OF INDOLENCE...

It’s been six years since I posted an entry in this blog. Six years... wow! That may strike some as an astonishing display of idleness, but the fact is, it’s quite consistent with my lifelong habit of being spectacularly lazy. You see, I am inordinately fond of Doing Nothing, and in fact have perfected it into something of an art form. Whilst the rest of humanity ceaselessly scampers hither-and yon with almost frantic haste, I am perfectly content to sit on the sidelines, my mind in neutral, in a bemused state that, at full strength, leaves me only dimly aware that I’m alive.

Now, lest you think otherwise, this is not the same as meditating. From what I gather, meditation actually takes some effort; which, of course, is utterly incompatible with sure-nuff sloth. I mean, if emptying the brain requires any concentration at all, it’s far too much work for the likes of me. Not that sitting cross-legged for hours droning OMMMMMMMMMMMMMM isn’t an admirable way to kill time, but it’s still activity (sort of), and consequently far “outside my wheelhouse”, as the saying goes.

As you might suspect, some folks find my penchant for being lazy annoying, if not downright disreputable. This is especially true of my loved ones, who are mostly high-IQ go-getters with endless accomplishments and accolades to their credit. My late mother, a brilliant lady, never got anything less than an ‘A’ all the way from kindergarten through college –a feat which I easily managed not to replicate– and my lethargy drove her nuts. (Sorry about that, Ma.) The thing is, from the outset I found school to be a stupefying bore; pretty much the only thing I liked about it was the opportunity to sit for hours and daydream while the teacher babbled incessantly about things no reasonable person would want to know. I mean, who in their right mind gives a flying fick about the Gadsden Purchase??

Still, every rule has an exception, and on a few occasions I have “gotten it together”, as they say, and actually done stuff. When I was a lazybones thirteen-year-old boy I absolutely rocked my bar-mitzvah, blew the entire congregation away with my high-C soprano reading of the weekly Torah portion (the longest of the year, natch). I graduated from Princeton (God knows how), then in my early thirties I emerged from my comfortable torpor long enough to not only open a marine sporting goods boutique on the shores of the Red Sea, (which was madness) but to go bankrupt doing it (which was inevitable). There have been other minor eruptions of industry along the way, none of which had any real lasting impact.

But amazingly, and of most significance, I have written not one but two novels (pretty good ones, too) and am well into a third. How I’ve managed to do this is an absolute mystery to me, since writing is some of the hardest work imaginable. Still, incomprehensible or not, I must admit that it isn’t altogether unpleasant to be able to say “Hey, look what I did!” 

I’ll don't suppose I will ever understand the Type A workaholic busy-as-a-bee mindset, but so it goes. As far as I'm concerned, live and let live, and long may everyone prosper.

Good heavens... this post has gone on for far too long, and I’m much too lazy to write anything else... for now, at least. With luck, I'll be back before another six years has elapsed.

Bye-bye and be well,

Lannie Woulff