“Unfortunately, I can’t join your company, but, conversely, I might want you to be my Chief language Art Officer, Tim.” That would be my response to the article The “Busy” Trap by Tim Kreider. He carefully invites readers to join his circle of idleness with tactically inserted historical images, skillfully provides catharsis, and strongly exhibits his firm posture about how to spend his time. At first glance, this article only seemed to be a typical criticism against being too busy. It is especially so when ignoring all those rhetorical schemes. However, the article is a language artwork as one in a museum silently sitting and waiting for the dissecting eyes and critical brains of visitors. The article is also an invitation that leaves a reader with their own evaluation leading to variable options ranging from mere acknowledgement to joining to his circle of lovable idleness.
s the first noticeable rhetorical tactic, the article presents itself as a chronological journey from modern times to medieval times and then the future. The author successfully ushered into the topic by describing variable troublesome modern scenes caused by being busy. Readers can easily recall an exact emotion in themselves by each episode if not by all of them. For example, how to resist the feeling of solace, if you are female, when he consoles by saying “What she had mistakenly assumed was her personality – driven, cranky, anxious and sad – turned out to be a deformative effect of her environment”? Or, how can you not hear the movie Stand by Me soundtrack in your head if you are male when he declares that he was a latchkey child and led “largely unsupervised time every afternoon”? Having that grasp of the readers’ hearts, the author starts analyzing the state of being busy with the historical analogy of religion. It is not hard to link “professional obligations” to some sort of religious activities set as rules in the past and “institutional self-delusion” to the inner contradiction between the formal belief in religion and thinking in liberal ways in European history. In the last paragraph, the author delivers two future imageries in his essay: the mention of a famous science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, and the futuristic concept of basic universal income. The title's plot by the great novelist makes it even more complex.
Another rhetorical thread piercing the article is the author’s justification for laziness. He offers it in terms of professions, virtue, and prediction. First about the neediness of idleness for work, he elaborates on the necessity of idleness. Considering his profession as a cartoonist, a highly creative job, his reasoning on how and why idleness is essential is understandable. However, even in the case that readers’ professions might not require as much creativity as his, the reasons presented can be acceptable and even conspicuous particularly because he uses the power of images effectively. When you are shown an image of a child with rickets and told this is how you would be if you don’t have a break as it works for your brain just as vitamin D does for your body, don’t you want to take some break? Those are the vocational and logical excuses the author offers, but he doesn’t forget to carry it out in terms of spirituality. The writer says he feels reprobated when he works less than a certain amount of time. By that confession, he shows readers himself as a co-sufferer of the busy-ness ethical bindings and says he is also not perfectly immune to it. Then, he says that diligence or work-long-hours ethic was brought up by Puritans, and work was actually defined as a punishment by the more authoritative existence. Readers can together be relieved from the feeling of reprobate or corruption. However, he then also goes further by implying that what is collectively believed is going to be eroded. Before elaborating on Kreider's reasoning for idleness takeover, it also needs to be taken that the notion of “science over religion” is subtly touched upon or almost neglected deliberately. In that way, his essay or invitation can work for a broader reader base. Why puritans? Why the communications satellite? He doesn’t delve into them. What he indicates is, however, that the current driving force of society will also be gradually updated to creativity or productivity not correlating to the length of work. People’s perception of what is basic, right, and fundamental evolves. Religions provided coveted structures for human beings to live in primitive environments. Secular activities like producing and selling were “turned into ethics” and are driving the monetary sphere. He predicts that universal basic income will come as a human right as though other rights that had not been perceived as basic human rights became imperative parts for human beings. His future vision is that people who don’t work are as valuable as those who work. In that world, you don’t need to feel reprobated if you don’t work. As such, he rationalizes the indispensability of idleness logically, virtuously, and predictively.
Lastly, if I take this as one of his rhetorical tactics, I’m discounting his philosophy because readers can also see how he is determined to mindfully handle his precious asset: his time. We intuitively know that enthusiasm shown to and time and money invested for a cause is solid proof of to what extent a person believes in an idea. Kreider believes that his way of spending time is the best way to lead a life. Occasionally he boasts the fruits he affords as a result of his posture to life. He is ready for pleasant activities. He writes, “ if you call me up and ask whether I won’t maybe blow off work and check out the new American Wing at the Met or ogle girls in Central Park or just drink chilled pink minty cocktails all day long. I will say, what time?” He enjoys his idle time, so he expects others to do so. When he invites others, he means it. He writes, “my question had not been a preliminary heads-up to some future invitation; this was the invitation.” In an exaggerated way to say, he proposes all of these as the terms of use of the privileged circle of loving idleness he leads. He promises that the lifestyle he proposes will give you luxury options at the cost of getting out of “the classroom.” He deliberately or not deliberately got out of the classroom earlier in his life, thus leading his circle of idleness.
To simplify what this essay questions, hard work still pays or not. I don’t think that they guarantee the minimum paycheck while you lead a decent human life. However, now that it has been more than ten years since this essay was written, and the way people see what is decent has also changed, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, many might sympathize with the idea explained. Kreider did a great job of weaving a literary fabric compelling readers to follow his cause of being less busy with variable colors and materials including implicit and explicit mentions of different ages in history, logical and spiritual reasonings, and displaying his philosophy on life. Its message is simple, but its presentation is not simple at all. The essay is a letter of invitation to his circle of admiring idleness, to which I would hesitantly say no because I think hard work still works.