the book to the left, Tom Hodgkinson's opus "How to be Free" (or "The Freedom Manifesto" here in the states). "Stop Working, Start Living" serves to make the point that our society has slid down one of those "slippery slopes" people are always talking about. Once the puritanical mindset became the norm, especially here in the America, fun and revelry became a commodity, a thing we're allowed to buy once we've finished working all those hours. The world wasn't always like this, there was a time when we all worked only as much as necessary, making enough money to keep the wolves at bay. Let's take a little looksie at Mr. Hodgkinson's ideas and why he earned the title of this blog.

Let's begin by taking a look at a quote for the honorable Mr. Hodgkinson's book for more insight into better, more relaxed times:

Before the Reformation, England was one non-stop party...Christmas, for example lasted a full twelve days, during which you were not allowed to do any work. This was quickly followed on 2 February by a holiday called Candlemas and then more merriment on St. Valentines Day on the fourteenth. Then came Shrovetide, which started on the seventh Sunday before Easter and lasted for three days. Easter lasted a full ten days, till the festival of Hocktide. There was just time for a bit of work. Then there was St. George's Day on 23 April, another day off. A week after that came May Day, of course, which marked the first day of two months of merry-making and sex in the woods. Then there was 24 June, or Midsummer Eve, and the feast of Corpus Christi. The came St. Peter's Eve on 28 June, followed by Lammas on 1 August, opening a season of summer fairs and harvest suppers. In November came Martinma, followed by the fasting of Advent, and then it was back to Christmas once again.

So what the hell has happened? In essence, what we perceive as work and play have been separated. We've created modular lives for ourselves. From nine to five we make our money for the explicit purpose of being able to use it for revelry. Of course some of you reading this have most likely escaped this reality. You've managed to turn your vocation, meaning something you truly love to do, into a paying gig. "If you enjoy work," Hodgkinson says, "it's not really work." If you are lucky enough to enjoy being a designer, lawyer, sales or retail person, butcher, etc. , you're doing it right.

Many people aren't quite as fortunate as you in terms of their working life. Too many people work simply for the sake of working. Two months ago I quit my job in Seattle and ventured back to Cincinnati, a far cheaper city, and thus better for the lifestyle I wished to procure for myself. Towards the end of the chapter Hodgkinson gives this advice: "If you are thinking about quitting your job, then let me say I can highly recommend it. I think it's a lot easier to live without a job. For one thing, it's a lot less work." How beautifully simple a sentiment! I took his advice and have been jobless for about a month and a half. I have to say, I thought I would get bored, but I was oh so wrong. Spending your days listening to records, writing, reading books and comics, gardening, taking walks, rewatching movies you'd forgotten and playing music simply does not get boring.

Of course, nobody can do this forever. Eventually, most likely soon, I'll have to return to the working world. This time though, I have one simple rule, a rule that is the reason it has taken me a bit longer to find a job this go around. While I'm not necessarily looking to work via my vocation as of yet (I suppose I'd need to know what that is first) I'm simply looking to work in an environment where I'm happy. I talk to too many people that say they hate their job. Why do we put ourselves through the proverbial cosmic wringer just to get a paycheck? Sure, we all need to pay rent and insurance, of course we need a couple new pairs of pants, but I think that given a little time and patience we can all find our sweet niche. There isn't a person out there that doesn't deserve their own happy place in life.

If you're unhappy with your job and can survive a month without working, trash the job. If you're in a career you're unhappy with, only continuing on with it because you're told you should be career minded, trash the career. Live happily, do what you want to do. Learn a new skill. See yourself as a novice in everything. Do what you feel like. If that happens to be work, beautiful. If, at present it's absolutely nothing, get to it! The most important sentiment of Hodgkinson's book also happens to be the final word.  One line down from the final paragraph, in the center page we find his entire 318 page tome concentrated into one word:

PLAY

And that's why I named the blog that. I want this to be a celebration of doing what I feel like and encouraging others to do the same. We're totally going to have fun together guys! No puritanical, reformation style, no-fun-post-industrial thinking here.

Love,

John

P.S. Below are links to buy what should be your new life bibles:

"The Freedom Manifesto" by Tom Hodgkinson at Amazon.com

"How to be Idle" by Tom Hodgkinson at Amazon.com

For graduation last year I was given Tom Hodgkinson's How to Be Idle, a somewhat-revolutionary, pseudo-intellectual, rather-Marxist treatise on idling, creativity, and how to live life. My friend bought it for me because, he claimed, "you kinda look like the guy on the cover." Translation: you're the type to hob-nob at cafes, chatting about whatnot, procrastinating that novel you're endlessly writing about Small Town America. He was, of course, dead on.

In the frenetic haze of post-graduate life, How to Be Idle was tonic. It often gave me that particular sensation that comes only from reading a good book, the feeling that "this book gets me." I've zealously defended my idleness ever since.

At it's core, How to Be Idle is a critique of capitalism in Western societies (what I heard Thom Yorke refer to as "Advanced Capitalism," which made it sound like some kind of terminal illness that had nearly run it's course). Hodgkinson is saying: industrialization came along and robbed us of leisure time, and all our various and sundry problems with stress, obesity, depression, and lack of agency could be solved with a little idling. Work, particularly in an urban office, is de-humanizing drudgery and should be avoided. We are so caught up in acquiring, scheduling, meeting, climbing, envying, and wanting that we have forgotten the art of simply doing nothing.

In fact, idling enables you to accomplish fewer things better, with a greater sense of reward because you have time to enjoy the doing of the thing. Dear recent and striving graduates: Idle is the new ambitious.

In an interview with Mother Jones, Hodgkinson lays out the basic tenants of his philosophy of non-doing, and I highly recommend it. He says:

MJ: When I first picked up the How To Be Idle I thought it was a self-help book, which in a way it is--but it’s actually more of a social commentary and a look at the history of overwork.

