Lesson Two: How to Be Lazy

Chapter Two

William Faulkner once said that work was the one thing, save sleeping, that we could do eight hours or more a day, and so man would always be unhappy. Those might not be his exact words, you can look them up if you want, but that’s not the point. The point is, I’m not going to look it up. I have only a vague idea who William Faulkner was. I’m thinking that maybe he was a writer of some kind, and as a writer, he is automatically an expert on laziness, and should serve as an example to us all. Unless he was something else as well, perhaps he was a doctor or something, and then we should forget him. Unless he was a lawyer, and then we should all be inspired by his legend.

What I’m getting at is that James Faulkner was a famous drunkard and raconteur who hung out in Hollywood for years coasting on his literary reputation. Sometime, in order to be lazy later on in life, you have to do something early on. Then, for the rest of your life you can drink to excess, act insultingly to the wait staff, and go to bed at five in the afternoon. That’s what Bob Faulkner did, and look where it got him. He’s famous and he’s dead.

But what about those of us without major literary awards, fat publishing contracts, and studio legal departments to bail us out when we get caught with an underage starlet in the backseat of a stolen Packard? How can we be lazy just like William Penn Warren?

Well that’s where I come in. I’m going to tell you how. What are my qualifications? Well, I have an [1]Ivy League degree and a Silver Star from my military service. But more importantly, I have over twenty years of experience of not working for a living. I do not have wealthy parents (they owe me money, those cheap bastards), I am not that smart, I am generally untalented, I am not sexually attractive, and I am the very opposite of famous. So if I can make it this long by not doing anything, so can you. Unless you’re stupid or something. Then maybe you should get back to work.

Irregardless (or is that regardless?) I have boiled all of my accumulated knowledge down into the following pearls of wisdom. These are the lessons passed from one generation to another over time immemorial, from that clever slave who sweet-talked his way off the pyramid job for that sweet gig with the fan in the oasis, down to that guy who sits on carts out in front of the supermarket. You must guard well these secrets, for if they should fall into the wrong hands, we will have to have one of those meetings after business hours. If you are to profit from this secret lore of laziness, you must learn these seven or eight rules, you must live to love them, and you will love to live them. Then you can live to learn them.

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[1] All records of my education and military service were lost in a fire, or earthquake, perhaps a hurricane. But rest assured I would never lie to fill out a resume or to impress girls or to get out of jury duty.