Sunday, January 25, 2015

Let's chat about laziness

(I haven't done any writing work in two weeks.  The mood here is equal parts lethargy, lack of will, ennui and the fact that it gets dark at 4:39 in what used to be the afternoon.  Today I see that a blog visitor has unearthed this post on laziness and it fits my mood so here it is again.)



I don’t think you’re lazy.  You get up you get dressed you go somewhere you do things.  You make your smoothie and drink it.
No, I’m lazy.  Once in a while I'll do some fake hard work to avoid real work.

Do you know what lazy means?  It is a disinclination to activity or exertion despite having the ability to do so.
That’s exactly it. I'm disinclined to do anything.  I sit around.  No daily plan.  No delaying instant pleasure in order to get greater pleasure. 

What’s wrong with instant pleasure?
Doesn’t last long.

What about greater pleasure?
I don’t know.  Never achieved it. 

Maybe it doesn’t last long either. Name a person who you think isn’t lazy.
That’s easy.  Joyce Carol Oates.  She has written over 40 novels and almost that many plays, short stories, nonfiction. She writes so much people make jokes about it. I once saw a picture of her at a party and her slip was showing an inch below her skirt. She works so hard, she doesn’t even know her slip is showing.  If I worked that hard, I’d go out in my pajamas that’s how little I would care about anything else.

Maybe you’re not lazy.  Maybe you are gestating, as in incubating ideas that you will use later.  Or maybe life, as in LIFE, is so hard you are rightfully stepping aside for a day.
No, I’ve been lazy all my life. I'm lazy about the things that really matter. 

If you were not lazy what would you be doing?
I’d be working much harder and getting things done. I'd be focused. I would kill for more self-discipline.

Do you know what 'not being lazy' feels like?
Yes.  I get lost in the task - I could be dead that's how immersed I am in the work.  In fact, that's what I think dead feels like.

I believe we use the word lazy because we don’t know what to call the trait we are really exhibiting.  We don’t know to say: I work hard at physical tasks because I don’t know how to access the task I should be doing. Is there any prompt that makes you work hard?
Yes.  If I get good news I become hyper and ideas pour out of me.  My head explodes. 

Why do you think that is?
I think good news jerks us around, jiggles some part of our brain and makes it want to do things.

So the answer to laziness is to get good news every day.
No. The answer is to learn to jiggle our own brain and make it act as if it heard good news.

Is there anyone you know who has enough self-discipline?
Yes.  I know one a person who is all self-discipline.  Everything he does is deliberate and would be hard for most of us.  He never takes the easy road.  If he did that experiment where you delay eating the cookie in order to get two cookies, he wouldn’t eat the cookie.  He wouldn’t even eat the reward cookies.  He’s all discipline.

Is that person happy?
No.   That person is not happy.

So hard work doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness?
I guess not although I don't believe in that amorphous, ill-defined state known as happiness.

What have we learned here?
I don’t know. Nothing.