Pleasures Of Idleness
06 September 2025
Idleness is condemned as harmful both for body and mind. Some call the brain a devil’s workshop. Some people say that idleness is the key to beggary and root of all evil. Busy men give a slogan that “ rest is rust ”. But all those people who are opposed to idleness do some time or the other remain idle in the daily routine, the difference between them and idlers is only in the time duration inspite of all this trade and a campaign of vilification against idleness it has got many champions, devotees and worshipers, there are many people who will make any amount of sacrifice for their fundamental right to enjoy pleasures of idleness. Nothing is more sweet for them than languish in idle talk. There are persons who “ know no fatigue but that of idleness ” work often annoys a man , where as idleness bestows eternal rest. It confers calm , poise, mental balance in its lovers.
Modern man in his blind pursuit of economics prosperity has ignored the priceless treasures that nature in her neckless bounty has showered upon mankind. Rightly did the poet bemoan.
“ what is this life, full of care
we have no to stand and stare
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep or cows. ’’
This bliss of natural beauty can not be enjoyed if we remain preoccupied with our daily work. Idleness alone confers that supreme aesthetic pleasure for which the soul of man is hungry. In moments of idle activity, a man is a monarch of all the surveys. He rules over a wide domain through the power of fancy and imagination. It helps him in the delightful hobby of building castles in air.
Poets have sung eulogies of idleness, wine and woman are the bosom friends of idleness, they lend a romantic charm and heavely pleasure to idleness. A person wants to sink all the sorrows of the world in the cup of wine. Wine transports him to the realm of Elysian bliss. By remaining in a blissful drunken state a person wishes to shorten the tyranny of life. He wants to call a halt to the terrific speed and hurry of life. Omar Khayyam, one of the greatest champions of idleness wrote:
“ A book of verses underneath the bough
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness—
Oh, wilderness were paradise enow! ’’
Besides these elementary aids mentioned in the above quatrain the devotees of idleness ask for no other boon. He wants to live in the in the world of his dreams, undisturbed by the worries , cares and botheration of the world. He lives a life of supreme indifference to the manifold problems of the world.
The lovers of idleness are escapists. They shirk hard work; they hate discipline. They are relevant to face labour and strip. They sink back into indolence and relapse into dreams. He dreams fantastic dreams which will make even a most serious person break into a hearty laughter. An idler leads an imaginary and artificial life in which there is no scope of philosophy or higher intellectual pursuits. They want to avoid “ the weariness, the fever and fret ’’ of worldly life.
Among the ardent lovers of idleness, the “ Hippies ” come at the top. They lead an aimless life, free from all manmade taboos. They are the modern iconoclasts. They go on lying on the sea beach and in inns and other requestered places. Smoking “ Charas ’’ , enjoying “ Hashish ” and L.S.D and remaining in a sort of made –to-order-trance.
There are the modern versions of ancient epicureans. Their philosophy of life is “ to drin and be merry, for tomorrow comes for nobody ”. We can find other lovers of case and idleness among many fake saints , sadhas and sanyasis. Barring a few genuine saints, the majority is of mere parasite, who have shirked the responsibility of life and have taken to comfortable way of life. They live with such a pose of mind in which idle activity seems to be the only gainful profession for them. They live a passive , inert and useless type of life. They hate the sunshine of reality and live in the shadow, of blissful ignorance.
The idleness are like lotas-Paters (Tennyson) who wish to exert no more, who want to give themselves up to the mercy of fate. They lack courage to face the hardships of life. While deep asleep, they think themselves inside awake. While defeated miserably in the batlle of life, they think themselves to be winners. It is a marvelous world of Fantasy and Phantasmagoria in which idlers live their whims, fancies and caprices have an endless diversity. Idleness sticks to their nature like a leech and the admires of indolence derive immeasurable satisfaction from idle parsuits.
