Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale

Thoughts of a 30 year-old that eats, sleeps and breathes.

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Weekend Summary

Ran 5.06 miles

Worked on Thrifty Pup design

L&E Sunday breakfast

Started reading Slaughterhouse-Five

Mad Men series finale

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An Introduction

Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence, or a vice: it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets.  The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightening strikes of inspiration—it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.  “Idle dreaming is often of the essence of what we do,” writes Thomas Pynchon in his essay on Sloth.  Archimedes’ “Eureka” in the bath, Newton’s apple, Jekyll and Hyde, the benzine ring: history is full of stories of inspirations that came in idle moments and dreams.  It almost makes you wonder whether loafers, goldbrickers, and no-accounts aren’t responsible for more of the world’s great ideas, inventions and masterpieces than the hardworking. —Tim Kreider, “Lazy: A Manifesto”, We Learn Nothing