Slow down now blog

Now slow is not lazy but this book is worthwhile.

Gini, Al. The Importance of Being Lazy: In praise of play, leisure and vacations., Routledge, 2003, New York

This well-researched book is a great place to start to learn about the slow lifestyle. Al Gini is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Chicago. He’s also a business consultant. He previously explored a mixture of business, work, and philosophy, in his book My Job, My Self. Be warned, he describes himself as addicted to work.

The Importance of Being Lazy is about personal identity in culture. Our most frequent response to the question, “who am I”, is to say what we do for a living. The book is about who we are and what we do when not at work. Professor Gini’s own university has only a few books on leisure but thousands on work, jobs, and careers. We value work, we don’t value leisure.

If vacations are a project of self-definition, then what does it mean to not even take vacations? Vacation starvation becomes a malady. The consequences, as Josef Pieper pointed out, is the destruction of culture. The idea of leisure time was to refresh and renew to have a life outside of work. But market forces have largely been against this.

Adam Smith said, “Consumption is the sole purpose of all production.” Al Gini says, “To Shop is to be. “ Our culture has degenerated from a society based around people to those around things.”

There are five problem areas:
1.Lack of Self Development. Without adequate time and energy we become passive consumers of entertainment. This makes us dull.
2. Lack of Autonomy. Time away from constraints and conformity of work is necessary to build a more authentic sense of self. Spending all our time at work makes us compliant, and often against our own best interests.
3. Effects of Social Life. Less time means more superficial interactions with others. Lack of social involvement degrades our social environment. We are too busy to be courteous. We are too busy for civic involvement.
4. Positional Competition: In other words, “Keeping up with the Joneses.” Our focus is on the superficial. We self identify through our buying habits.
5. Cognitive and Valuational Confusion. You might expect a title like this from an academic (and a word like valuational!). However, the book is wonderfully free of academic writing.

What does Professor Gini mean? Advertisers create discontent by holding up impossible promises and standards to which consumers aspire.

Professor Gini cites a host of thinkers including, Hegel, Kipling, William James, Marcuse, and Aristotle. My own favorite is Mark Twain, “I do not like work even when someone else does it.”

We need to find a balance between work and leisure. We are responsible for at least some of the choices we make. The notes are a wonderful resource for further reading.

Tags: Talk Back by Christopher
6 Comments »

Thank you to Roy, who left a comment yesterday on the previous post. Slow is not lazy. Although one can have a lot of fun with the idea that “slow,” is a life for the dissolute and decadent, in reality slowing down is necessary.

Rushing to action is the bane of the business world. Seth Godin, marketing guru, has this funny post about the problem of not taking the time to think though what needs to be done. Speed is often a substitute for thinking. There is a lot of value to slow in the impetuous and unthinking business world.

America is an action-oriented culture. There is a lot of energy and dynamism here, but we do tend to overdo it sometimes. Action is visible, whereas thinking or considering is invisible.

How can you be considerate and calm on a diet of sugar and caffeine? That’s the sort of diet I see people living on in the workplace. It’s no wonder that many in business are so impulsive and resist calm consideration.

Slow can be hard work, but accepting a slow process has a better chance of success. I write for small businesses. It takes time to produce a polished piece of writing that does the job it is supposed to do. And that writing is based on some slow thinking and the willingness to think before acting.

It’s the carpenter’s motto to measure twice, cut once. Slow is an investment. It’s not lazy.

Tags: Talk Back by Christopher
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