TH: I gave it that title slightly deliberately because it sounded more commercial. I didn’t want to call it A Disquisition on the Benefits of Idleness. The title How to be Idle, as you say, is self-help, but it’s a slightly satirizing self-help. The self-help thing always seems to be something like, “Ten Ways to be More Efficient,” and it’s so depressing. I used to try to do those things, and could never remember what the ten ways are. A lot of that adds to your pressures: now there’s a whole new set of rules you’ve got to try to remember and live up to.

MJ: Can you offer some practical first steps on how to be idle?

TH: Part of this individualism is you feel this pressure that you alone have to conquer the world, and if you don’t work all the hours God gives then you start feeling really guilty. If you can stop feeling guilty, then I think it’s easier to start doing what you want to do. The way to stop feeling guilty is to read stuff--I’m not saying my book, but works by Bertrand Russell or Oscar Wilde, people who weren’t losers but who didn’t believe in the work ethic, and argued this thing about guilt or wrote philosophy about idleness.

And I like his vision for an idle society:

TH: Hopefully it would be full of people bicycling along the streets and whistling and raising their hats to each other [laughs]. Going for long walks in the countryside, and mucking about each day. What would it take for that to happen?

It struck me that Hodgkinson's thoughts on idling dovetail nicely with the hoped-for consequences of Buddhist meditation, if not the actual method. Idling is a gateway to a restful mind, where inspiration has space to arise naturally; Strolling in the park lends a connection to the natural world; sleeping in and waking slowly sets the tone for a calm day; free time lets you become involved in local politics or activism; myriad simple pleasures, instead of material or chemical stimulants, become paramount.

I'm taking up Hodgkinson's banner. I urge you all to quit your jobs (or take a day off), spend a week in bed (or sleep late on Saturday), and devote yourself a simple art, such as playing the lute (or stay in tonight and cook dinner with your partner instead of seeing another big-budget Hollywood Suck-a-Thon).

Opportunities for idleness are all around - you just have to stop and take notice.

For graduation last year I was given Tom Hodgkinson's How to Be Idle, a somewhat-revolutionary, pseudo-intellectual, rather-Marxist treatise on idling, creativity, and how to live life. My friend bought it for me because, he claimed, "you kinda look like the guy on the cover." Translation: you're the type to hob-nob at cafes, chatting about whatnot, procrastinating that novel you're endlessly writing about Small Town America. He was, of course, dead on.

In the frenetic haze of post-graduate life, How to Be Idle was tonic. It often gave me that particular sensation that comes only from reading a good book, the feeling that "this book gets me." I've zealously defended my idleness ever since.

At it's core, How to Be Idle is a critique of capitalism in Western societies (what I heard Thom Yorke refer to as "Advanced Capitalism," which made it sound like some kind of terminal illness that had nearly run it's course). Hodgkinson is saying: industrialization came along and robbed us of leisure time, and all our various and sundry problems with stress, obesity, depression, and lack of agency could be solved with a little idling. Work, particularly in an urban office, is de-humanizing drudgery and should be avoided. We are so caught up in acquiring, scheduling, meeting, climbing, envying, and wanting that we have forgotten the art of simply doing nothing. Sound familiar, meditators?

In fact, idling enables you to accomplish fewer things better, with a greater sense of reward because you have time to enjoy the doing of the thing. Dear recent and striving graduates: Idle is the new ambitious.

In an interview with Mother Jones, Hodgkinson lays out the basic tenants of his philosophy of non-doing, and I highly recommend it. He says:

MJ: When I first picked up the How To Be Idle I thought it was a self-help book, which in a way it is--but it’s actually more of a social commentary and a look at the history of overwork.

TH: I gave it that title slightly deliberately because it sounded more commercial. I didn’t want to call it A Disquisition on the Benefits of Idleness. The title How to be Idle, as you say, is self-help, but it’s a slightly satirizing self-help. The self-help thing always seems to be something like, “Ten Ways to be More Efficient,” and it’s so depressing. I used to try to do those things, and could never remember what the ten ways are. A lot of that adds to your pressures: now there’s a whole new set of rules you’ve got to try to remember and live up to.

MJ: Can you offer some practical first steps on how to be idle?

TH: Part of this individualism is you feel this pressure that you alone have to conquer the world, and if you don’t work all the hours God gives then you start feeling really guilty. If you can stop feeling guilty, then I think it’s easier to start doing what you want to do. The way to stop feeling guilty is to read stuff--I’m not saying my book, but works by Bertrand Russell or Oscar Wilde, people who weren’t losers but who didn’t believe in the work ethic, and argued this thing about guilt or wrote philosophy about idleness.

And I like his vision for an idle society:

TH: Hopefully it would be full of people bicycling along the streets and whistling and raising their hats to each other [laughs]. Going for long walks in the countryside, and mucking about each day. What would it take for that to happen?

It struck me that Hodgkinson's thoughts on idling dovetail nicely with the hoped-for consequences of meditation, if not the actual method. Idling is a gateway to a restful mind, where inspiration has space to arise naturally; Strolling in the park lends a connection to the natural world; sleeping in and waking slowly sets the tone for a calm day; free time lets you become involved in local politics or activism; myriad simple pleasures, instead of material or chemical stimulants, become paramount.

I'm taking up Hodgkinson's banner. I urge you all to quit your jobs (or take a day off), spend a week in bed (or sleep late on Saturday), and devote yourself a simple art, such as playing the lute (or stay in tonight and cook dinner with your partner instead of seeing another big-budget Hollywood Suck-a-Thon).

Opportunities for idleness are all around - you just have to stop and take notice.

We are PRODUCERS by nature and not CONSUMERS.

The problem with the modern workplace (and I am talking office workers, people who work for conglomerates, corporations, government departments where its big enough that you don't know everybody by their name) is that we have become so specialized that we make nothing together.

We each make a small part of something big.

Interdepartmental fights and jostling for power, more bonuses, more money means that each division thinks that they are the most productive, most important part of the whole. They need to, otherwise somebody will be fired soon.

So if you think of a company making A CAR, the department just makes wheels would argue that without them there would be no car, not aware, or at least not fully appreciate the fact that a CAR consists more than wheels.

