In Defense of Leisure

The Power of Sitting on Your @$&

I was tapping away on my phone and crafting the perfect thread for Twitter, when I heard a murmur in the distance, as if my ears were clogged. Then the sound cracked! into clarity. I looked up. My family was all staring at me, waiting for an answer to a question I hadn’t heard.

There is a law of the universe that all things will decline into disorder and inefficiency over time. In order to fight this productivity decrease, significant energy must be exerted. 

Entropy – the word for this tendency towards a “gradual decline into disorder” — happens to both people and organizations. In order to experience progress and growth, we are told we must do everything we can to fight. 

My own weapons in the battle against entropy have been a slew of self-help books, inbox-zero hacks, and an endless podcast queue. These constant actions of learning, writing, and hustling are supposed to keep me sharp, engaged, and battling the negative forces of entropy. 

But I had been sucked into a world of hustling and hurry – off to war, and never at home. 

As I whimpered out my apology to my family I had ignored in my “war” against decline, I wondered inside: what if I did the opposite? 

What if I decided to put my weapons down and just…rest? 

The Sun, Social Media, and Charlie Munger

A positive version of a chaotic and entropic reality we see every day is a flaming ball of fire in the sky. 

The sun is explosive. It is complete chaos and disorder. Yet at the perfect distance, the sun generates the production of vitamin D, supports bone health, lowers blood pressure, prevents disease, and promotes mental health.

At a much smaller level, intentional bits of friction like the OneSec app allows users to fight back against the negative energy they are often tempted to put towards social media usage through a gentle nudge — asking users “are you sure you want to waste your time today?” 

Even the greatest investors of our time, like Charlie Munger and his partner Warren Buffet, have succeeded by embracing friction and rest. They commend others to follow them in sitting around and doing almost nothing.

“If you really want to be the outlier in terms of achievement, just sit down on your ass and read — and do it all the time,” says Charlie. 

This sounds a lot like “laziness” to those who are attempting to “hack” their way to success and maximize each and every moment. In a “four-hour-work week” world, we pack our days full of energy, all in an effort to push back against the perpetual decline into disorder. But our constant clicking, tapping, and listening has destroyed our ability to sit. To be still. To be in silence. 

The sun, time-limit apps, and Charlie Munger all embrace the idea of intentional inefficiencies. 

Contemplative Leisure

In Latin, there is a word for intentional inefficiencies, called “otium.”

Otium is the Ancient Roman kind of intentional inefficiency where you eat, play, relax, contemplate, and engage in art work and reading poetry. 

Ennius' poem Iphigenia first mentions Otium in the context of laying down one’s arms and being home from battle. 

He who does not know how to use leisure
has more of work than when there is work in work.
For to whom a task has been set, he does the work,
desires it, and delights his own mind and intellect:
in leisure, a mind does not know what it wants.
The same is true (of us); we are neither at home nor in the battlefield;
we go here and there, and wherever there is a movement, we are there too.
The mind wanders unsure, except in that life is lived.

—Iphigenia, 241–248

This idea is not limited to just ancient Rome. The idea of rest is found in the earliest pages of the Bible, where we find after the six days of creation that God rested from his work. The Hebrew וַיּשׁבּת (wayyishbot) is translated as “cease, stop … stop working” and seen again in the Greek word κατέπαυσεν (katepausen) meaning “ceasing from labor.”

Humanity was created for this version of leisure and rest. From the reality of a human being only walking at 3MPH on average or the need for daily sleep, intentional inefficiencies are scattered throughout our physical lives. 

Aspiring for More Friction

Like many, I aspire to live a life with more otium. But what does this look like? 

One of the best books of the last few years has been John Mark Comer’s The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.

He beautifully reminds us, “there’s more to life than an increase in speed. Life is right under our noses, waiting to be enjoyed.”

When I get in neutral, the world comes alive. I can watch the steam rising off my coffee cup while the golden light outside glances off the floor. Or muffle my laughter when my daughter blurts out the most inappropriate things at the dinner table. I can embrace my wife and stand there, quietly for just a moment. I don’t have to rush off to the next thing. 

Only when I slow myself down and cease for a moment from my labor do I receive these blessings that were once hidden from me. 

For those who haven’t read John Mark’s book, I leave you with a few specific and interesting levels of friction he recommends – as you seek to become intentionally inefficient. 

1. Drive the Speed Limit

2. Come to a full stop at stop signs

3. Get in the longest checkout line at the grocery store

4. Turn your smartphone into a dumbphone

5. Parent your phone; put it to bed before you and make it sleep in

6. Set a time and a time limit for social media (or just get off it).

7. Walk slower

8. Take a regular day alone for silence and solitude

9. Experiment with mindfulness and meditation

10. Cook your own food. And eat in. 

He who does not know how to use leisure, has birthed more work from work. This is not a choice to live, but is instead a choice to be sucked into a cycle of constant movement and noise. 

We have an opportunity to choose “otium”: to close your eyes as you taste delicious food, to stare and smile at exquisite art, and to laugh with friends with a fresh and warm coffee in hand. 

Whether we decide to embrace it as a wonderful gift and lay down our weapons of war – that is up to us. 

---

S H O U T O U T S: Special thanks to

Emma Dorge

,

Maymie Chan

, and

Alex Exum

for their wonderful feedback. Go read them, they are better writers than me.

See also my previous essay on slowing down: