Reading that article inspired me to watch The Big Lebowski for the first time yesterday.

I can definitely see the author's point. But I couldn't relate to any of the characters. Every single character is lazy. The Dude is lazy in a peaceful-Buddhist-acceptance kind of way. The villains are proud of their imagined industry, while actually being useless and lazy. Walter is lazy because he's broken. Donny is clearly lazy, though his character isn't developed enough to know why.

I come from a long line of workaholics. Every single character was beyond my ability to understand or empathise.

Anthropologist and Mythologist Joseph Campbell says that, originally, every human did everything. We were complete. A man hunted and fished and built houses, and a woman cooked and wove baskets, and, in an ideal culture, hunted if they felt the inclination. Everyone did everything. We were complete.

But technology progressed, until it was no longer possible for any human to learn and do everything. We are each no longer complete humans.

Modern automation added to this. Industrialised societies easily produce their goods with 30–70% of the population, with the rest fulfilling unnecessary administrative roles to satisfy the labor-based economy.

And so, not only are we incomplete humans; for a large percentage, we are both incomplete and unnecessary.

So what's the solution? The film presents two obvious solutions: lie to yourself about your usefulness and requisitely condemn the unapologetically lazy; or be honestly and unapologetically lazy.

I do appreciate the value of the Buddhist philosophy of peace in idleness, though again, I have trouble understanding it. But I prefer a third option: to create one's own usefulness.†

† In Praise of Idleness, Bertrand Russell