On Loafing (III)

I do not wish to rehash old topics endlessly, but I think the recent amount of work I received for the holidays necessitates another post on this subject. Just so that I set my priorities right.

There is something to be said about idleness; after all hard work is only justified if you are doing useful work, otherwise I think it is better to be doing nothing at all. Given most people's staggering propensity of screwing things up, I think it is more important to keep them gainfully idle, than to find avenues for them to mess things up. And also, given that there are more stupid people than smart ones, it follows that if you have to choose between one or the other, idleness would probably be the better choice. You know you can't be headed the wrong way if you aren't doing anything.

I am not sure who instituted hard work as a virtue; even the (pretty severe) God of the Old Testament insists that one in every seven days should be kept for rest so it can't have been from the beginning of Time. One can always pull the old line in defense of hard work and insist that society just wouldn't work if everybody thought like me - which is flawed, of course. It is true that society would only run if there are people who are not idle (all the time)- the whole point is that you just have to make sure you aren't one of them.

Victorian gentlemen would have agreed - although they told the masses that hard work is a virtue, they abstemiously refrained from it, as they would never be so immodest as to aspire to perfect virtue. In the same way, I suppose, most leaders have the (often) strenous task of convincing people to work hard, so that they wouldn't have to.

My maths supervisor is an amicable 60 year old professor who is pretty awesome. The only thing is, he doesn't seem to recognize me, despite the fact that i have seen him for an hour a week for the last two terms.

My friends and I were at a formal when he sauntered up and asked if we were freshers, or second years. Sensing potential embarrassment, I muttered that we were freshers, and was about to make an inobstrusive exit when my friend felt the need to ask me who my maths supervisor is. Just to see the professor's reaction, was the way he put it.

I pointed at him, he recognized me, cue embarrassed looks all round, save for my friend, who was rather enjoying it. My professor offered the rather less than convincing excuse of not having seen me in a suit before, and there were a couple of awkward exchanges before we excused ourselves and went on with the happy business of getting ourselves drunk.

and while the king was looking down the jester stole his thorny crown