Quotes by Tom Hodgkinson - Page 3

I would like to propose slow cycling. Commute by bike. At a stroke, you remove the need for and absurd cost of public transport. Cycling is almost completely free. There is no longer any need for the gym as you get fit by cycling. And you can go at your own pace.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Absurd
Bike
Cost
Cycling
Gym
Needs
Pace
Propose
Remove
Transport
Commute
Slow
Stroke
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Faffing is completely harmless, whereas its opposite - dynamic, purposeful activity - is often very harmful. Faffers do not tend to kill people or make them work 12-hour days or sell them shoddy merchandise or lend them vast sums of money that they cannot pay back.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Merchandise
Opposites
Pay
People
Opposite
Work Money People
Vast
Dynamic
Sell
Harmful
Lend
Purposeful
Shoddy
Sums
Whereas
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Being lazy does not mean that you do not create. In fact, lying around doing nothing is an important, nay crucial, part of the creative process. It is meaningless bustle that actually gets in the way of productivity. All we are really saying is, give peace a chance.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Chance
Being Lazy
Bustle
Creative Process
Crucial
Giving
Important
Lazy
Lying
Mean
Meaningless
Process
Productivity
Nothing
Actually
Being
Around
Does
Doing
Part
Create
Fact
Gets
Give
In Fact
Nay
Saying
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Part of this individualism is you feel this pressure that you alone have to conquer the world, and if you don't work all the hours God gives then you start feeling really guilty. If you can stop feeling guilty, then I think it's easier to start doing what you want to do.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Conquer The World
Giving
Thinking
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To me there is no more depressing sight than a five-year-old staring at a screen, unsmiling, mouse in hand. Besides whatever dreadful things this prolonged exposure to screens is doing to their brains, computer games tend to be solitary affairs, and produce little laughter.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Computer
Depressing
Exposure
Games
Laughter
Produce
Sight
Solitary
Me Doing More
Affairs
Besides
Brains
Dreadful
Five-Year-Old
Hand
Mouse
Prolonged
Screen
Tend
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...[W]e should be mucking about all the time, because mucking about is enjoying life for its own sake, now, and not in preparation for an imaginary future. It's obvious that the mirth-filled man, the cheerful soul, the childish adult is the one who has least to fear from life.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Men
Enjoy Life
Soul
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Faffing is good. It is an important part of life. Faffing is when we disconnect from the matrix and idle for a while, like a car. Our body and spirit know deep down that human beings were not made for constant toil so subconsciously creates space through the mechanism of faffing.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Car
Space
Body
Constant
Deep Down
Human Beings
Idle
Important
Mechanism
Spirit
Toil
Life Space Good
Life Good Car
Beings
Life Good Space
Creates
Deep
Disconnect
Important Part
Matrix
Subconsciously
While
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Alongside my 'no email' policy, I resolve to make better use of the wonderful Royal Mail, and send letters and postcards to people. There is a huge pleasure in writing a letter, putting it in an envelope and sticking the stamp on it. And huge pleasure in receiving real letters, too.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Letters
Mail
Pleasure
Postcards
Receiving
Resolve
Royal
Alongside
Envelope
Letter
Send
Stamp
Sticking
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The siesta provides a delightful detour from the working day and it also has a practical value as far as productivity is concerned. Winston Churchill had a good long siesta every day during the second world war and he said it was the thing that enabled him to cope with the pressure.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
War
Long
World
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Alongside my "no email" policy, I resolve to make better use of the wonderful Royal Mail, and send letters and postcards to people. There is a huge pleasure in writing a letter, putting it in an envelope and sticking the stamp on it. And huge pleasure in receiving real letters, too.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
People
Real
Writing
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What is required as we travel towards full unemployment is not new legislation but a gradual change of mental attitude, a shift in values. As our taste for idling grows, we will refuse to work for old-fashioned bosses who demand a five-day, 40-hour, nine-to-five type week, or worse.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Attitude
Travel
Boss
Demand
Grows
Legislation
Mental Attitude
Refuse
Taste
Type
Unemployment
Bosses
Gradual
Towards
Idling
Mental
Nine-To-Five
Required
Shift
Worse
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The siesta provides a delightful detour from the working day and it also has a practical value as far as productivity is concerned. Winston Churchill had a good long siesta every day during the Second World War, and he said it was the thing that enabled him to cope with the pressure.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Concerned
Delightful
Productivity
Second World War
War Good World
Churchill
Cope
Detour
Practical
Provides
Winston
Working Day
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I've never understood activity holidays since we seem to have far too much activity in our daily lives as it is. Find a culture where loafing is the order of the day and where they don't understand our need to be constantly doing things. Find somewhere you can have a hammock holiday.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Inspirational