I say again : We are PRODUCERS by nature.

By this, I mean that there is a desire in all of us to make something. In fact, we are only satisfied if we do. I believe there is VALUE in work. We are all passed down genes from cavemen after all, and hunting is in our genes.

We are productive animals, most creatures taken to idle. Progress, cities, modernization would not happen if we were. We are our function and as human beings we have brains, we have a thumb, we stand on two feet and therefore we MAKE things. We enjoy using all our facilities, our gifts and boy, are we a gifted lot compared to a frog, for example.

I don't think anyone can argue against that.

But what happens when you throw this productive instinct into the world of work as we have it today?

Job advertisements in the papers sound so good most of the time.

"looking for creative, dynamic individuals."
"looking for robust and driven worker"
"looking for people who like a challenge to make something of themselves."

THAT'S why we all answer wanted ADS isn't it? That's me, you think - I want to produce, I want to join a GROUP that can produce something. Something GOOD.

I want to make something. That would be fabulous thing to do.

But work today is so specialized that the ADS don't tell you the truth. Instead of making cars, you are making the wheel. Or the steering.

That would still be fine, as long as you know you have contributed to the car, because a car is a complex thing. Not for one person to make.

Instead, what they don't tell you in JOB ADS is that you don't even make the wheels most of the time. You are hired to make wheels but REALLY,....

... your job is to be part of the TEAM, to please your boss (never be smarter than him) and act BUSY. Interdepartmental politics as I point out earlier breeds self-promotion.

Example: We make the best wheels and therefore, sell THE CAR. Another department will say, "ha... have you seen the steering design we came up with?"

And really, who can tell? - the ones who make wheels have no clue what is a good steering or not, right?
This is NOT a perfect example but I hope you get the idea.

And so - soon the WORKER, who answer the JOB AD hoping to find fulfilling work, finds himself now a competitor for a promotion. Only the chosen one may rise and rule in the department of making wheels.

Surely, after two years if you are not getting promoted, you are getting demoted. It's obvious.

And what the WORKER will come to realize is that it is not even about making good wheels that gets you promoted.
It is about how well the overall CAR MARKET is doing (beyond your control) and how well the other departments (doors, steering, engine, sales) are functioning.

Interdepartment bitching - heard of it?

So the ones that gets promoted are not the good producers but good employees. Here's the difference.

Good employees mean loyal, obedient, those who learn the rules, please the bosses - in other words "SAVVY" workers. They advance.

'Work smart not work hard' is the modern day mantra as if there is something wrong with working hard.

Politics and backstabbing are the grease that keeps the office wheel turning. Those that don't turn "savvy' becomes green-eyed monsters or retrenched at the next opportunity.

They are classified as "problematic" by human resource departments. Unfairly, some are called "deadwood."

All because of a 'performance review' - something invented by consultants by the way, because the organization grow so huge that the BIG boss (CEO) don't know you by name, so seems unfair for him to set your salary.

And so WORKERS have to be savvy and they have to learn the bureaucratic protocols - when to speak, when to resist, when to show off. None of which are related to good wheel-making practise by the way.

And anyway, if you really want to know about good wheel-making, the company will have a manual - passed down wisdom from past employees. STRAY at your own peril.

'When I AM Boss, I will make the right changes,' some may justify to themselves.

And those who are passed over for a promotion - take the natural option to jump ship to the competitor company.

welcome to the age of JOB HOP. - Where all jobs are equally shitty, no matter where you go.

I have been it at least 4 companies now - and its all the same, trust me. The joke is they are even cross hiring each other and its almost musical chairs funny to find that the boss you tried to get away from is now following you to your NEW company.

And that is why work for me is such an unfulfilling joke. IT is 8 hours of office politics and trying to look busy without getting backstabbed and feeling shortchanged.

You can try to do your work but it will get everybody jealous. You can try to not do your work and it will get everybody angry. You can try to please your boss, then you must get in line. New ideas are not usually welcomed. Please see the MANUAL.

So people stay later and later in the office, some surfing the net, to keep up appearances. Sometimes its real work but mostly, it is a bid to get PROMOTED, the next time the performance review comes around.

If you stay long enough, you will get promoted anyway by natural attrition.

THEREFORE....

We are unproductive at work but we won't easily admit it.

So you say you don't face office politics and YOU LOVE all your colleagues. And you do strive to make the best wheels because there is true team spirit. Most days you LOVE your work. RIGHT.

Here are the 10 other reasons why you do not do your best work in the office. I am sure you can find some more too.

1.) you have to play dress up every morning
2.) You have to COMMUTE.
3.) you have to punch the clock - means a regimented life or a lot of coffee (drugs) to compensate.
4.) You are confined to a little cubicle.
5.) Your boss likes to spy on you (it's his job.)
6.) OTher people are chatting and you can't help overhearing.
7.) There are too much gossip going on to ignore.
8.) Your job is repetitious.
9.) It's winter in the office.
10.) The equipment is just not good enough.

PICK one or more likely pick all. They describe the typical problems and office worker face but are rarely addressed.

The nature of work is to assume that HUMAN BEINGS like to be lazy and do nothing if they are not regimented and treated like slaves. Because work is hard to quantify given the degree of specialization, the company must impose rules to ensure that the TIME bought from the worker is fairly DELIVERED. Get it?

I am getting to my point: which is that we, whom I argued before as "gifted" human beings are only happy when we MAKE SOMETHING, who find value in being a producer have become anything BUT that in a corporation where we are nameless to the division next-door.

in sociology speak - "a cog in the machine,"

Still don't believe me? Hold up in your right hand with the thing you claim to MAKE for a living. Now tell me if you take it with you now, run out of the office to the nearest MARKET, can you somehow convert it into CASH?
Will anybody buy it?

In all likelihood - you are making PART of something. No need to be ashamed, its specialization. It happens. Its the marketing division that turns your work into cash. That's why they are often so arrogant and think very little of your work. It's their WORK that brings value.... ask ANY SALESMAN in a corporation. ha.

