E-ri-e Canal by Burl Ives

I have been listening to this song on repeat.

If you can make me rich, do not hesitate.

The felt absence of gainful employment is almost, perhaps, as bad as its felt presence. The principal, infuriating bother of a job, had or not had, is having to pay any attention to it. Jobs, like driving, are to be condemned because they make a chore of one's mental life.

There is probably nothing I cherish so much as my own free-wheeling thoughts, left to themselves--but it is precisely these which the duty to scrape for hourly pay and the nuisance of changing lanes aim to destroy. And they tend to succeed in their aims. It is not the strain on my body or my time that I cannot tolerate, but the taxing of my mind, my whole mind.

But, as I say: not having a job does no work to solve the problem. After two weeks of delightful, idling indigence, I am obligated by threat of insolvency and the nagging nags of loved ones to fill out my share of applications, and make my personal contribution to the working force. He does not want it, but in addition to my man-hours, the man shall take, free of charge, my very soul.

I am not surprised that so many refuse the life of the mind. I cast no contempt upon one who retreats from thought to television, when thought consists of solicitude over one's credit score.