Modelling Idleness

Commonplace Newsletter #91

A friend of mine starts his day by looking out of the window. And not a furtive glance, mind, a quick centring peek before going about the busywork of the day- I mean he makes himself a coffee, gets himself situated and looks out of the window for a good forty-five minutes or so- the length of time that we ‘normal’ people would spend watching an episode of a Netflix series before bedtime. It seems a waste doesn’t it, like this time should be spent doing something productive, something that moves the needle. But the more I think about it the more I find this deliberate daily act of stillness to be both genuinely inspirational and genuinely subversive. It’s something that I am actively cultivating and as time goes on, I hope to likewise be a model of such enlightened indolence. To go about making that happen I should lay out some ideas of both how I can go about becoming one of these rare beacons of leisure and why I should do so.

Photo by Angelina Kichukova on Unsplash

So, there are two strands that I want to bring together in today’s discussion; one, the idea that we are all models of behaviour whether we like it or not and two, an explicit discussion on the vital necessity of idleness in this current world of ours. This theme of idleness, of being still and contemplative and enjoying everyday pleasures in a world that is geared around hurry and noise and being orientated towards a hypothetical better tomorrow runs through all of my essays like letters through a stick of Brighton rock¹. From Christmas markets to the contemplative person on the street bench to the old men on the bowling green and the nature of daily commuting, we have touched on this topic time and again. But perhaps it is time to be a little more explicit with it, a little more direct.

I am a big fan of the storytelling principle that you should let the audience do a little bit of the work themselves, that you should give them the opportunity to add two and two together². There’s a satisfaction in this, a sense of an earned resolution and an earned understanding. But sometimes with essays like this it pays to go somewhat the other way and leave the reader in no doubt as to what you think about a given topic. So let’s lay the cards on the table.

I don’t intend to write a manifesto (a manifesto being a wish-fulfilment fantasy of how a writer would gatekeep their sphere had they any real power or fame to leverage and wield), and I shy from generic advice-giving but the importance of appreciating what I call idleness is something that needs to be addressed.

See, idleness is the means by which one is able to contemplate life and the world around them and it is only through this that one can arrive at self-knowledge and self-understanding. And in turn it is only through these things that you can make good decisions (in other words, decisions that are good for you and your particular circumstances and temperament). When you are harried and flustered it is easy to be bamboozled and misdirected. When you are lost the first and most prudent thing you have to do is to stop and consult your map, your map in this instance being your conscience, instincts and previous experience. This all seems obvious but much of life seems to conspire against this act, perhaps because there is so much money being made and so many jobs being created out of the stressful momentum of having everyone running around lost and out of touch with their own true needs and desires. Here, idleness is not to be confused with laziness. Laziness is a passive state whereas idleness is a deliberate action. Or rather a deliberate non-action.

Which brings me to the point of modelling idleness. See, we all have desires or the need to desire but these desires are generated by the other, by some sort of model or influence. Mostly, we want what other people want because other people want it³. The idea that our desires are entirely self-generated through some sort of internal system is what the late French philosopher Rene Girard called The Romantic Lie. The idea that our desires are wholly internally created and innate is “a set of lies agreed upon” to borrow Napoleon Bonaparte’s famous definition of what history is. But one just has to see two children fight over a toy when surrounded by other, just as viable toys to disabuse themselves of the notion that desires are entirely self-generated.

So this is where models and being a model comes in to play. I have said before that Andy Warhol was very close to the truth but slightly off with his famous 15 minutes of fame remark. With the internet and social media, it turns out that not (only) has everyone become famous for fifteen minutes but that we are now all famous to fifteen people. Whether we explicitly aim to be so-called influencers or not, if we post anything online we have- at least in theory- an audience who can hold us up as models of desire. And if there is one thing I have learnt from my time writing online it is that there are many more lurkers than there are people who actively go to the effort to leave comments and press the various like and upvote buttons. In short if you say something, it is being heard by someone and if you model a certain way of being it is being noticed and perhaps emulated by some (maybe younger) person who looks up to you.

There is a moral responsibility to all of this and one that I believe that many either shirk, fail to acknowledge, or simply exploit for there own gain. What are you sending out as a message when you flaunt material things above all else, or become servile to sponsors and bigger fish in the relentless pursuit of yet further fame and attention? What message does it send when you don’t admit to fault or don’t stand by the courage of your convictions or act in a way that is congruent with what you hold to be your principles?

Now at this point this could devolve into another tepid think piece on the ‘culture wars’ and ‘cancel culture’ and all the rest of it. But I won’t bore you with my ‘takes’ on that labyrinthine mess. There are myriad better voices tackling this if that’s your thing.

But my point is that people notice what you do. People pay attention more than you think. And so I have noticed that alongside stories of increased levels of burnout, stress, debt, mental health crises and so forth there are very few models online for idleness, for being content with aspects of an unshowy ordinary life and for enjoying repose and contemplation without either using it as a means of showing off or showcasing some sort of personal brand. There are few models for simply looking out of the window every single day. Not as a means of gaining enlightenment or improving various smartwatch monitored health metrics but simply as a thing to do for its own sake.

It is extremely difficult to model doing things for their own sake rather than doing them as a means to some specific stated end goal. But that doesn’t mean that the attempt is not worthwhile. And in some small way I hope that this piece and all of the others I have written in this vein can be seen as my honest attempt at doing so.

Because if you can’t- in however humble a guise- then what is the point of having and cultivating an audience at all?

Warhol never dealt with this question. But we can.

Until next time,

Live well

Tom.

1.  Rock- for my international readers- is a boiled sugar stick shaped confectionary that you buy at the seaside. It has letters- usually the name of the fading seaside town that you bought it from running throughout its length. I refer to it as Brighton rock as opposed to Blackpool rock or Llandudno rock as I am alluding to a quote from Graham Greene’s novel Brighton Rock, specifically this quote from the character Ida "It's like those sticks of rock: bite it all the way down, you'll still read Brighton."

2. This idea entered the collective story writing wisdom via writer/director Billy Wilder who himself got it from the director, producer and writer Ernst Lubitsch.

 “Let the audience add up two plus two and they'll love you forever.”

3. What I am talking about here is a very basic and rudimentary approximation of the late French thinker Rene Girard. If you want to dive deeper into Girard, I highly recommend the work of Luke Burgis, specifically his excellent book on the topic called Wanting, which to my mind is essential reading for absolutely everyone.