After publishing an essay on making money and the willpower necessary to accomplish it, it’s time to introduce the other extreme: idleness.
I was made aware of the publication The Idler. The latest issue is called ‘Smash the system’. Great magazine founded by Tom Hodgekinson focused on being idle. Many ideas were recognizable and the essays are a great fun to read.
For me the perfect approach to life is living the extremes: being totally idle and totally ambitious. This is not well accepted by co-workers who find themselves in the grey field of mediocrity. My boss literally said, ‘you want to succeed so much more than the organisation does, you’d better sit back and relax.’ To me, true relaxation is only reserved for those who know how to relax in its purest sense. And with that I don’t mean watching TV or going on a holiday. That is just an escape.
After a period of being idle, great thoughts come to mind. Life will be lived more intensively.
Current work, in my case, cuts off creativity. I’m not complaining, just having a hard time in which people explain me about the system and how I should navigate in it or go with it, just doing what is expected and put the money I earn in things I like, like making dresses and horse riding. I could do that, but I can’t! Selling your soul becomes increasingly touchable. Therefore I choose to be idle again. ‘Smash the system’. Just watch this video of Tom Hodgekinson on being idle and find out yourself.
Living her dreams and inhabited the characteristics of her favourite animal, the butterfly, Maureen contributes to the world by creating, connecting and expressing good nature. She graduated in Communication Studies from the University of Amsterdam and perceives herself as the eternal student. Finding her peace in listening to birds and philosophizing with friends. She is co-founder of Artistieke krachten and Rightside and founder of Fiero Creations. She works on projects in which people are to use her knowledge. Maureen travels to SFO and BCN, listens to Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and Jenna Attison, wears Kookai and Anti-flirt, eats salads and Asian cuisine, reads Aristotle and Vanity Fair, rides horse and bicycle and refuses to be subject of destructive emotions.