How to be idle
How To Be Idle Tom Hodgkinson We buy alarm clocks voluntarily. For all modern society’s promises of leisure, liberty and doing what you want, most of us are still slaves to a schedule we did not choose. Andrew Townsend, argued that to use mere force of law to impress the new work ethic on the workers ‘gives too much trouble, requires too much violence and makes too much noise’. Better and easier, he maintained, to keep them hungry. ‘Hunger, on the contrary, is not only a pressure which is peaceful, silent and incessant, but as it is the most natural motive for work and industry, it also provokes the most peaceful efforts.’ Institutions fear idle populations because an Idler is a thinker and thinkers are not a welcome addition to most social situations. ‘Convalescing’ is a word one doesn't hear much these days. It’s as if we have banished the notion that time is a healer, and replaced it with a battery of procedures and products designed to skip convalesce...