I Guess I'm a Heretic Then
My friend Dan and I discuss the nature of idleness every once in a while, weighing in on how, as we get caught up in excessive busy work, our lives lose dimensions. I think it began with one of reading a review of "How to be Idle" on "The Guardian," when I said something to the effect of, "This mirrors my philosophy very closely." Dan recently sent me another article on idleness. In it, Mark Slouka, discusses that those who profess enjoyment in idleness blaspheme before the Church of Work. I'll gladly count myself as one of those. He also points out that work is important, but I'll let you read the article. I don't have a problem with work; I do have a problem with work when it tries to take over the entirity of life. Living in Japan is a stark example of what happens when business and busy-ness rules. It occurs with children as well as adults. Kids go to school from 8am to 10pm in some instances, though 8pm to 9pm is more realistic. What are they doing? Being kept busy...so they don't have time to make trouble or think.
I wish I had the mental fortitude to continue this post, but, I was up all night last night and the night previous (something about grad school--which I will admit, is work I like. But, then again, I view it as that "end in itself" crap), and it is approaching 4:30pm here. I was actually asleep but the repair guy stopped by to listen to our washing machine. He told me it wasn't going to be easy to fix and then left. Okay, I really need to sleep. I do have one more thing I want to point out: The Tactical Ice Cream Unit!! Oh, and a cool LaTeX program for putting smooth equations into your Keynote slideshows or Pages documents: LaTeXiT.
posted by 景都 @ 3:22 午後
3 comments
3 Comments:
I agree with what you said; I like being really idle sometimes too. I left New York City partly because I just couldn't take the rat-race there anymore.
I've got this little book on "how to meditate" (I think it's terrible that people [like me] sometimes need books on how to do this). Inside there's a picture of a meditating man who supposedly spends most of his day meditating; I'd like to be that person someday. Don't think I could spend all day meditating, but a few hours a day would be nice. Unfortunately, I've found that even meditating is work--and IMO it ain't easy work!
I've often wondered about something: are there any rural areas in Japan where life's a bit slower? When you talk about the busy-ness, do you mean the most densely populated, more urban parts of Japan?
We spent three years living in a mostly rurual community here. It was certainly less hectic, but that's not to say it didn't exist, especially within the South American minority communities. We lived in an apartment complex we called the "Gaijin" ghetto, It was us, from the United States, and everyone else was from either Peru or Brazil. They worked in the factories from 6 in the morning. I'm not sure when they got back. We met and talked with them at the Brazilliarin, a very cool bar/resturant for the Brazillian community, or maybe at our Japanese lessons, but only if they could make it. Often times they had to work those days, given only one day off. So, it really depends on where you are in Japan, what kind of busy-ness you have. In the semi-rurual areas, it's factory work. In more urban areas, it's office work.
Thanks for explaining--I'd never heard about South American minority communities in Japan.
So many people seem to lead such hard fast lives, in large part because of overpopulation (IMO), but also because of the specific way modern life's been set up in many places. I did that fast-life stuff as a New Yorker, but I can no longer live that way; doing so pretty much ruined my health.
Now I've been spending years trying to simplify my life, which hasn't been an easy thing to do because that's basically going against "the system," which to me is often unfair, overcomplicated and inefficient by design (i.e., I usually prefer doing stuff by hand, but hand-tools/hand-appliances not only tend to be scarcer, they also tend to be more expensive). I'm continually battling this overcomplication. That people often have to work at simplifying life seems quite ridiculous to me. Complexity seems to be the default kind of life today. Shouldn't the opposite be the case more often? Shouldn't living a simpler life be the easier natural choice and living a complex life be the harder unnatural choice? I guess modern life often isn't very logical....
Japan is one of the countries I've always wanted to see. For some reason I had thought life might be simpler there, but maybe I've been thinking of a Japan from years ago, a Japan that may no longer exist, or maybe a Japan that never existed. Maybe I've been too naive and ignorant. Eh, I still think this disappearance-of-simplicity thing seems to have happened worldwide. Maybe I was born in the wrong time!
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