Spreading the Word: Lifestyle of Doing Nothing

Have you ever wished just to do nothing for a while? Relax, have nowhere to be, nothing to attend to, no obligations, no responsibilities – at least for a day or two. To some, this sounds like a dream vacation or a state of inner peace worth cultivating. To others, it is the epitome of the unbearable lightness of being, a nightmare to be avoided at any cost. For the Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran (1911-1995), doing nothing became a lifetime project, a lifestyle.

“Doing nothing in a world where everybody seemed busy doing something – anything – struck Cioran as the only lifestyle worth pursuing and defending.”

_{Costica Bradatan}

In his recent article on Psyche, philosopher Costica Bradatan explores Cioran’s extreme idleness and explains the idea that “learning to be a loser” is the most important thing in a meaningless world – understanding failure instead of sugarcoating it. It is a thought-provoking read that reminds us that noticing and understanding failure is necessary in order to notice and understand all that is wrong in our societies. 

“To be productive members of society, to be able to make large amounts of money and to spend even more, to take loans and to pay them back with interest, we need to be hooked to a ‘positive outlook’. Capitalism doesn’t thrive on loners, depressives and metaphysicians. No respectable bank will lend money to a client today who may snap and go Henry David Thoreau tomorrow.”

_{Costica Bradatan}

Link to the article: Learning to be a loser: a philosopher’s case for doing nothing

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_{Featured image credit: Photo by Lewis J Goetz on Unsplash}