So why do we then stay on at work if we are so unhappy? And why do almost all governments have as their main goals to achieve FULL EMPLOYMENT for their people?

It is almost as if WORK for companies is such a great thing that a government that manages bend over backwards to make slaves out of all of us deserve a pat on the back.

Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew definitely thinks so. It's his proudest achievement after all for turning the city-state from third world to first world, as he says.

Reality check however tells you that most workers DON"T want to work. They rather take M.C. (medical leave). So what is this full employment myth?

So shouldn't full UNEMPLOYMENT be the government's goal instead? Wouldn't that be wonderful? If government can say tommorrow that nobody needs to work anymore.

Imagine the flood of tears of joy that will flow throughout the land.

You laugh and say it is impossible. HAHAHAHAHA. you have gone MAD, you say.

Then what are MACHINES for?

To make you work harder, not lesser?

Who's laughing now?

See. we have stopped being workers. We have stopped making things. We have been denied our natural instinct to be producers for far too long.

We don't want to work not because work is unnatural but because we seldom MAKE THINGS anymore. We work for praises, appraisals. We turn up in the office, act like workers, for a SALARY.

INstead, most of us are machine operators. We are specialist who make screws, not for the CAR but for our immediate bosses, who review our performance and set our salary.

And so still... why do we do it? Why do we enslave ourselves and what's worse - even give a portion of our salary to the GOVERNMENT so that they can 'attract' more of these foreign investors (read SLAVE owners) to come and give us jobs (read SLAVERY).

I am telling lies? What do you think the I.R. is about?

The answer they don't want you to hear?

Because we have been trained to CONSUME instead of PRODUCE.

The truth is simple. We are naturally PRODUCERS not CONSUMERS. And yet, they train us to consume.

The advertising business is a billion dollar industry. The media/entertainment industry, more billions. One tells you the world is troubled, falling apart, the other offers the solution. What a perfect pair they are. All of it to send one consistent message to your brain.

BUY. BUY. BUY.BUY. BUY. BUY. BUY. BUY. BUY.

You need the latest i-phone., You need a smaller laptop. You need a condominium. You need a club membership. You need a retirement plan. You need insurance. You need a better return on your investment. You need that holiday to Europe. You need to try Hawaiian food. You need to slim down. You need to watch this movie.
Okay, now go get a pencil. Underline this.

If we have a habit to consume, we have to work to feed that habit. Work = money to buy things.

Buying things makes us happy. Because our work is unfulfilling. Oh, we so look forward to shopping at the weekend. Five day office slave, 2 days spending spree. We hate Sunday evenings. We check our calendars, plan our two weeks a year holiday.

Now underline this:

We are producers. Making things makes us happy. Not consumption.

STUDY IT. I leave you with these two lovely thoughts:

We work hard so we can buy things we don't need to impress people we don't care about.

Use things and love people, not use people and love things.

----------------
This article inspired and borrows from

David Mamet's article - the development process or how to make nothing at all from the book "BAMBI vs GODZILLA" where he lampoons how Studios make film by "going into a room" for a meeting and hope to come up with something.
and How to be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson

Presto arriveranno nuovi filmati e nuoi spunti da discutere assieme. Intanto, lasciamo che piova, filosofeggiando in questo sabato da dimenticare (per me, non so per voi) sull'importanza, a volte (ma solo a volte) di esser passivi, di deporre le armi, di sganciarsi l'armatura di dosso (sapeste quanto è pesante la mia) e guardare il mondo che va avanti senza di voi.

“Oziare significa essere liberi, e non soltanto di scegliere fra McDonald’s e Burger King o fra Volvo e Saab. Significa essere liberi di vivere la vita che vogliamo fare, liberi da capi, salari, pendolarismo, consumo, debiti. Oziare significa divertimento, piacere e gioia. C’è una rivoluzione che sta fermentando, e la cosa grandiosa è che per prendervi parte non dovete fare assolutamente nulla.” (dall'introduzione del libro "L'ozio come stile di vita" di Tom Hodgkinson, Rizzoli)

TRE GIORNI, SONO tre giorni che vivo immerso in un’atmosfera a meta tra “Strawberry fields forever” nella versione dei Los Fabulosos Cadillacs e “Walrus”. Luce brillante su uno sfondo verde fondo di bottiglia Heineken ed intorno una lenta e continua nevicata di batuffoli bianchi in sospensione. I pioppi stanno dando seguito al loro progetto di fuga dalle piantagioni. Ed io ho un serio problema di respirazione. Forse l’effetto lisergico è dato dall’assenza di ossigeno…

SE L’UMANITA’ scomparisse in una nuvoletta dal giorno alla notte, nel giro di un paio di anni, qui ci sarebbero boschi di giovani querce… lo so perché verrebbero catalogate come “erbacce” nell’orto, “seminate” dalle cornacchie. Risultato: un’improbabile consociazione quercia-fagiolo-lattuga da taglio (non funzionerà, troppo tannino, ma mi spiace togliere un nano d’albero!).

PERCHE’ MI SONO perso l’Ipod? Non lo so, mi piaceva come titolo. Io manco l’ho mai avuto un’ Ipod, ma la sensazione che ho di tanto in tanto è un po’ quella. Io ero qua e adesso sono qua, e la cosa non mi crea nessun problema. Nel senso: non ho avuto crisi mistiche, non è stata una necessità “fisiologica”, tanto meno le mie scelte politiche si sono modificate di molto (da anarco-situazionista-urbano ad anarco-situazionista-rurale la differenza è il fango sotto le scarpe). E’ così. Come se mi fossi perso l’Ipod e con noblesse oblige avessi imparato a suonare l’ukulele. (Si, questa è una citazione da Tom Hodgkinson). Intanto un paio di volatili acquilottoformi si sono trasferiti nel pioppeto dietro casa sfrattando la ganga di cornacchie che vivevano li, il tutto si è svolto con le dinamiche tipiche degli scontri di bande nelle nottate migliori ai “Murazzi”. Adesso passano le giornate a fare apprezzamenti sconci alla gallina innescando reazioni da tamarro nei galli (il ché gli da’, comunque, una certa nobiltà d’animo)… i pulcini sono ancora tutti nella nursery, al sicuro.
Oggi niente informazioni confuse incastrate in testi deliranti, o quasi. Sono in apnea.

