An apology to Idlers — like myself
This is an apology to idlers. A defense of boredom. A self-justification for the fact that I am doing nothing — and yet, still feel like a failure.
Just now, when every one is bound, under pain of a decree in absence convicting them of lèse-respectability, to enter on some lucrative profession, and labour therein with something not far short of enthusiasm, a cry from the opposite party, who are content when they have enough, and like to look on and enjoy in the meanwhile, savors a little of bravado and gasconade.
These are 100-dollar words I came across after waking up at 0930 on a Wednesday, confronted by the imminence of my own mediocrity and utter downfall as an “overachiever” and university senior.
In the wise words of Robert Louis Stevenson’s An Apology for Idlers, which I plagiarize for lack of creativity and laziness to use ChatGPT, need to inflate my ego as a “decent writer” and utter boredom.
By these words, the author describes how everyone is currently expected — almost by law or societal decree — to pursue a lucrative career and work in it with great enthusiasm. In other words, society demands that people be industrious and ambitious. The paragraph creates a distinction between those who belong to this social group and an “opposite party”, or those who don’t feel pressured to chase constant achievement. They are satisfied with having just enough and prefer to observe and enjoy life rather than hustle nonstop, an attitude generated from a mix of bold confidence (bravado) and perhaps naivety.
Extreme busyness, Stevenson writes, whether at school or college, is a symptom of deficient vitality. And a faculty of idleness implies an American — here I clearly substitute the term “catholic” for pure identification with my current identity as an international student in an American University in Silicon Valley with the hush of tech bros going downhill in front of my window — appetite and a strong sense of personal identity.
Essentially, the writer claims that his busyness is, in fact, a lack of genuine inner life or passion to later claim that those with well-rounded personal identities do not depend on constant activity or productivity for validation.
Stevenson even says that when they are not required to go to the office when they are not hungry and have no mind to drink, the whole breathing world is a blank to them. They have no curiosity; they cannot give themselves over to random provocations: they do not take pleasure in the exercise of their faculties for its own sake. They cannot be idle, passing their hours in a sort of coma — exemplified by my boyfriend, who simply did not see the plate with scrambled eggs in front of him, then proclaims to god-knows who that he is hungry.
So extreme busyness becomes, in my mind, a personal enemy and one I cannot condone publicly without being canceled myself. So I will argue in favor of idleness — which does not consist in doing nothing but in a great deal not recognized in the dogmatic formularies of the American dream — to convince myself that what I am doing (or not doing, in fact) is the best course of action given my current circumstances, as I am about to explain.
148 years later, Stevenson’s critique of busyness has not only remained relevant — it has evolved. What was once a Victorian obsession with duty and industry has transformed into something even more insidious: social signaling. It is not enough to be busy; one must also be visibly ambitious, visibly overworked, and visibly ‘meant for greatness.’ Who would think that an essay published in 1877 would be so relevant to my life?
It is my last semester of university, and I am only taking a 2-credit course that meets bi-weekly; it is considered to some a “BS class”. I achieved my current state by overloading during my London semester (Spring 2024) under the consequences of decaying scores when I still thought I would be a double major. Yet, here I am, underloading academically and utterly fucking bored.
Oh, this essay is already under perjury of cringe.
I am not hustling and grinding this semester, the one time when I should be figuring out what I will do after graduation to pay off my college loans.
My Capstone advisor says that being a “workaholic” — the god’s given sign that the only reason a person is so dedicated is because they are meant for greatness — is an American contribution to society named blank.
I cannot remember the term he used; something with a signifier? Let me Google this.
(A few minutes later).
I asked ChatGPT and the term I was looking for is “social signaling” — or visibly showcasing competence and ambition to enhance one’s social status. But do I have to constantly project my social status? Do I only have value because of my work?
Well, at least in my quest for finding the right term lost in the back of my head I learn through a Wikipedia page about the existence of social semiotics. I guess boredom can still lead to intellectual curiosity.
Stevenson continues mentioning these workaholic zombies: they have been to school and college, but all the time they had their eye on the medal, the big prize. This does not appeal to me as being success in life — anymore.
Here I am under anxious idleness and procrastination looking at my big window and deciding what I should do today. But mind you; this noia is a product of my own decision to “work on my capstone.” Then I must ask myself — 3 weeks into the semester — why have I not touched my capstone project? La noia. Procrastination. I fought for this idleness, and now I resent it.
