Permission to Idle

Tom Hodgkinson Featured in The Simple Things Magazine

It had been a long time since I had spent time in a bookstore. Where have they all gone, I wondered? I searched for a small bookstore cafe near my home in Clifton and could not find one. I needed to be among books and magazines so I hopped in the car and drove into the city.

My first order of business was hot chocolate with whipped cream. It mattered not that it was 95 degrees out-the bookstore was chilly. The magazine section of Barnes and Noble at Tysons I is off the chain; all of my favorite magazines live there: All About History, Backpacker, Outsider. I needed inspiration. I thumbed through numerous magazines before one caught my attention just as I was leaving. The Simple Things. I had never seen it before. I picked it up off the shelf, breezed through it and one photograph jumped out at me. A British-looking bloke in a blue-stripped shirt was sitting in a small, lime green room playing a ukulele. His face was completely expressionless. I thought it a strange scene. Piqued, I wondered, What was he doing there, why was he playing a ukulele and why does this matter? Then I read the quote on the facing page, "People confuse laziness with idleness. Laziness is giving up spiritually, whereas being idle, paradoxically, is a dynamic version of being lazy." 'In these days when everyone is so busy all the time, it's good to meet a champion of idleness. But don't be fooled, Tom Hodgkinson tells Clare Gogerty, it's not an excuse to loaf about and do nothing.' Intrigued, I turned the page and there was picture of the bookstore I was looking for earlier, the Idler Academy Books & Coffee. It looked decidedly Notting Hill-my favorite place in London-and below the photo was a graphic of Tom's book: How To Be Idle. I bought the mag.

Idler Academy in Notting Hill, London, England

This morning I woke up feeling restless. I've had a hard time making the best use of my time lately and I certainly haven't been producing much in terms of writing. Now that I'm writing professionally, I've found it more difficult to write my own stuff. Still in bed, I picked up The Simple Things and started reading about the idle ukulele player. What I read was not just inspirational, it was permissive. It seems there is a partnership between idleness and productivity; idle people tend to produce things at an unhurried pace, but they do produce. I let myself off the hook. As it turns out, Tom Hodgkinson owns the Idler Academy which IS in Notting Hill, exactly where it seemed like it should be. In the article Tom said, "Everything I've done has been born out of a nice, romantic idea: start a magazine, write books, run my own little bookshop and hold ukulele evenings." Tom is a dreamer, a doer, a self-paced, productive idler. I get him. He embodies Follow Your Bliss.

I have very few obligations these days. I live a very simple life in the woods. I want for nothing and need even less. I go to work everyday so I can do little else except travel, write, and buy magazines. Everything I do outside of work I do because I choose to, not because I have to. It's a blessed life-one I am grateful for. I dream of one day writing books and magazine articles and owning a bookstore cafe similar to the Idler Academy, where people can come, relax, be inspired to do things or be inspired to do nothing, which really is something after all.