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Thank goodness we can get aerobic exercise in while gardening. If ‘twere not so, gardening might be - horror - unproductive! “The modern man thinks that everyth

Thank goodness we can get aerobic exercise in while gardening. If ‘twere not so, gardening might be - horror - unproductive! “The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.” I know “nobody reads the article” is an HN joke, but surely asking whether Russell uses the word idleness in his essay titled “In Praise of Idleness” is taking the mick...

brushfoot 6y ago
Edited -- I'd forgotten they cited the essay in the article. :-) I know what you're saying and for the most part, I agree. I don't want to give the impression that I'm disparaging what isn't immediately materially, visibly useful to me. I don't believe in "inutile beauty" from a philosophical perspective, but not in the sense that I want to do away with it...just that I don't believe it exists. I think everything has some effect. So that's one thing I like about gardening -- I find (for me) there's a bigger cluster of positive effects around gardening than jogging. The produce makes my family and friends happy and there are little goals to keep me distracted from the exertion. I still get the cognitive effects of a hard aerobic workout, but there are other benefits too. I'm curious, what would you consider an unproductive activity?