Sloth

It’s actually not that easy to let myself sink into complete slothfulness, to go days without putting on real clothes or eating anything but toast and chocolate, to never make my bed and ignore the old cobweb in the far corner of the shower. Yesterday for instance I put on makeup for the first time since New Year’s Eve. Nothing fancy, just the basics I used to put on for a day of work . . . only this time I dug out my Chanel blusher and Shu Uemera mascara for the excitement of a 45-minute drive to the nearest Home Depot to pick up tiling supplies. But I’m afraid that even occasional make-up applications might undermine my current experiment.

I’ve been nursing a theory for a long time - that when I just give myself enough time with nothing to do and nowhere to be, eventually I bore myself so silly and become so disgusted by my own laziness that I’m perfectly ripe for some grand epiphany. It’s happened before accidentally, and I’m trying to deliberately re-create the circumstances that have led to such previous epiphanies as, well, I’m not telling you. Epiphanies always sound silly and obvious when you write them down. But believe me, they were important. Anyway, I’m not sure what type of epiphany might come up this time, but I’m kind of hoping for a lightning bolt telling me that work (for pay) really is valuable in of itself and necessary for living a complete and happy life. That would be nice.

This whole laying around all day reading novels thing? It may look like plain-old garden-variety laziness, but it’s really a deliberate and arduous lifestyle experiment, laziness as a path to self-actualization. And unfortunately it’s not going that well. I haven’t been able to let myself go completely yet. In addition to yesterday’s totally unnecessary mascara application, I keep making my damn bed every day, I’ve yet to go later than 3 pm without putting on real clothes, and this morning I found myself not only showered and dressed before 10 am, but then I started cleaning the bathroom! And I’m not even remotely bored yet. I’m still enjoying the novel-reading. And my little trips to the public library to catch up on my internet reading and publish this blog are still providing just enough structure to my days to keep me from sinking into that sort of perennial and profound drowsiness that precedes, in my experience, grand epiphanies.

In writing this I think I’ve come to the sad realization (not an epiphany unfortunately) that my circumstances just aren’t right for complete sloth. With my flight to Asia only two weeks away, this feels too much like ordinary vacation relaxation rather than real bone-deep laziness. Damn. I think the real experiment and resulting epiphanies will have to wait until later in the year, when I’ve got less to look forward to. DAMN.