"Great, natural sloth", and the drive to define life beyond giant to-do lists
Sybille Bedford (center) with Aldous Huxley and the artist Eva Herrmann in the south of France, circa 1931, via the New York Review
Lately I've been following threads about our culture's constant drive for maximum productivity, about our seemingly insatiable appetite to define ourselves solely by the enormity and audaciousness of the to-do lists we erect, then attempt to slay. This week I stumbled upon two articles that articulately defend the fine art of slacking in the name of creativity and output.
The first, by Mason Currey in his always inspiring Subtle Maneuvers, cites German-born English writer Sybille Bedford’s explanation "for her modest literary output, which she described in her 2005 autobiography: 'great natural sloth.'”
"In her autobiography—titled Quicksands, it was published when Bedford was 94—she elaborated on the factors behind the 'long fragments of the life I wasted in not working':
Oh what has remained undone by sloth, discouragement, and of course distractions . . . Distractions of living the siren song of the daily round—chance, often choice led me to spend the squandered years in beautiful or interesting places: to learn, to see, to travel, to walk in nocturnal streets, swim in warm seas, make friends and keep them, eat on trellised terraces, drink wine under summer leaves, to hear the song of tree-frog and cicada, to fall in love . . . (Often. Too often.)
"Now those are good excuses for not writing! In all seriousness, though, a sympathetic reader can’t help but suspect that what Bedford did write would not have been nearly as magnetic if it hadn’t been for her travels, her friendships, her affairs, and her leisurely late-night meals on trellised terraces under summer leaves. (God, that sounds lovely.)"
Article: Sybille Bedford’s Squandered Years
The second's title speaks for itself.
Article: Darwin Was a Slacker and You Should Be Too