Last updated: May 24, 2024
[Stan Ulam] worked short hours. He was heroically lazy. He was considered lazy by all his colleagues and he did not disagree. The pressures of the Cold War were almost as intense at Los Alamos as the pressures of the war that preceded it, but these pressures were resisted by Ulam. Mornings, he never appeared for work before ten, and in the afternoon he was gone at four. When Enrico Fermi organized hikes on Sundays, Ulam went along to the foot of the trail. Fermi, Hans Bethe, George Bell, Ted Taylor - up the talus slopes they went while Ulam sat below and watched them through binoculars.
- John McPhee, The Curve of Binding Energy
My annual tax refund arrived, it read, 'Congratulations on another job not done. Another dollar not well earned.' At 29, I am lazy on all accounts. I have no excuse. No hardship. The world is not conspiring against me because of where I'm from or the colour of my skin. My parts are in working order. My head screwed on right - though not right enough, it seems, such that my ass in a chair will result in the hydrogen bomb. Wholly unremarkable. And yet, what appears lazy seems most prudent.
There is significant risk in the way I live. I am afraid that in a few years time I will have nothing to show for it. And in this economy, a gap in your resume spells death.
Interviewer: Can you explain this five year gap in your resume?
Me: I just read books and thought.
Interviewer: Oh ... we will give you a call ...
So I don't get the job. And what's more, there is proof that it was all for nothing! Even more so, I am worse off than when I was a decade ago, considered unemployable, with no one to blame but myself.
But I'll take that risk, on the off chance that I think beautiful ideas. Heroic ideas. Ones less destructive than Mr. Ulam's. You do not need to be a genius to have great ideas. Lightning strikes idiots all the time. You do, however, need to be outside, in the storm, with a tin foil hat and a big metal pole.
So I live a lazy life because it is a stormy life. There is no gurantee. This isn't gallantry. I'll be at the bottom of the mountain, my peers at the top, looking through binoculars, lost in thought.