Outra coisa bastante interessante que ele diz, é que sentimos culpa pelo tempo extra, ou pelo tempo que deixamos de trabalhar. E o pior (algo que Tom também aponta) é o colega que faz cara feia porque você não foi trabalhar - aquele cara que cirei em outro texto, por exemplo. Ou que quer que você prove que vai tirar o dia para fazer algo importante (ódio, isso já aconteceu comigo).

Resumindo, adorei a entrevista com o cara, porque a vida nas empresas é assim mesmo. Somos obrigados a cumprir uma carga horária e, por mais que estejamos desocupados em uma fração desse período, devemos permanecer na empresa o tempo todo. Prefiria ir para casa aprender alguma coisa nova. Ou fazer um bolo.

Não quero que o trabalho seja central na minha vida. É difícil, mas é possível não dar tanta importância ao emprego. Será?

Tom mora no campo, trabalha cerca de 3h por dia e passa a mior parte do seu tempo na cozinha, lendo, tocando cavaquinho, fazendo pães ou demorando cerca de 2h para lavar a louça. E ele é enfático ao dizer que  o melhor jeito de você ser feliz e até mudar o mundo, é deixar de sentir culpa por ter preguiça. "Já existe muita gente gente fazendo coisas demais. Se você deixar de fazer tanto, já vai colaborar", sentencia. Sentiu o drama?

A entrevista começa por um erro bastante grave, principalmente no Brasil: a pressão que os jovens sentem ao prestar o Vestibular, e ter de definir, ali, todo o seu futuro profissional. Tom defende que eles deveriam parar e pensar por alguns anos, o que de certa forma faz um grande sentido. Assim, quem sabe, teríamos menos gente infeliz fazendo algo que não gosta.

Empregos de 8h?

Este é o lado negativo da preguiça. Mesmo em ambientes de trabalho mais modernos, é comum você se perceber às 14h, tendo que ficar no escritório até às 18h e sem nada pra fazer. (...) Qual é o problema de chegar uma hora atrasado no trabalho porque você está de ressaca? Sei que terei que ficar até mais tarde de qualquer forma, chegando ou não atrasado. A única coisa importante é o prazo final de entrega. Por isso é melhor trabalhar para realizar uma tarefa específica, e não pelo tempo que o funcionário passou na empresa.

Ele deixa claro que não devemos deixar de trabalhar, apenas parar de considerar o emprego um fator tão importante na vida. Diminuir suas jornadas de trabalho, aprender a relaxar, e aceitar que o trabalho não é o ponto mais importante de nossas vidas.

Ele encerra afirmando que seu próximo objetivo é gostar de lavar louça. Por que todos odiamos lavar louça? Se ligarmos o som bem alto, numa música que gostamos muito, e  passarmos a tarde interia lavando louça, pode ser muito divertido. É o caso de aproveitar o momento, e fazer o possível para se divertir com aquilo.

Então troquem seus empregos de 10h seguidas por um de 4h - 6h, esqueçam as academias de ginástica em troca de uma corrida ao ar livre e de uma boa pescaria, as aulas de yôga por uma simples meditação no parque da cidade.

Esqueça do mundo por alguns instantes. E simplesmente, não se preocupe do nada.

Quem sabe não está aí a tão procurada receita para a felicidade?

Tempo per mettere un po' di cartacce in ordine e chiarirsi un po' le idee.

RIASSUNTO DELLE PUNTATE precedenti:
il nostro eroe, dopo anni di onorato lavoro nei più disparati campi della cialtroneria urbana, si trasferisce, con la famiglia, in quella che pomposamente potrebbe essere definita "campagna", qui inizia a farsi un orto.
Essendo comunque un cialtrone e non avendo particolari predisposizioni ai lavori di fatica si lancia in un approfondito studio su "come sopravvivere cazzeggiando il più possibile" (il che, stranamente, si combina con la riduzione del suo impatto ambientale.... a questo proposito consiglio la lettura di Do Good Lives Have To Cost The Earth? con un bell'intervento del già citato Hodgkinson...) a questo contribuisce sua madre che gli passa sottobanco "la rivoluzione del filo di paglia" di Masanobu Fukuoka e "l'orto di un perdigiorno" di Pia Pera.
Del primo ricorderà solo l'incazzatura del padre dopo che gli aveva devastato un mandarineto, del secondo un'indistinta e spiacevole sensazione di Bovarismo con biglietto aereo poltrona-lato-finestrino ed il fastidio a rileggere più volte la descrizione della vanga del suo vicino.
Le letture gli si sedimentano comunque nel subconscio ed incominciano ad accompagnarlo in un percorso che, attraverso una serie di confusive derive lo accompagnano fino ad oggi.

OGGI. Piove.
L'orto del primo anno è stato smantellato (sigh!), in compenso sono riuscito ad ottenere in uso un campetto di 800 mq circa dietro casa. Qui sta prendedo forma il progetto "Adotta una Bietola", una serie di orti (realizzati secondo una progettazione in permacultura definita Gangamma mandala e seguendo le pratiche dell'agricoltura sinergica di Emilia Hazelip... bhè... più o meno. Sono comunque un'autodidatta...) da dare in "adozione" ad abitatanti urbani.
COSA SI INTENDE per "adozione"? Chi adotta l'orto lo segue con i tempi ed i modi che la propria quotidianità gli permette, io garantisco il mantenimento standard di minima. Ogni partecipante (allo stato attuale sono 3 gruppi famigliari) ha il suo bel mandala. Ovviamente chi lo adotta accetta le regole di base della Bietola: applicazione dei principi dell'agricoltura naturale, cialtroneria creativa e joie de vivre... una semplificazione del manifesto lo si trova qua.

