AN ODE TO IDLENESS BY MARESCOTTI RUSPOLI

Think about this. A chap nobody’s seen or heard of one day wakes up from what was likely to have been a very long sleep and decides to create the World.

He doesn’t even make the effort to get out of bed. Lying down, he gets on with it! Was he wearing pyjamas? I don’t know. Did he have breakfast before getting to work? I don’t know. Did he brush his teeth? I hope so. Did he go for a morning jog? I doubt it.

What I do know is that by the seventh day he was either really satisfied or really bored with all his errands, because he has neither worked or been seen since.

So why wouldn’t we praise idleness when the very person who created us chose a bed over a desk? I have definitely followed his example. This very sentence you’re reading was dropped halfway through deciding to make myself a cup of tea and get straight back to work, that was yesterday.

Seriously speaking though, we’re all about speed these days: if you don’t have a fast scrolling thumb you’re considered an outcast. If your wi-fi connection is slow you might as well stop taking orders, fire the chef and sell your restaurant. If you’re not getting your coffee to go people think you’re unemployed.

The idler is the only specimen that has the privilege of observation: because he’s too lazy to charge his phone, too hungry to wait for the wi-fi password and too tired to drink his coffee while he walks so, he stops.

That’s his advantage: today only the idler, if he’s smart enough, has the chance to “waste” his time. Whilst everyone else is running for the tube he can choose between a Russian novel from the 1800s or a 1960’s French film, he can paint or learn how to paint, he can clip his nails or decide whether he should cut his hair or just trim his beard, or he can do absolutely nothing, stare at the wall and think about how awfully debatable the concept of evolution is.

Behind every great idea is a tireless idler, no doubt about it. If my story about the chap and his seven days of work doesn’t convince you then think about that guy who invented the wheel: wasn’t he just someone who couldn’t be bothered to walk and push at the same time?