What's so wrong with being lazy?
This class will explore idleness and its essential place in the human experience. The Italian expression dolce far niente (‘it is sweet to do nothing’) is one perspective on the joy we can find in lazy days. But what does it mean to do nothing? Is thinking “nothing”? What about taking a walk in nature? When we talk about idleness, we often mean those times when we are not being productive, and many Americans struggle with the time that isn’t considered productive. Idleness can lead to flourishing, but it can also lead us to feelings of restlessness and isolation. Many of us find idleness difficult to embrace, and we do whatever we can to avoid “empty” time. Why? What’s so wrong with being idle? Are idleness and laziness the same thing? Is idleness a privilege or a right?
The author Annie Dillard observed that “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” Should idleness be part of how we spend our days or is idleness simply a waste of time?
Together we’ll read works on idleness that will help us grapple with what idleness is, the important role it could play in our lives if we allow for it, and the ways that people have conceived of idleness across time and cultures.
Reading for this course:
In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell (long-form article/essay)
How to Be Idle: A Loafer's Manifesto by Tom Hodgkinson
An Idle Fellow by Kate Chopin
Annie Dillard, excerpts from The Writing Life (*provided to students as PDF)
Essays in Idleness: and Hojoki by Kenkô (Selected essays)
Course Dates and Times:
This is a two session course and we ask that student commit to both sessions, if possible.
Thursday September 15th & Wednesday December 7th from 6:00PM-7:30PM
Cost: $35
Learn more:
Essays in Idleness: and Hojoki by Kenkô (Selected Essays)
“These two works on life's fleeting pleasures are by Buddhist monks from medieval Japan, but each shows a different world-view. In the short memoir Hôjôki, Chômei recounts his decision to withdraw from worldly affairs and live as a hermit in a tiny hut in the mountains, contemplating the impermanence of human existence. Kenko, however, displays a fascination with more earthy matters in his collection of anecdotes, advice and observations. From ribald stories of drunken monks to aching nostalgia for the fading traditions of the Japanese court, Essays in Idleness is a constantly surprising work that ranges across the spectrum of human experience.”
In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell (long-form article)
“Bertrand Russell addresses the looming cult of workaholism in this prescient 1932 essay.
An Idle Fellow short story by Kate Chopin
The narrator is tired after years of studying. She sits on a doorstep with her friend Paul. He’s an idle man who likes to observe nature and people
How to Be Idle: A Loafer's Manifesto by Tom Hodgkinson
“In How to Be Idle, Hodgkinson presents his learned yet a whimsical argument for a new, universal standard of living: being happy doing nothing. He covers a whole spectrum of issues affecting the modern idler—sleep, work, pleasure, relationships—bemoaning the cultural skepticism of idleness while reflecting on the writing of such famous apologists for it as Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Johnson, and Nietzsche—all of whom have admitted to doing their very best work in bed.”