Nothing doing

There is a long and noble history of books about doing nothing. In the 5th century bc the sage Lao Tzu argued that the wise man should refrain from action, and Christ’s Sermon on the Mount also told us not to bother ourselves overmuch: ‘Consider the lilies of the field, they toil not.’

For Christ, idling was a spiritual and political position: he taught us to live in the moment and reject riches and status as a source of enlightenment or happiness. Now the self-help industry has taken idling and converted it into, paradoxically, a tool for productivity, i.e. getting ahead and making money, which is not what Christ had in mind.

The first in this trio of new studies of idling is published by Ted, purveyors of positive thinking for go-getters, and in the tradition of that series of online lectures, takes a few platitudes and spins them into an ‘inspirational’ guide for corporate ladder-climbers. When I read the word ‘inspirational’, I always wonder what exactly those inspired are being inspired to do. Is it to work harder for their boss?

In Praise of Wasting Time cites Mahler, Jung and Einstein as great achievers who used the power of idleness to work harder and achieve more. The author, a novelist, goes on to repeat a few familiar observations about today’s teenagers being hyperconnected and always on social media and so on. Downtime, by contrast, would lead to creative insights and give us a rest.

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Ameer Kotecha

Lindt has cheapened itself

Lightman correctly identifies the Puritans as the progenitors of today’s anti-idling ethic. And, predictably, he recommends mindfulness as a solution. Compulsory mindfulness in schools is an idea that he moots. It seems that mindfulness is proposed as the answer to pretty much every social problem these days. I note that a new mindfulness app called Calm has just been valued at $250 million by Silicon Valley investors keen to make a fortune by selling Buddhism to the very people they stressed out with their anxiety-inducing technology.