Why can’t I enjoy the nothingness of my day? Why can’t I enjoy the small things in life without the feeling of being a completely useless failure?
The challenge of paradigm shift and self-identity is the constant comparison with others in your own social circle, as I bet Stevenson would say. So so and so will work at Google when they graduate, making 200k a year, or this person is the second Minervan to receive a Rhodes scholarship, and so on and so forth.
You cannot escape the feeling of being utterly useless and worthless, especially if one’s boyfriend is a self-proclaimed CEO of a multimillion-dollar language learning startup. In fact, he has a “very important meeting with a VC’ while I write these words. I sort of make a point of typing as loudly as I can as if solidifying my personhood in this competitive world. Hey, I am here, too! I am also important. I think I can use fancy words and make them make sense. Do you, dear reader, understand what I am writing about?
Not only that, but I feel pressured to remold these thoughts into an appropriate LinkedIn post — what should the topic be about? Why should you never compare yourself to others? By the same token, please check out my post here.
Hopefully, a self-deprecating reader will smirk at my sense of humor. Or not.
I think the main point of these paragraphs, and here I will make my tone a bit more simple because I cannot keep up with fancy words anymore, is to say that I have made a decision to finally chill this semester and yet still feel useless. I am scared of what will happen to me after I graduate. I don’t know if I will get a job to pay off my loans or if I satisfy my ego through external validation of being a “child genius” even though I came to college to explore my person and not get the best grades. But even if you have a clear purpose of having fun and living in seven countries I cannot rid myself of the sensation that I am not good enough. I am not that 4.0 student I was in high school because I simply cannot be her anymore. I am not top of my class or doing “amazing things”. Most of my high school colleagues, whom I looked down upon as too unserious for their own sake, are moving on with their own lives — some have graduated with their masters, and others just got their fancy diplomas from LSE. Others have their own apartment and others are flirting around.
Growing means accepting your own time, I believe. It is growing at your own pace, achieving what feels best for you.
Before I conclude this very long personal essay, I would like to reminisce on a conversation I had a few months ago. As I visited Stanford (the university is about 1 hour from where I live in San Francisco), I kept feeling inferior to because I had not applied to other universities, and a part of me wished I could just know the feeling of opening a college admission decision. Maybe I could have come here, I thought.
I was told I was stuck. So what you went to an international school? After four years, everyone improved their English. You keep saying you had a lot of privileges growing up but you are not using them either because you are not leveraging your privileges properly or because you didn’t have them in the first place. So and so are doing X and Y and Z; you can’t live off of dreams — you didn’t major in anything STEM to get a 3-year OPT in the USA and cry about not getting accepted into fancy scholarships. This friend from Stanford had to apply 4 times to this program to get in.
I applied 3 times.
Well, you should have applied 4 or 5 times! You are not hustling, grinding — as if living off your past, dead glory as a child genius. You stopped growing.
And that shit hurt.
I am not stuck, am I?
It hurt because it made me feel like my struggles were a product of my decisions. That I was choosing to be behind. That success is just about trying harder, applying five times instead of three — as if life were just a numbers game, not a mix of timing, place, and decisions on what is best for you.
You can’t sell meat to vegetarians, and you can’t hustle your way into opportunities that were never meant for you.
My father says this is an unfair comparison. In a metaphor, he described to me that going to Minerva and studying abroad was people’s dreams, but your background, Giovanna, had put you on level 7; after four years at Minerva, you were at level 9. Your colleagues began their journeys at level 2 for whichever reasons — lack of opportunity, being in the wrong environment, etc — and now they have grown into level 6. Yes, there is a much bigger jump from 2 to 6 than 7 to 9. Good for them. But you still grew up, matured and experienced the world at your own tempo.
I wanted to attend Minerva to live in seven countries and get to know a Giovanna who was not “ a feminist nerd who did nothing but study” — these are the words I used in my application to Minerva.
You should dance to your own music — be it K-pop, Pop, or classical music. Others dance to their favorite genre. And that is ok.
I think my dad is a wise man, and although I agree with him, it is challenging to reconcile his words with how I actually feel.
If you have an answer to this dilemma, please reach out to me because the only thing I can do about it is to write.
So, here is the part where I write a conclusion to this senseless essay. But I do not have one — yet. Maybe because my boredom and sense of uselessness are still ongoing. Maybe because self-worth should not be measured by LinkedIn posts or VC meetings. Maybe because I am still learning how to dance to my own music — La Noia by Angelina Mango.