Activity
Holiday
Loafing
Order
Too Much
Understood
Since
Understand
Somewhere
Constantly
Daily
Daily Lives
Far
Hammock
Seem
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If you look at the literature of the 19th century, you get things like Kafka and Dostoevsky, who basically write about feeling bored and alienated. That's because we lost contact with the important things in life like work that you enjoy, or the garden, nature, your family and friends.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Bored
Contact
Family And Friends
Garden
Important Things
Literature
Things In Life
Writing
Alienated
Life Nature Family
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What seems extraordinary is that the richest countries in the world, in terms of economic output, are the ones where we work hardest. You would have thought that the end of all this innovation, technological advancement, and financial wizardry should be to create less work, not more of it.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Country
Hard Work
Innovation
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On bikeback, there is a delightful sense of self-direction and autonomy. Lately, I have taken to cycling slowly, more fun than the fast, competitive commuter cycling I used to do. No longer do I jump lights or attempt that irritating wobbling thing that semi-professional cyclists like to indulge in.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Autonomy
Cycling
Cyclists
Delightful
Indulge
Irritating
Attempt
Competitive
Slowly
Jump
Lights
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When stuck years ago in a job I hated, my only friend was the public bench. As the tedious mornings dragged on, how I would long for the lunch hour, when I would be able to escape the torture of the office and stroll over to the churchyard and into the comforting wooden embrace of one of its benches.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Jobs
Morning
Comforting
Embrace
Lunch
Torture
Years
Bench
Dragged
Escape
Hour
Mornings
Stroll
Wooden
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Facebook is not ideologically neutral. In fact, it emerges from a very particular world view which we can trace back to Hobbes. I discovered this by examining the profile of Zuckerberg's fellow board members who, unlike him, are a very interesting bunch and, I suspect, the real power behind the poster boy.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Boys
Bunch
Examining
Hobbes
Members
Profile
Real
Real Power
Views
World View
Neutral
Board
Discovered
Emerges
Facebook
Fellow
Unlike
Poster
Poster Boy
Suspect
Trace
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We think we have to work because the advertising industry has elevated wants into needs. The newspapers and the television batter us incessantly with the latest 'must-haves', whether that's shoes, videogames or patio heaters. As a result, mums think they 'have' to work at Tesco in order to buy expensive trainers.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Advertising
Expensive
Incessantly
Newspapers
Trainers
Batter
Elevated
Latest
Videogames
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We think we have to work because the advertising industry has elevated wants into needs. The newspapers and the television batter us incessantly with the latest "must-haves", whether that's shoes, videogames or patio heaters. As a result, mums think they "have" to work at Tesco in order to buy expensive trainers.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Order
Shoes
Thinking
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It takes a while to master the art of hammock-lounging. At first I could only manage five minutes or so before I thought I ought to get out and go and help a child learn how to swim or something. But after observing the Mexicans' capability for staring into space for hours on end, I decided to put in some proper practice.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Art
Capability
Children
Manage
Observing
Ought
Practice
Swim
Master
Proper
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Indolence of course is an absolutely crucial part of the creative process: you do not find poets sitting in rows in cavernous word factories, staring at screens. They are rather to be found lolling on the sofa or strolling through the groves, nursing their melancholic temperaments and losing themselves in extended reveries.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Creative
Nursing
Sitting
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Indolence, of course, is an absolutely crucial part of the creative process: you do not find poets sitting in rows in cavernous word factories, staring at screens. They are rather to be found lolling on the sofa or strolling through the groves, nursing their melancholic temperaments and losing themselves in extended reveries.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Creative
Creative Process
Crucial
Factories
Indolence
Losing
Nursing
Process
Reverie
Screens
Sitting
Staring
Absolutely
Through
Find
Part
Course
Extended
Word
Poets
Rather
Rows
Sofa
Themselves
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I originally welcomed the mobile phone as it seemed to me that it would enable you to work from anywhere. On the mobile, who was to know if you were sitting on the branch of a tree or sitting in an office? But it instead had the opposite effect: instead of freeing us from the office, it allowed the office to take away our freedom.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Office
Opposites
Phones
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Once you explore life outside of work, it becomes addictive. The less you work, the less you want to work. At first, the odd afternoon off seems like a fantastic luxury. Before long, you are opting for a four-day week. Then a four-day week becomes an intolerable demand on your time, so you find a way of moving to a three-day week.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Afternoon
