Consider the Sloth
From a nice New York Times article about the humble sloth. Leave it to an animal fable to say it all.
[The three-toed sloth is] not a sluggard because it’s lazy. Rather, it has carved out a remarkably ingenious mode of life in the treetops, but one that imposes certain constraints on its speed and energy level.
O.K., back to your harried, fast-paced schedules. But remember the sloth, which has solved all its problems by living in the slow lane.
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Young and Jobless
I enjoyed this article by Erica Buist, author of How to be Jobless. It’s a response to UK employment minister Esther McVey’s offensive suggestion that the 941,000 unemployed youths of Britain “start at the bottom” and “get a job at Costa [Coffee]”.
We already started at the bottom. Our parents and teachers asked what we wanted to be when we grew up, and held it to ransom. We spent countless hours in meaningless exams: GCSEs, AS-levels, A-levels, BAs, MAs, even PhDs; not forgetting the unpaid internships (yet another barrier between us and employment) – because these were sold as tickets to where we wanted to go.
And now we’re snobs for wishing those miserable years had paid off. At this juncture, the only honest thing a politician could say about youth unemployment is: “We messed up the economy, you will not be getting what we promised you’d get in exchange for the years spent becoming educated, qualified and willing.”
Buy the new Issue Nine in print or on PDF today.
Buy the complete back catalogue of New Escapologist with a 10% discount.
Or buy the complete back catalogue on PDF, with £1 off the price each issue.
Platitudes
I’m in Seattle. Arrive to find this poster hanging in my AirBNB room. A bit mawkish but can’t really argue with it! Tidy version here.
Buy the new Issue Nine in print or on PDF today.
Buy the complete back catalogue of New Escapologist with a 10% discount.
Or buy the complete back catalogue on PDF, with £1 off the price each issue.
An Escapologist’s Diary: Part 37. 2013 Review.
Dear Imaginary Shareholders,
It’s been a weird year. For starters, I took a job. Not something I generally recommend, as you know.
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A New Year’s Podcast
Happy 2014!
I point you to this little podcast for your Jan 1st enjoyment.
This time last year, Neil Scott’s ill-fated resolution was to record and post a weekly interview with one of his friends. Since I was staying at his house on New Year’s Eve, I would be Episode 1.
For some reason, we weren’t particularly happy with the result and Neil never posted it. But digging it out of the archives today, it’s hard to know what we didn’t like. It’s just a nice little chat between two friends.
I’m surprised by how articulate I am. I remember feeling pointlessly anxious about nothing and hungover from the previous evening’s revelry.
Anyway, it’s a nice little podcast. Have a listen. We talk about New Escapologist a lot, especially the practice of Escapology. Jacob Lund Fisker gets a mention, as do Tom Hodgkinson, Momus, Richard Herring, Matt Caulfield, Leo Babauta, Nicolette Stewart and other heroes of Escapology
Pre-order Issue Nine in print or on PDF today.
Buy the complete back catalogue of New Escapologist with a 10% discount.
Or buy the complete back catalogue on PDF, with £1 off the price each issue.
