The below essay briefly mentions the essay, but is mostly about what I think about idling. Most of the time when I write something that's meant to be read, I write from the point of view of a persona that don't expresses exactly what I believe in. Even though it may sound very much like me, there are some things that I will write that doesn't express my sincere feelings, so that I can write things for dramatic or comic effect. I used to hate it when people assume that somethings I write on meekfreak reflects my sincere state of mind, because the works are obviously fiction. But i've come to terms with it now. It's okay if people want to attribute that. It's up to them to do whatever they want.
Even the Oct 06's jobless persona expresses things that are not really me. 'cos the essays were written to be read. The persona may be very close to heart, but it's really not what I'm thinking exactly. The Oct 06 essay's "jobless persona" will continually both marvel and kaopei about being jobless - in alternating essays. It's to show the dilemma, really, and to demonstrate the contradiction more coherently. But when I'm really writing about jobless being nice, I'm already thinking about how being jobless sucks, but the persona haven't thought about how being jobless sucks so to continue ranting about the persona's topic of the day. Oh well, this is getting boliao to explain.
Anyway, I think that being jobless is really nice and not nice. It's got 2 sides. It's not easy for everyone to be jobless. To be on extended leave is one thing. To be jobless by choice is another thing. There's tremendous pressure. E.g being jobless, one must be very resilient to many people accusing him of "wasting his life". I think the essay below explains it quite well. If you're thinking of taking a break from work, you should read the below before you act recklessly. It's not as easy as you think it's going to be.
This year, 28 October is a Tuesday.
28 October, 2006 (Saturday):
Lin Yutang and the Cult of Idleness
Reading what I wrote yesterday, I am laden with a sentiment of irony for I am jobless. Maybe it was because I wrote it on a Friday night and what I felt last night closely resembles what I feel every Friday night after work. I wrote with so much advocacy, and puzzling conviction.
Coincidentally, I was packing my room today and I came across a copy of an essay by Garrison Keillor, “In Praise of Laziness” that was published in Time magazine from issue of September 10, 2001. (I purposefully list the date of the issue, to show you that I really did find a copy of this essay, and lead you to believe that I am really packing my room.) In this essay, Keillor talks about not working, and praises not working. He was on a five week vacation.
This essay is particularly important to me, because Keillor taught me one thing with this essay, that is, “Happiness is in the details.”
An indolent man awakes in the morning and thinks, “Wow. A shower with shampoo with aloe in it. The orange juice not made from concentrate. Seven-grain toast with butter. Jamaican coffee. One Across: A waiteress (slang),” and he gets all giddy and happy.The idea of happiness being in the details influenced me a lot ever since I read this article. The above passage changed my life forever. It was like I opened a door to a new world of happiness. It is true, the happiness is there, you should try to find it if you haven’t already. I thought this was such an important message that I tried to tell as many people as I could so that they can open the door to this happiness too. In fact, I made photocopies of this essay for my friends to read it, and it was a photocopy of this essay that I found.
Reading this essay again, however, I certainly have mixed feelings about it.
Keillor spoke about this doing nothing after a five week vacation, and he professed himself to be an authority on the subject of indolence. I have been jobless for about seven weeks now, and taking away the time I have spent applying or looking for a job, I must have at least five weeks and one day of doing nothing, therefore, must assume higher authority in talking about doing nothing. If you are not persuaded by what I said about money yesterday, and rightly so, because I’m jobless, then at least give me a chance on the topic of idleness.
I profess myself to be a tormented member of the cult of idleness. I believe in the true value of not working and leisure time, and how leisure gives rise to many good and beautiful things of human beings or being itself. Sitting around, not doing anything related to your real occupation, doing things you simply to enjoy, dancing around, taking photos, eating chocolate, etc. I am tormented by my guilt and as a human, I too want to belong and relate with the larger part of rest of the world, who are seemingly jobful.
This entire essay, that I am writing or that I am writing on, is an example of how idlers always have to account or substantiate for why we are not doing anything. It is as if people need to convince others that doing nothing feels good, and people should go for something that makes us feel good. Try it, you’ll feel good too! This obviously points to that there is no convenient tolerance for idleness that we can take for granted. It is like by default, idling is wrong.
The conscience of my beliefs is stolen, and with it, my heart. Finding a good job with high prospects and therefore high acceptance by my jobful peers, will take away my dreams of a good life, and so, I am tormented.
If Bertrand Russell’s opinion that people should work for around four hours of work each, then maybe the world will be a nicer and better place, was taken more seriously, then life should be easier for me. But perhaps Russell was painting a blue print for a utopia and the only way for me to retain my beliefs is to be disgruntled, and do it despite of myself and then everyone else.
Then there is Lin Yutang and how he managed to hide in his philosophies on the importance of living in midst of everything that happened around him. I am especially taken to Lin Yutang, because he is Chinese, and so am I. He advocates the ancient poetic Chinese idling and we share a pride that we, Chinese, thought of it first. Reading him makes me feel that all the Taoists and the ancient poets will be supportive of the wisdom in my decisions. That makes me feel less afraid, but lonelier because I’m wearing jeans and watching tv everyday receiving and sending sms on my mobile phone and not wearing layers of chiffon, going to a waterfall to drink a merry wine, enjoy the company of the moon and tying some messages on a homing pigeons’ leg.
It dawns upon me how wrong it is for me to be persuaded by them blindly and how great they think it is to do nothing. This is because all of them are already great achievers in their field. Keillor, Russell, and Lin Yutang who advocated, in one way or another, idling, were good entertainers or writers and therefore, rich enough to idle. If I had the opportunity to achieve so much, it is okay to not feel anymore tenacity and feel as ‘above it all’ as them about achieving and working. I, on the other hand, am jobless and not already famous. Even Tom Hodgkinson published a few books on idling already.
True, I am not starving or down to my last dollar, but I am not secured either.
Therefore I must insist that I understand at least one thing better than them, and that is the torment of the idling spirit. I already understand the important of idling and loafing, and how meaningful it can be, but songs like the importance of being idle by Oasis and most of the literature makes doing nothing sound too easy. This is quite bad impression management, if you think about it. We should tell the world that it's hard work and hope that they will give us a break.
It is not easy to idle anymore and idling is definitely not the easy alternative to working. To me, it might be the more meaningful alternative to working, but I have a real choice to exercise here. The pressure, the responsibility, the dream of idling, the headaches, the lack of money, the parents, and everything that matters torment my idling spirit. Give me a break, doing nothing is not inherently bad, like doing something. Inaction is the lack of action, and action is the lack of inaction.
I think I am truly struggling with myself, and caught in between the choices that I feel for but dare not exercise. The underachiever, who can achieve more, struggles to underachieve.
I am, at this moment, bitterly jealous and horribly unsatisfied by myself.
No comments:
Post a Comment