Demand
Fantastic
Luxury
Odd
Life Time Work
Addictive
Explore
Life Work Time
Intolerable
Three-Day
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I originally welcomed the mobile phone, as it seemed to me that it would enable you to work from anywhere. On the mobile, who was to know if you were sitting on the branch of a tree or sitting in an office? But it instead had the opposite effect: instead of freeing us from the office, it allowed the office to take away our freedom.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Office
Sitting
Tree
Opposite
Allowed
Anywhere
Branch
Phone
Effect
Enable
Freeing
Originally
Seemed
Welcomed
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Little things like making clothes, baking bread, cooking, even useless things like bird-watching, sketching flowers, playing guitar in the home - that sort of time is gone. And the time we have? We're so exhausted, we want to let ourselves get sucked in to the escape world of TV. I'm speaking from experience; I'm not above all this.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Home
Flower
Guitar
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One of the least arduous but most productive of gardening jobs, the magic of deadheading never fails to delight me. It was a revelation when the principle was explained to me: that flowers are the attempt by the plant to reproduce itself. So if you cut the heads off before the flower turns into seeds, the plant will continue to flower.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Jobs
Cutting
Delight
Flower
Magic
Plant
Productive
Seeds
Turns
Arduous
Attempt
Flowers
Explained
Fails
Heads
Principle
Reproduce
Revelation
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By taking out a loan, I am committing myself to years of interest repayments, and therefore to years of wage slavery. And the UK has been borrowing like crazy since 1694, when the Bank of England was invented. This means that we are locked into high taxation to pay for 300 years of wars and other costly and generally disastrous state enterprises.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
War
Crazy
Mean
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Guilt is also a way for us to express to others that we are a person of good conscience. 'I feel really guilty about getting drunk last night,' we say, when in actual fact we feel no guilt whatsoever or, at least, we could choose to feel no guilt. When people say to me, 'I drank too much last night,' I always reply, 'I drank exactly the right amount.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Drunk
Night
People
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Education itself is a putting off, a postponement; we are told to work hard to get good results. Why? So we can get a good job. What is a good job? One that pays well. Oh. And that's it? All this suffering, merely so that we can earn a lot of money, which, even if we manage it, will not solve our problems anyway? It's a tragically limited idea of what life is all about.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Jobs
Learning
Hard Work
Ideas
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We need to claim lunch back. It is our natural right. It has been stolen from us by our rulers. The fear that keeps you chained to your desk, staring at your screen, does not serve your spirit. Lunch is a time to forget about being sensible, practical, efficient. A proper lunch should be spiritually as well as physically nourishing. Cosy, convivial, a treat; lunch is for loafers.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Doe
Lunch
Needs
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I like the idea of becoming [fairly] good at lots of things rather than very good at just one thing. So it would be nice to be okay at the guitar or at the piano, a reasonable cook, perhaps able to fix your car or do some basic carpentry, and be able to write the odd article. Rather than being super good at one tiny thing, to be kind of average at lots of things. It might mean that you have a more kind of enjoyable, complete life.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Mean
Nice
Writing
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Self-importance is a trap, because the moment we start to think that we actually matter is the moment when things start to go wrong. The truth is that you are supremely unimportant and nothing matters. All of man's striving is for nothing; all effort is wasted. To realize that everything is meaningless is tremendously liberating, since it then leaves us completely free to create our own lives and ignore the plans that others have for us.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Men
Self
Thinking
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There are a lot of little tricks you can do to inject a bit more time into the day. Most important is limiting yourself to a 40 hour week, not working 50 hours or 60 or 70. It's just crazy. It's actually irresponsible to you and irresponsible to your family and friends. Why should your employer's profits be more important than your own family? You're not even going to get any of the profits - all you get is not losing your job. It's a very negative system.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Jobs
Crazy
Important
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If Adam and Eve were not hunter-gatherers, then they were certainly gatherers. But, then, consumer desire, or self-embitterment, or the 'itch,' as Schopenhauer called it, appeared in the shape of the serpent. This capitalistic monster awakens in Adam and Eve the possibility that things could be better. Instantly, they are cast out of the garden and condemned to a life of toil, drudgery, and pain. Wants supplanted needs, and things have been going downhill ever since.
Tom Hodgkinson / Writer
Garden
Pain
Self
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Tom Hodgkinson Quotes - Page 3

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