L'ORTO E' FATTO in maniera da minimizzare la necessità di interventi pesanti, massimizzarne le funzioni microbiologice e la biodiversità. La forma demenzial-fricchettona permette la creazione di una gran quantità di microclimi in uno spazio relativamente limitato aumentando, di conseguenza le possibilità di consociazioni e potendo raccogliere spinaci, fragole, pomodori e carote senza fare kilometri e kilometri, così da poter andare velocemente a sdraiarsi all'ombra con una birra per dedicarsi all'osservazione approfondita delle nuvole.

OK, lascio perdere. non sono in grado di fare chiarezza ed ordine... torno a contemplare la pioggia nel canale sotto la finestra del soggiorno...

OGGI CI SIAMO SVEGLIATI immersi in un'atmosfera terribilmente inglese. Dopo giorni di vento e sole è calato un freddo pungente ed il cielo è "del colore di un televisore sintonizzato su un canale morto" (il neuromante - W. Gibson). L'alieno di 2 anni e 180 giorni che si ostina ad attirare la mia attenzione per ogni suo bisogno fisiologico scalpita comunque per trascinarmi fuori casa, per farlo adotta la scusa di andare a trovare la "vicina".
Il mio personale programma era: osservare pensieroso i campi dalla finestra del soggiorno.

LA NOSTRA VICINA è una vecchina di 87 anni, una di quelle vecchine che se incontrate una sera brumosa mentre tagliano l'erba con la falce, istintivamente la mano vi scivola verso il cavallo dei pantaloni. Fortunatamente abbiamo superato questo primo approcio e lei si è rivelata un buffo esserino di 87 anni per 1.55 cm che, tra le lamentazioni di rito per gli acciacchi, ogni anno allestisce uno stupendo orticello i cui frutti vengono distribuiti un po' in giro...
Arrivati da lei, la troviamo intenta ad arrampicarsi su una scaletta, un maglio degno di Thor in mano, per piantare i paletti per i pomodori più grandi che abbia mai visto. Cogliendomi impreparato, una qualche chimica celebrale mi spinge ad offrirmi volontario per piantarli, e per piantarmi al suo posto una quantità inenarrabile di schegge nelle mani (ecco perchè apprezzo l'agricoltura sinergica... niente paletti di legno conficcati per terra e nelle mani...). Il lavoro viene apprezzato, i paletti sono tutti belli dritti ed alla giusta distanza, ma, mi viene fatto notare che non sono tutti alla stessa altezza (come amo i tondini da 12" appena appena appoggiati nel terreno di Emilia Hazelip!). Mentre la salutiamo lei sta andando a prendere la scala e il segaccio per pareggiarli... in ogni caso dalla visita ci portiamo a casa le piantine di pomodoro in eccesso della signora e i complimenti dell'alieno affascinato dalle mie nuove mani da istrice.

SULLA VIA DEL RITORNO, entrato quasi nell'ottica di darmi da fare sugli orti per il progetto "adotta una bietola", incappo nel mio personale pusher di robe agricole (colui a cui mi rivolgo se ho bisogno di materiali od attrezzature a basso costo) il quale è alle prese con le pulizie di primavera del fienile. Evidentemente, non ancora sufficientemente sveglio, vengo nuovamente trascinato dalla chimica celebrale ad offrirmi volontario a dargli una mano, con somma soddisfazione dell'alieno che potrà così rimirarsi la collezione di trattori (modelli dal '46 al 1977) da vicino... dopo 3 ore di forconi, pale e rastrelli mi porto a casa l'equivalente di tre rotoballe di paglia che altrimenti sarebbe stata buttata. pacciamatura gratis per tutto il campo!

TORNIAMO A CASA che sono un cesso, ho paglia fieno e polvere di pollina (trad: merda di pollo liofilizzata) ovunque, intanto è tornata Noemi da lavoro cosa che mi libera parzialmente dagli impegni con l'alieno (per un'esemplificazione sui miei principi educativi applicati agli alieni rimando a quest'ottimo articolo di Tom Hodgkinson) e di dedicarmi alla mia personale "rivoluzione del filo di paglia".

RISULTATO FINALE: attualmente siamo i felici possessori di un fienile (roba che di rivoluzioni posso farne un centinaio), di una decina di piantine di pomodori e come se non bastasse la gallina, riconquistata una sua privacy scaricando in un'altra zona del cortile i due insidiosissimi galli, ha finalmente deciso di fare le uova. Cena anarchica a base di uova barzotte e getti di luppolo scottati (raccolti lungo il canale).

What's the point of working a 10 hour day when you waste 4 hours online 'researching' the latest news stories?

Would you prefer a 50% increase in productivity, being recognized for your success, and still having more time to share with family, friends, or even just your neglected Labrador Retriever than you currently do?

I scoured the web for some good reading about increasing what you accomplish in less time without feeling bad about spending LESS time on the job.  You can read the article here.

Enjoy!

P.S. People who are honest with themselves are in the top 10% of on the job performers.

P.S.S. Face Time at work has no real correlation to success or happiness.

Hoy quiero hablar de todo un señor: Tom Hodgkinson, fundador de la revista "The Idler" (el vago). El tipo es conocido en españa gracias a su libro "Elogio de la pereza".

Aunque el tio se ha forrado a base de soltar diatribas (ingeniosas) contra la ética del trabajo, y ha pasado a engordar la lista de intelectuales 'cool' cuyo negocio es vender la contracultura y la revolución, su lucidez es divertida y, además, en esta sociedad todo lo lucrativo está permitido.

