01.27
There is an evil book out there called the Four Hour Workweek or something stupid like that. I shall forgo googling the exact name because this book is pure evil. It was brought to my attention through several conversations with potential lotophagi. The basic idea of the book is that you should create a life where you do four hours of work a week and spend the rest of the time on a beach. This is a dangerous idea based on resting on your intellectual property by draining just enough of your energy to survive. It sounds so tempting. But be afraid, it is the call of sirens trying to run your ship ashore with their seductive songs.
If you want to work four hours a week you hate your job. Good job. Since this book is targeted at professionals (scientists, engineers, etc.) the idea is that you go through all this training to find a trick to exploit in society to perpetuate your existence with no further work. Good job, Genius. By taking this path you have really just come to the conclusion that the metaphorical boat you spent so much time building should be sold for scrap. I love to do whatever it is that I do. To use a cliche, love what you do and you will never work a day in your life.
It is a waste of intelligence to work only four hours a week. It is just as morally irritating for a smart person to abuse their gift by thinking only as little as possible as it is for physically strong to make millions playing a sports game for a few hours a week or physically attractive people to make millions being a model. To me it is just as annoying. I see it more as a concession made out of the fear that if you try, you will never reach your vision of your full potential made all the worse by the fact that your intelligence indicates that it was a fully conscious decision. Too many smart people do not try because they fear defeat and thus skim through life without dipping down into the waters that can unleash their full potential (I’m extending the metaphor). It is an evolutionary safe bet that will ensure a life of relative mediocrity.
Endorsing the Four Hour workweek is sociopathic behavior. Everybody can’t do it. Why are you so special? It is the superman theory with clear sign of delusions of grandeur. It is legal but morally it is theft. Even if your cold heart bleeds no blood for the society that allowed you to act in such a manner, at least understand that personally it is giving up. In the words of philosophers Rob and Big, “DO WORK.”