Open Writing

Go ahead. Call me lazy. I admit it. In fact, I take it as a compliment, even though that's probably not the way it was intended. Let me explain, and maybe you'll agree.

Picture a couple of our cave-man ancestors, squatting at the mouth of their cave.

"Zeke," says Zug, "you are one lazy hunter, but I have to admit that stampeding that mammoth off the edge of a cliff sure beats running after him for a week, until he gets too tired to fight."

"Listen, Zug," says Zeke. "We can do better than that. Let's just relax here in the shade and think about it. There must be an easier way."

"Okay, Zeke, but don't forget we have to get him butchered and carry all we can back to camp before dark."

"Hey," says Zeke, "I got a plan for that, too. After we rest a while, I'll get a fire built, and you can run back to camp and bring the women and kids. It's only a couple of miles. No reason we can't camp over here until they get him butchered. Tell Zelda to bring my stuff, so I won't have to go get it. And hand me that water skin, would you please?"

All man's progress is due to enlightened laziness. That's my belief.

"That's the way we've always done it," is a copout. Maybe that's the best way, maybe not. But it couldn't hurt to step back and think it over. Or maybe it could. Thinking may look like somebody doing nothing, but it can be hard, painful work. And it can get you in a lot of trouble.

The herd resists doing new things, or doing old things in new ways. The changes don't always turn out for the better. And even when the new idea is wildly successful, the innovator isn't necessarily universally admired and acclaimed. Ask Bill Gates.

But if some indolent intellectual hadn't come up with the idea of fastening his head-bashing rock to a broken branch, the war-club and tomahawk wouldn't exist, and if some clever but shiftless lady hadn't learned to use a sharp-edged stone to skin and cut up the meat for supper, we'd still be opening dead animals with our teeth.

The very word 'lazy' carries an unfavorable connotation.

Here's the American Heritage Dictionary definition:

Lazy: Resistant to work or exertion; disposed to idleness..

SYNONYMS: lazy, fainéant, idle, indolent, slothful. The central meaning shared by these adjectives is "not disposed to exertion, work, or activity":

See! Even the dictionary doesn't have a good word for the lazy. No hint that there might be some merit in Enlightened Laziness.

I used to have a cartoon under the plate-glass top on my old wood desk. It showed two guys in swivel chairs, each leaned back, with feet propped on opposite sides of a desk. The caption was, "Think - maybe we can avoid this work." That's the spirit! That's how the world becomes a better place.

There must be an easier way. Or a safer way. Or a quicker way. A better way. Not the old, hard way. Man is the tool-making animal. That's perhaps the whole core of our genius..The purpose of a tool is to make life easier or more pleasant in some way. And tools are developed by someone too lazy to do something the old , hard way.

"Let's think about it." The mantra of the lazy. Enlightened Laziness. The first step to progress. There must be an easier way.