Tom Hodgkinson
Tom Hodgkinson
Tom Hodgkinsonis a British writer, and the editor of The Idler, which he established in 1993 with his friend Gavin Pretor-Pinney. His philosophy, in his published books and articles, is of a relaxed approach to life, enjoying it as it comes rather than toiling for an imagined better future. The Idler was originally a series of essays written by Dr Johnson from 1758 to 1760...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionWriter
real writing people
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.
mother son ideas
As the son of a feminist mother, I grew up with the idea that work was a sort of salvation for women as it would give them freedom from the domestic grind. Now it seems work is a form of slavery, undertaken out of apparent compulsion rather than choice.
dream thinking want
The best thing that can happen to anybody is to be sacked or made redundant because often that's when you think, "I don't want to become one of the living dead. I haven't got anything to lose, now I can start to follow my own dreams."
technology opposites office
We have to wonder whether digital technology, rather than making it easier to communicate, is actually doing the opposite. We now sit alone at a keyboard, firing off zeros and ones into the ether. Offices are silent.
drinking people mind
Sensible people advise against drinking on an empty stomach, but to my mind it is the best sort of drinking.
dream reality other-worlds
Our dreams take us into other worlds, alternative realities that help us make sense of day-to-day realities.
writing garden things-in-life
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.
mean people enough-time
When people say " I just don't have enough time " they mean " I prioritized something else.
degrees shelves difficult
It will soon be difficult to put up a shelf without a degree in shelf putting up.
becoming life-is staring
Life is becoming no more than staring at the screen.
song quality hours
I've found that there isn't any correlation whatsoever between the hours put in and the quality of what comes out. Most of the Beatles' songs probably originated in about five minutes.
jobs learning hard-work
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.
boredom office long
Life has been reduced to a series of long periods of boredom in the office punctuated by high-octane "experiences" which you can rack up on your list of things to do before you die. That's not really living: that is slavery with the occasional circus thrown in.
idle efficient
Paradoxically, to be truly idle, you also have to be efficient.