Pushkin

I get to interview a lot of great people for this podcast.

But one of the guests I was most excited to talk to was a rather modest and self-effacing British writer named Tom Hodgkinson.

What was Tom famous for? Well, he's made a name for himself by trying not to do well much of anything.

I think I was born fairly idle. I always had a strong will towards idling.

I'm a huge fan of Tom's books on being idle. They're clever and funny.

But I came to Tom's work because idling, this philosophy that we should devote time to not being productive,

is something I find super hard to do.

When I sat down with Tom for an episode called For Whom The Alarm Clock Tolls,

I was struck by the fact that his fear of overwork informs the entire way he sees the world.

Take Tom's view on the novelist George Orwell.

Many of us think of Orwell for his warnings about political repression.

But Tom focuses on a different tyranny.

In Animal Farm, we had the example of the horse boxer who, when faced with a problem, says work harder, work harder,

until he works himself into an early grade, he's taken off to the glue factory.

Now that to me is a warning.

Since talking to Tom last season, I've thought more and more about the importance of idling.

When life gets stressful, my temptation is always to be like boxer and just do more.

I mean, these days everyone talks about being fully committed or redoubling your efforts or giving 110%.

It can feel like heresy to say, you know what, I might be happier doing a bit less.

But as I was gathering ideas for this series on the ancients,

I realized that Tom's plea for more idling fits well with the teachings of an important ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu.

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