Idle is Ideal
Benjamin Hanbury-Aggs
How sublime and pleasant it is to be idle. To be carefree and to do nothing; to merely exist in a state of utter bliss and harmony. But what exactly does it mean to be idle? Surely, I hear you say, it is unproductive, meaningless and inherently sinful to not be doing something, anything! Ah, there is much more than being idle than that, dear reader. Being idle is a way of life that has been contemplated and eulogized for centuries, by great minds such as Aristotle, Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Louis Stevenson. It is an art that takes years to perfect: to fully occupy oneself with nothingness takes a lot of ingenuity. Ultimately, to be idle, you've got to get maximum utility from doing bugger all.
Take sleeping, for example. Is there nothing more delicious than bed? Is there anybody in the world who willingly leaps to their feet and exclaims “Yippy it's 7am! I can't wait to be useful”? There is something so incredibly seductive and enticing about sleep, under those covers the whole world can disappear – it's just you, those bosom-esque pillows and that long flowing trench coat of a comforter. To be idle, one must embrace sleep as your mistress. Throw out your alarm clock (terrible transmitters of misery we voluntarily spend our hard-earned cash on that go off at the wrong time and alarm the wrong people); take as many siestas a day as you want (I find that's when you lucid dream, those wonderful semi-real escapes of bliss); and generally loaf around in the sheets and don't even think about lectures.
Whilst we're on the subject of class I'd like to discuss work. I find that when one has a massive assignment or test due, this is one of the best times to be idle. The things I do purely to avoid actually starting an essay are amazing, I mean when else would you learn to do origami or find out that actually, yes, there is royalty on US coins (Kamehameha I of Hawaii)? Also, skipping class is great fun, there's enormous satisfaction in just knowing that your fellow peers are listening to some tedious professor drone on for hours about shit nobody really cares about, whilst you're doing something much more enjoyable, namely nothing. But here's what's counter-intuitive. To be idle, you've got to be good at work when you do it. When you actually come to doing the essay or turn up to class (I wish more professors didn't take attendance) you've got to be efficient, do the bare minimum for the A.
However, there are many things an idler should be very inefficient in, mainly these are pleasurable pursuits and hobbies (not to be confused with leisure, which was an invention of the puritanical bourgeoisie, and actually comes from the Latin licere, meaning to be permitted). To be idle is to be the one's own director, to not have some 9 to 5 boss telling you that you can only have 2 weeks holiday a year. So what does an idler do for fun? The clue is he doesn't, he “does” nothing. An idler has no one hobby, but dabbles in lots of different things, although there are a few that most find agreeable. Drinking is one of them. Idle drinking is far removed from the Natty Light chug/chunder fest. It is to chill with friends, letting conversation get more and more bizarre and interesting as the night goes on, and most importantly to drink good, tasty beer and wine, something slow that lasts and will gently get you “floating” as the Chinese say.
Another idle past-time is smoking. It is one of the few times you can actually get away from it all and chill. It's also incredibly sociable and relaxing (although, admittedly there are some errr... side effects, which is why you should smoke in moderation). I personally love smoking my pipe, one can really stop and think about things and be at one with life (also smoke is a curious entity in itself).
Sex is another hobby. But what is idle sex? Well I think it is to be free, like hippies, to make free love to whomever, whenever. To be free of responsibility and duty to one partner is a fine prospect. In the words of the great Tom Hodgkinson idle sex should be “messy, drunken, bawdy, lazy. It should be wicked, wanton, and lewd, to the point where it is embarrassing to look at one another in the morning”. Most of the best sexual memories are of lazy days of teasing foreplay or ludicrously drunken make out sessions.
So I implore you, whenever you've got that little puritanical voice telling you to do something, do nothing, and embrace idleness with all its carefree pleasures.