El muy cachondo ha logrado reunir en The Idler a la flor y nata del vaguerío, desde presentadores de TV a ex situacionistas como Raoul Vaneigem o luminarias punk como Penny Rimbaud. Para colmo, la publicación es bianual (jaja, no se herniará), y en una declaración de intenciones, reza que quiere devolver la dignidad al arte de holgazanear. Por supuesto, hay enjundia tras esta propuesta escandalosa para cualquier 'working class hero' que se precie, desde los pareceres de Wilde hasta la Internacional Situacionista. En principio, algunos teóricos izquierdosos, cuando todo el rollo de la industrialización y las maquinitas y la producción en cadena, defendían que el control sobre la tecnología y el tiempo liberarían finalmente al ser humano de la esclavitud del trabajo. Pobres angelicos. La producción non stop de bienes inservibles sigue a todo trapo, si bien se necesita liberar un tiempo de 'ocio' para que toda esa salvajada de de productos inútiles puedan ser consumidos en un contexto de sobreabundancia (que no riqueza) mal distribuida y violación (por detrás y con dolor) del medio ambiente.

"Hay que aprovechar, hay que invertir el tiempo libre", oirán por ahí. No es un tirano, no es Bush, ni siquiera es el Gran Hermano. Es la tendera, el estudiante, el padre de familia, convencidos todos de que hay que seguir con esto. Yo mismo, si tuviera una varita mágica que me permitiera cambiar la manera en que funcionan las cosas, me lo pensaría mucho, por pura y retorcida maldad. ¿Merecemos algo mejor? Sé que es una pregunta reaccionaria. En otra ocasión le comentaré mejor otros grupúsculos con la intención de reconquistar el tiempo que están apareciendo en diversos países. Vagos del mundo, uníos.

Toda esta perorata viene al caso porque un buen amigo me ha comentado que quiere montar un blog sobre la perrería y que se va a titular 'vago y maleante'. Ya les pondré el link cuando esté listo. Supongo que tardará. También quiere fundar el 'Partido de la Pereza', pero conociéndolo supongo que lo dejará para más adelante.

Money makes the world go around,
the world go around, the world go around,
Money makes the world go around,
it makes the world go 'round.

This past weekend, I ran across this brief at Make Wealth History, a blog that calls for the equalization of economies worldwide — for environmental and social reasons, of course:

One way to avoid environmental catastrophe would be not to end poverty but to end wealth. It is wealth, not poverty, that makes the problems….This is why I would recommend that every family and individual try to earn and spend less money, not more. Use your imagination to to live well on less each year. This way you will consume less and so create less pressure on the world’s resources. Ending global wealth may be the only way out of our predicaments. —Tom Hodgkinson, for The Ecologist

Great point, yes. But perhaps it is not so much that people need to earn less; perhaps it is that people need to spread the wealth, as they say. Contribute funds to those whose current economic structures can't support the wages paid in other countries, for example. Certainly, all of us could try to earn less, but that wouldn't support the lifestyle we have grown to accept as normal. My two cents: It is this perception we need to change first — this conception of what we deem part and parcel of the good life.

No Impact Man, a small-livin' brother about whom I've written before, today reports on Professor Tim Jackson's 2005 paper, "Live Better by Consuming Less?," in which Jackson outlines the idea of sustainable consumption (kinda sounds like an oxymoron, right?). Jackson discusses pleonexia — roughly, greed — and its implications in our current grab-and-go, consumer-driven society. To quote, via No Impact Man:

The assumption of insatiability at the heart of economics is directly counter to certain classical conceptions of human well-being. Pleonexia, the insatiable desire for more, was regarded in Aristotle's day as a human failing, an obstacle to achieving the "good life." In the modern consumer society, it is encoded in both the ideological foundation and the institutional structure of the market economy.

In essence, Jackson asserts that our cultural conception of pleonexia — the desire for more — is completely opposite the conception held by classical philosophers. Zounds. This is getting heavy.

So, in personal terms of $ and possessions and their equation to happiness, or, the "good life": When I look back on the early years of cohabitation with the Mister, we subsisted on 1/4 of our current income. (Of course, we had a garden then, but we also owned a car. Six of one, half-dozen of the other, I should say.) Our lives were nice. We threw bon fêtes. We shopped at the farmer's market. We even spreed at Value Village monthly.

But we didn't own a house. We didn't buy major appliances. And we didn't have cats who swallow sewing needles and require invasive surgery.

So here am I, caught in contradiction. Is my current lifestyle pleonexic? Is it ethically bow-legged? How much of my income should I be passing off to a South American coffee grower or a textile collective in Thailand? But what about the immaculate penny-for-penny savings regimen I devised on Saturday? What about my IRA?

"One way to avoid environmental catastrophe would be not to end poverty but to end wealth. It is wealth, not poverty, that makes the problems... This is why I would recommend that every family and individual try to earn and spend less money, not more. Use your imagination to to live well on less each year. This way you will consume less and so create less pressure on the world's resources. Ending global wealth may be the only way out of our predicaments."

Sums up our position perfectly.

Mein Arbeitsberater fängt an, minimal Streß zu machen. Ein gutgenährter nicht unsympathischer Mensch, der eine ruhige BeamtenKugel schiebt. Von der harten Realität auf dem Arbeitsmarkt mag er etwas mitbekommen, ob er es auch versteht, das wage ich zu bezweifeln.

Ich sagte ihm jedenfalls, Chef ist für mich eher suboptimal, außer der trägt exakt meinen Namen.

Hatte er sogleich ein Formular zur Hand, Seminar für Existenzgründer. Die wesentlichen Fragen tauchten erst später auf...Braucht man unbedingt diesen Gründungszuschuß, um sich aus der Arbeitslosikgeit heraus selbstständig zu machen?

Und geht das dann nur mit business-Plan, ausgeklügelten Kalkulationen und einer professionalisierten Absegnung?

Muß die Gründungsidee neu oder besonders innovativ sein?

Gibt es schon Angebote an Unterweisungs-Services ins Blogger-Leben für Senioren?

(foto by argus Fotoarchiv/Frischmuth, © Gutrath Verlag )

Eine entscheidende, Frage: Ist ein Leben ohne Finanzamt denk- und durchführbar? Wenn ja, wie?

Ein Begriff flatterte mir neulich immer wieder durch den Kopf: non-profit!

Aber nicht aus Barmherzigkeit, sondern aus purem Geiz: dem Finanzamt und dem, was man 'Staat' nennt, gönne ich keine müde Kröte!

