The Virtue of Laziness

The art of doing nothing is listening in presence.

Our culture tells us to produce, do something, work, make things happen, buy things, work more, be active, do things, do chores, and be busy with our time in our free time. So many of us work jobs we hate to pay our bills, keep a roof over our heads, or keep up with the Joneses. We move fast and become comfortable in our discomfort. We strive, mired in anxiety move faster and find more addictions to keep our minds occupied.

All the while, as we produce more, we grow more, grow more food, make more people, want more things, and consequently destroy the planet faster and faster. We blind ourselves to the harm we create, to all the species that we annihilate, and to the factory farming that is a horrific holocaust for cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, minks, goats, and sheep. We never stop; if we did and listened in, we would be changing the world.

If we were to actually be lazy, to stop doing, to be still, and not do anything, we might give ourselves a chance to heal, to breathe, and to begin to see in a very different way.

If we were lazy, we might learn how to listen and empathize with the earth and all species.

If we were lazy, we might begin to be present and listen to what is going on within ourselves.

If we were lazy, we might be able to let go of our beliefs and our enculturated thinking and begin to see that living is so much more beautiful and alive when we can listen than when we are stuck like zombies rushing around with our hearts and minds cut off.

If we were lazy, we may question the Judaic / Christian model that there is something wrong in being human and may see that we are part of the very fabric of the Universe.

If we were lazy, we might see that there is no need to produce more things, that we already have everything we need, that we can come together in community and share, trade things we already have, and help each other out when that is needed.

If we were lazy, we may stop cutting down more forests to produce more food because we would see the insanity of that cancerous idea that is so built into our system. The more food we have, the more people there will be. We would think of being with the land in ways that listen to the whole of the land and begin to think of the carrying capacity of the bioregion in which we live. We would stop killing other species that we have been taught to see as a threat, for we would see that makes no sense in the world ecologically speaking.

If we were lazy, we could come together and rediscover that rather than separate, we are whole.

If we were lazy, we would see that diversity is life, oppression is fear, and community is taking care of everyone. If we were lazy, we would see that capitalism and hierarchy take away our humanity and make us numb to being alive. If we were lazy, we would see that there is no need to have power over anyone, for we would see a far greater power in oneself, which is wholeness.

Come with me, be lazy, and question the cultural matrix that is cancer upon the world.

We need not live that way. We can live in love, and community, with nature, and in this laziness would be a communal revolt that could stop our cultural train from going over the cliff of our own destruction.

Wholeness is reality.

Let’s be lazy and connect back to reality rather than rush utterly ignorantly into the dream state that culture wants us to be in.

Wake up and be lazy; the world depends on you.