Why Idleness?

It was Fung Yu-Lan, my favorite 20th century Chinese intellectual, who said that philosophy's usefulness is in its uselessness. As I hope to dedicate at least some of this space to notions that might be considered philosophical, it seems in place to show an appreciation of that aimless pursuit that I nevertheless find to be worthy of my time and effort; Indeed, I take it to be an important component of my very existence.

Dear Fung grasped a deep notion - you cannot aim for that usefulness. Even once you realize that there is some usefulness in it, you can not attempt it. By trying to reach philosophy's usefulness one misses it uselessness and it then ceases to be useful. I hope that this may help explain why I am unable to respond to any future comments that fall under that category titled 'what is it good for?'. It isn't good for anything. That's the point, or to be more precise - it's not even the point. There is no point, is the point, but if tried to be pursued further it will lose its meaning so let go of the no-point point.

What of this and Idleness? There is an inherent, deeper problem of justifying Idleness, as it carries a negative association by definition. However, aside from my logical perversion to seek truth in contradictions, there are various good reasons to resist this common notion. But apart from such arguments that fiddle with our understanding of what idleness is or challenge our common understanding of work and leisure, I would like to suggest here the kind of idleness that corresponds to the aforementioned concept of philosophy. Thus, I recommend to you doing absolutely nothing. It is not the free time which turns into recreational activities that I praise here, but the time in which one is not even reading this post, though arguably this kind of reading is in fact doing absolutely nothing. 

I laud doing nothing for nothing's sake, and I hope no one will ever ask me what is it good for.