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To-day we rather intended to write an essay on Laziness, but were too
indolent to do so.
The sort of thing we had in mind to write would have been exceedingly
persuasive. We intended to discourse a little in favour of a greater
appreciation of Indolence as a benign factor in human affairs.
It is our observation that every time we get into trouble it is due to
not having been lazy enough. Unhappily, we were born with a certain fund
of energy. We have been hustling about for a number of years now, and
it doesn't seem to get us anything but tribulation. Henceforward we are
going to make a determined effort to be more languid and demure. It is
the bustling man who always gets put on committees, who is asked to
solve the problems of other people and neglect his own.
The man who is really, thoroughly, and philosophically slothful is the
only thoroughly happy man. It is the happy man who benefits the world.
The conclusion is inescapable.
We remember a saying about the meek inheriting the earth. The truly meek
man is the lazy man. He is too modest to believe that any ferment and
hubbub of his can ameliorate the earth or assuage the perplexities of
humanity.
O. Henry said once that one should be careful to distinguish laziness
from dignified repose. Alas, that was a mere quibble. Laziness is always
dignified, it is always reposeful. Philosophical laziness, we mean. The
kind of laziness that is based upon a carefully reasoned analysis of
experience. Acquired laziness. We have no respect for those who were
born lazy; it is like being born a millionaire: they cannot appreciate
their bliss. It is the man who has hammered his laziness out of the
stubborn material of life for whom we chant praise and allelulia.
The laziest man we know--we do not like to mention his name, as the
brutal world does not yet recognize sloth at its community value--is
one of the greatest poets in this country; one of the keenest satirists;
one of the most rectilinear thinkers. He began life in the customary
hustling way. He was always too busy to enjoy himself. He became
surrounded by eager people who came to him to solve their problems.
"It's a queer thing," he said sadly; "no one ever comes to me asking for
help in solving _my_ problems." Finally the light broke upon him. He
stopped answering letters, buying lunches for casual friends and
visitors from out of town, he stopped lending money to old college pals
and frittering his time away on all the useless minor matters that
pester the good-natured. He sat down in a secluded cafe with his cheek
against a seidel of dark beer and began to caress the universe with his
intellect.
The most damning argument against the Germans is that they were not lazy
enough. In the middle of Europe, a thoroughly disillusioned, indolent
and delightful old continent, the Germans were a dangerous mass of
energy and bumptious push. If the Germans had been as lazy, as
indifferent, and as righteously laissez-fairish as their neighbours, the
world would have been spared a great deal.
People respect laziness. If you once get a reputation for complete,
immovable, and reckless indolence the world will leave you to your own
thoughts, which are generally rather interesting.
Doctor Johnson, who was one of the world's great philosophers, was lazy.
Only yesterday our friend the Caliph showed us an extraordinarily
interesting thing. It was a little leather-bound notebook in which
Boswell jotted down memoranda of his talks with the old doctor. These
notes he afterward worked up into the immortal Biography. And lo and
behold, what was the very first entry in this treasured little relic?
Doctor Johnson told me in going to Ilam from Ashbourne, 22
September, 1777, that the way the plan of his Dictionary came to
be addressed to Lord Chesterfield was this: He had neglected to
write it by the time appointed. Dodsley suggested a desire to
have it addressed to Lord C. Mr. J. laid hold of this as an
excuse for delay, that it might be better done perhaps, and let
Dodsley have his desire. Mr. Johnson said to his friend, Doctor
Bathurst: "Now if any good comes of my addressing to Lord
Chesterfield it will be ascribed to deep policy and address,
when, in fact, it was only a casual excuse for laziness."
Thus we see that it was sheer laziness that led to the greatest triumph
of Doctor Johnson's life, the noble and memorable letter to Chesterfield
in 1775.
Mind your business is a good counsel; but mind your idleness also. It's
a tragic thing to make a business of your mind. Save your mind to amuse
yourself with.
The lazy man does not stand in the way of progress. When he sees
progress roaring down upon him he steps nimbly out of the way. The lazy
man doesn't (in the vulgar phrase) pass the buck. He lets the buck pass
him. We have always secretly envied our lazy friends. Now we are going
to join them. We have burned our boats or our bridges or whatever it is
that one burns on the eve of a momentous decision.
Writing on this congenial topic has roused us up to quite a pitch of
enthusiasm and energy.