Quitting the Paint Factory: On the Virtues of Idleness

How could I not welcome Mark Slouka’s essay that starts thusly?:

I distrust the perpetually busy; always have.

Besides brilliantly mapping the gulf between the “go-gets” (them) and the non-go-gets (me), it also may explain why we get so into the December rush of buying gifts — because it’s a perpetual shopping trip we can work at and another chance to show how busy we are. (Which is as well why I get depressed and immobilized by the holidays, though I’m powerless to pull myself from the vortex. And anyway, presents are cool.)

We also see early predictors of today’s epidemic mangling of correspondence (esp. email) and adoption of Junk English:

“…brutally destroying the syntax of his speech. He wastes no time in building sentences. Punctuation and the right adjectives will mean nothing to him. He will despise subtleties and nuances of language.”

To set the universe back in balance from pinging the above quoted article/possible copyright infringement, we all should pony up and buy the backissue of that edition of Harper’s.

I have compassion for those making the most of their commute and their cubicle; I just wish they could be a little less cheerful about it.