Idleness


“Who does nothing, makes no mistakes; and who makes no mistakes, never makes any progress.”
Paul Winkler

In the second century BCE, the Chinese philosopher Han Fei, wrote that those who talk about agriculture are many, but those who hold the plough are few. In a letter to his son, Lord Chesterfield (British statesman) said that idleness is only the refuge of weak minds. If idleness predominates your life, then surely it cannot be healthy, but we should never overlook the fact that idleness may play a contributing role sometimes. Virginia Woolf said that submerged truths sometimes comes to the top in moments of idleness, and even though Lord Chesterfield warned us against letting the golden hours slip by, we should keep in mind that some of them are golden only because we let them slip.

Why then is does idleness tend to have a bad reputation? What does the term ‘idle’ even mean? If I am idle, I am considered lazy. If I am being idle, it usually means I am doing nothing, or I am bored. If something is idle, it is not significant nor worth of any importance. Even if we are being ‘idle’, our brain is still stimulated; it switches to some kind of resting state, and it is usually in this state that it is at its most creative. Enjoy this precious time of being idle because there will be many times when you cannot be idle. Let us, therefore, labour with zeal but also heed the words of W. H. Davies: “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?

The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty,
for want of fighting was grown rusty,
and eat into itself, for lack
of somebody to hew and hack.
Samuel Butler







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