How to Be Free
A guide to escaping woes of overcompetitive society and embracing anti-work principles.
The Archive
Thoughts & Essays
Page 5 of 8
Book Review: How to Be Free by Tom Hodgkinson
If you have found yourself subject to the woes of overcompetitive society, this is a book worth reading. Throughout most of the book, I found reassurance that I am not the only one that has escaped the life of excess. I, however, by mere circumstance and accident, have alone learned about many of the philosophies…
Book Review: Hello Laziness, Why Hard Work Doesn’t Pay by Corinne Maier
It’s 2023 as I write this aphoristic review and this book, beautifully subtitled ‘Why Hard Work Doesn’t Pay‘, is still immensely relevant. First published in 2004, reading this book 19 years on makes me wonder if anything has changed for the better in the working world all this time. The answer clearly is, no. As…
Book Review: Power, A New Social Analysis by Bertrand Russell
Power, a fantastic work of Russell’s extended bibliography. Written just before the start of WW2, the reader, if rudimentarily familiar with the political psychology of that time, will notice Russell’s observation of events and socio-political matters leading up to the war. In many respects whilst reading the book, which is now almost 1oo years after…
The Intangibility of Thoughts
Thoughts are just intangible objects of consciousness. Although thoughts can be perceptively derivative representations of reality, they are not empirical or physical. Whilst thoughts can indeed be correct, they still consist of assumptions, presuppositions, inferences and – especially for the average population – are heavily influenced by both personal and collective biases, fallacies and –…
A Conformist's Fear of Speaking Truthfully
A conformist is afraid to speak out and to express truly against someone or something such as an injustice, incompetency, unfairness or an exposition of bias because of a fear of being disliked by said person or a group. Being disliked also becomes a downright fear for those that suffer with social anxiety disorder. The…
A Message to All Non-Conformists
Allow yourself to navigate life according to your own ideal. Do what you want to do even at the most fundamental levels providing the harm principle is not broken along this necessary endeavour. If you want to be idle, then be idle. If you want to adopt an eccentric style of dress, then do so.…
Bullies Abundant in the Modern Workplace
The modern workplace is the haven of matured bullies, yet these workplaces claim to establish and follow superficial social policies on mental health and anti-bullying. Bullying (whether intrinsic or psychopathic) is innate and inevitable in work culture. Competition, the idea of merit, financial pressure and the excesses of work ethic cannot be what they are…
An Accidental Existence
Why does the moon orbit the earth; earth the sun; and so on. There are scientific answers to these questions yet people are looking for existential answers. There aren’t any. That makes a lot of people uncomfortable. We are an accident in spacetime; only by mere probability have we become conscious beings. The fact that…