In praise of idle pursuits
I've been listening to Walter Isaacson's Biography of Benjamin Franklin during my grueling daily commute up the 405 Freeway into L.A. It's an inspiring life and a great story, just like Isaacson's book on Steve Jobs, which I finished last month.
The great thing about Franklin and Jobs is they didn't buy into the cults of careerism, professionalism and specialization. They didn't buy into the thinking that you had to look outward to society and contemporary institutions to decide how to spend your time and pursue your passions.
Society doesn't know what you should be doing with your life. Contemporary institutions don't know what you should doing with your life. Only you can really know what you should be doing with your life.
If you want to write a poem, write a poem. Who cares whether it looks good on your resume.
In the case of Benjamin Franklin, he always found a way to balance his "day job" as a printer with other idle hobbies and pursuits, such as founding a new nation and helping to discover electricity. We've got to keep tinkering and daydreaming, as a people and a species. In the long run, these seemingly idle pursuits often make a bigger difference than our "serious work".
As Markos Moulitsas writes in his great book Taking on the System.
The world is often changed most radically by people who refuse to 'know their place.' So-called amateurs who refuse to rein in their curiosity or acknowledge areas of 'expertise' have made specialized gatekeepers nervous, scornful, and defensive since time immemorial Upstarts who deny that there are boundaries to knowledge and action, who defiantly meld interests and tear down walls, are a constant challenge to the status quo.
The great thing about Franklin and Jobs is they didn't buy into the cults of careerism, professionalism and specialization. They didn't buy into the thinking that you had to look outward to society and contemporary institutions to decide how to spend your time and pursue your passions.
Society doesn't know what you should be doing with your life. Contemporary institutions don't know what you should doing with your life. Only you can really know what you should be doing with your life.
If you want to write a poem, write a poem. Who cares whether it looks good on your resume.
In the case of Benjamin Franklin, he always found a way to balance his "day job" as a printer with other idle hobbies and pursuits, such as founding a new nation and helping to discover electricity. We've got to keep tinkering and daydreaming, as a people and a species. In the long run, these seemingly idle pursuits often make a bigger difference than our "serious work".
As Markos Moulitsas writes in his great book Taking on the System.
The world is often changed most radically by people who refuse to 'know their place.' So-called amateurs who refuse to rein in their curiosity or acknowledge areas of 'expertise' have made specialized gatekeepers nervous, scornful, and defensive since time immemorial Upstarts who deny that there are boundaries to knowledge and action, who defiantly meld interests and tear down walls, are a constant challenge to the status quo.
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