Following on from what I was saying yesterday about trying to keep a bit of positive structure and discipline to my working day – I made a trip to the gym today to get the exercise regime going.
If I can have a few weeks of excessively healthy and moderate eating, a decent workout, and at least four hours sat either writing or doing something constructive, I’ll be happy I’m getting enough out of the day.
The four-hour working day is something I’ve not just cooked up. I think it’s the optimum time. Who he hell came up with the idea of working nine to five? Was it a dictator? It might have been farmers, come to think of it, working with sunlight.
No, that’s not really the case. Otherwise we’d work longer in summer. Who the hell came up with the eight-hour working day? It must be a premium time calculated to make us work as long as possible without getting overtired and without us having enough free time to get into trouble. It’s peak productivity time.
But who wants to spend eight, nine, ten hours a day doing something they may almost enjoy, but probably don’t, when the time could better be spent having a nice chat, a bit of a doze, or a slow meal? No one in his or her right mind.
But we have to earn a living. I chose stand-up comedy because you have to work for about twenty minutes for you’re daily bread, which seems like an excellent deal. Then there’s writing, which may take longer but is done under your own speed and is normally enjoyable, so that doesn’t really count as work.
Four hours is about right. You can get a lot done, but you can also spend a far greater percentage of your day at leisure. So four hours is my working day.
That may rub some of you hardworking people up the wrong way. But this is because we’ve been indoctrinated into the idea that hard work = good, idleness = bad. In our world, it’s inconceivable that the gardener napping against a wall is the master and the rich landowner in the manor the servant, but the gardener at least has his priorities right. At least he has some options; the landowner can never leave his role.
Options are our luxury currency. There will always be inconvieniences like mortgage repayments, VAT and plasma screen televisions. There are the practicalities of earning a living, but most of the time we do so at the expense of following our instincts.
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