Peter Esterhazy
ON LAZINESS
0.000 Whereon one cannot act , thereon must loaf.
- 1 This is not true.
(First Fiasco)
We haven't achieved too much. We are able
to surmise whether a person is a
rotten bum
or a
parasitic wretch,
but when caught off guard , we are stern , somewhat feebleminded
schoolmasters . "No , no," we wag our index fingers .
"A lazy tramp; a
vagrant, a burden jar abed,"
and laugh somewhat shyly at our former
blindness , thereby engaging ourselves, let's face it, in
tacit complicity.
In fact , we say talented people are inherently lazy. (A statement
which we then combine with the assertion, even less true, that lazy
means gifted . No doubt , it suffices to remember our slow-witted
classmates in school. But "okay, all is well"; those kids only
appeared
to be lazy.
At bottom.
...
etc., etc ., etc . So many italics -
italics–
should make us suspicious.)
There is probably good reason for the ending of La Fontaine's
illuminating fable: when the obsessively hardworking ant hears that
the indolent violin-player the cricket is planning a concert tour to
Paris, the ant begs his neighbor in consideration of their
old
friend–
ship to vist
Mr. La
Fontaine
and convey the message
that he
(Mr.
La Fontaine)
should kiss his
(the ant's) arse.
We got what we expected and that means we certainly had it
coming. Laziness is an ugly thing, or if it is not , it isn't laziness.
Everything is clear.
(In Praise ojLaziness)
Things are not that easy, however. For the
lazy may goof off, kill time, loiter, play truant, trifle, dally, doodle,
~aw?le, ~inger,
malinger, vegetate , do nothing in what is called life,
hve
ill
mlsery , need , want, destitution, penury, privation, fear; they
may be anxious, worried, while obviously always comfortably lying
around, lounging around, but they are not (not and again not) idling
or loafing. For even though the lazy are idle , the idle indolent, the
lazy do not idle .
Editor's Note: "On Laziness" is a version of "A lustasagr61. Traktatus" in
A K itomiitt
Hattyu (The Stuffed Swan).
<t>
1988 . M agvet6 Konyvkiad6, Budapest, Hungary.
