Monday, December 21, 2020

The Power of Laziness

Shuffling slowly from my recliner to the bathroom, it occurred to me that I had consumed nearly the limit of drugs and alcohol that still permitted me to perform this minimal action, yet I was still in significant physical and psychic pain. 

 It occurred to me also that there is a possibility that if I were to follow all medical and quasi-medical advice, and were to embark upon a campaign of increasing exertion, that I may yet reduce at least some of my many discomforts.  I tried to weigh in my mind the benefits of such a course of action vs. my significant reluctance to commit to and execute the same.

My greatest weakness and my greatest strength, in a peculiar way which perhaps only I appreciate, is laziness.  Laziness is like a passive martial art, conserving energy and effort compared to other means of confronting the relentless attack of the reality of life.

In the end, who is the wiser: those who passively accept (all the while pointlessly complaining) the inevitable degradation and destruction of body and mind, beauty and dignity, that life inflicts, or those who make every effort to deny their own entropy with painful exercise and a myriad of artificial interventions (all the while vaunting their victory) against what must befall even the most vain and valiant?

This is where my faux attempt at wisdom ends, in keeping with the unformed tenets of the indiscipline of laziness.