Außerdem geht es hier nicht ums Überleben, nicht bei uns...

Es geht, und das überall, vornehmlich um gutes und Zusammen- Leben, mit viel Hirn, Herz, möglichst große Mengen von Freude am Dasein.

Mir liegt so gar nichts an Gewinnmaximierung, Rentabilität und ähnlich hohlen Phrasen. Ich lieg lieber gern mit andern auf dem Rasen.

Ja, nennt mich ruhig faule Socke. Ich bin es, durch und durch! Ich stehe dazu. Und schwerlich auf, morgens, schon immer. Es gibt schlimmeres. Von mir nur das Beste, hier also einen excellenten Buchtip, die pure Inspiration...Die Kunst, frei zu sein - Tom Hodgkinson

Tom Hodgkinson wird mitunter als Luftikuss beschrieben, seine Ansätze scheiterten minimal an der Realität.

Die Realität aber, das ist immer, was ein jedes aus seinem Leben macht. Und sich konsequent in wu-wei zu üben, ist eben nur eine von möglichen Entscheidungen.

Neben der Gründung einer Existenz, so fällt mir just ein, erscheint mir viel dringlicher, einen Verein der Müßiggängerischen ins Leben zu rufen, 'Faule Socken e.V.', ha!

Das deutsche pendant zum Idler...

Interessenten bitte melden! Aber macht euch bloß keinen Streß... :o)

your lazybone
sigmundo

"The injection of money and capital into societies inevitably causes more problems than it solves. Which is why today's money-worshippers such as Geldof, Curtis and Bono are barking up the wrong tree when they say they want to make poverty history. It is not poverty that is the problem; peasant cultures have lower levels of stress and higher levels of freedomand fun than hard-work, rich cultures. No, wealth is is the problem and the only effective campaign would be Make Wealth History."

So there you go. We kind of knew we weren't the only ones to think of it, and that's now at least four people who got their first.

Tom Hodgkinson, by the way, though prone to slightly rose-tinted views of peasant culture, has two fine books out that are actually far more important than their 'humour section' classification might suggest - How to be Idle and How to be Free.

American readers should also note that How to be Free has just been launched in a US edition called The Freedom Manifesto.

2007年1月24日刊於《蘋果日報》

I have always found conspiracy theories distasteful. To me, they have always seemed like an attempt to evade the complexity of wide-scale issues, reducing a difficult problem such as poverty to the evil conniving of a few men ensconced in an office tower. That said, there is something remarkably troubling about Tom Hodgkinson's stunning (if slightly paranoid) piece on Facebook in the Guardian this week.

In it, Hodgkinson digs into the ideological leanings of the VC's behind Facebook's meteoric rise. Most significant among them is Peter Thiel, a prominent right-wing investor who also spearheaded the growth of PayPal. Thiel, who is unsurprisingly in favour of a small-government free market approach, has not only written a book condemning multiculturalism as something that limits personal freedom but has also characterised the next wave of capitalism as the monetizing of day-to-day activity; in much the same way PayPal creates a business out of grandmothers buying stuffed animals from each other off eBay, Thiel and Co. look to the commodification of human relationships as the next wave of capitalist growth. Social networks and media are, in this model, merely mechanisms for advertising delivery.

What we end up with is a potentially unconscious disconnect between what online services purport to do ("connect people", "bring the world together") and the ideologies that users may inadvertently support. While one can set up, for example, a pro-union or pro-minimum-wage Facebook group, the money made from the ad-supported model supports an ideology that is explicitly opposed to such ideas. The point here is that Facebook is many things at once: it is simultaneously innocuous and insidious; a potential platform for the political engagement of youth in which all activity ultimately supports one ideology and one ideology only; or a way for sequestered teens to connect while being bombarded with ads.

While this all might sound paranoid - and might very well be - it highlights the problems we will face as all online services, including music and video, increasingly move towards the ad-supported model. What are the implications of participating in Facebook if one is oppsed to Thiel et al's political viewpoint? How complicit are users in propagating the politics of the owners of services they use? What are the issues surrounding disclosure? Should we be alerted to the ideological stances of services that posit themselves as 'neutral'? Or should the onus be on users to choose services, the financing of which supports their own ideological concerns - a sort of new mode of 'voting with your dollars'?

Fundamentally, the tricky question is that of resistance. It's a tough question to ask in the tech blogosphere - as soon as you do, people will assume you are trying to suggest some kind of traditional Marxist revolution. As I have said before, criticism is unwelcome in the technology blogging community. But there are serious questions to ask - I wonder to what extent the ad-supported model isn't something akin to a sort of 'false consciousness': that we spend our time doing genuine, 'human' things - connecting with others, playing games, making dates to meet-up - and in doing so propagate a particular sort of ideology that we may be personally opposed to. I mean seriously - how many people do you know who would be comfortable with the idea of 'commodifying human relationships'? Not many I would bet. And yet, we may very well be doing exactly that.

These are not simple questions. Unfortunately, save perhaps the few gadflies like Nick Carr, no-one will ask them - the technosphere is so overwhelmingly committed to the concepts of the free market and a sort of apoliticism, no-one will even care; this will be written off as more technophobic clap-trap. For this reason, it is all the more disheartening to realise that Hodgkinson was not the one to write this piece - he descends into Keen-esque ludditism and attempts to dismiss the internet as a mere extension of other technologies rather than the radical epistemological shift it represents. When Hodgkinson responds to very idea of social networks by asking "what's wrong with the pub?", he falls into the classic mistake that online networks were meant to replace face-to-face connections. And his insistence that "Facebook actually isolates us at our workstations" sounds like the usual alarmist clap-trap that ignores the potential humanist core of a persistent network of communication.

But fortunately this does little to lessen the implications of Hodgkinson's piece. What remains to be seen is whether anyone will actually listen. Hit the comments if you have any thoughts.

[Update]: Slate has a piece up looking at how Facebook's reliance on its users is kinda' makes it like the Ikea of the intertubes.