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I have a problem with this phrase have to. I don't have to do anything. There is no proven formula that works for anything. Winston Churchill was a lazy, lazy
by unalone 17y ago
I have a problem with this phrase have to. I don't have to do anything. There is no proven formula that works for anything.
Winston Churchill was a lazy, lazy man who succeeded because he was capable of brilliance for the short bursts of time he worked. Brian Wilson spent the infamous three years high in his bedroom, then returned with a series of masterpiece albums. Ricky Gervais was a disc jockey until he was 39, then made possibly the best television show of all time despite being lazy and disruptive both while writing and directing it. Marcel Duchamp spent how long making his fountain? It became the most famous piece of art of the century.
While I don't disagree that extraordinary efforts are required to produce things, I don't agree that "extraordinary" means hard work. Sometimes it means a willingness not to work unless the work means something.
- joshu 17y agoI didn't say that you just work hard at any random thing. it's important to do the right things. (I think of myself as very lazy as well; I tend to grind on ideas for months or years until they are simple enough.)
- unalone 17y agoIn that case I misinterpreted you.
- neilc 17y agoWinston Churchill was a lazy, lazy man who succeeded because he was capable of brilliance for the short bursts of time he worked Do you have a reference for that? My impression was that Churchill had a fairly intense work schedule. For example, http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-cohen061802.asp http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-cohen061802.as... : "Churchill, far from being an aristocratic lounger, was a glutton for work ... His working hours were, it is true, hard on his subordinates, extending as they frequently did into the small hours of the morning."
- unalone 17y agoChurchill had a lopsided schedule. He would wake up, work from his bed for a few hours, then sleep through lunch and wake again in the afternoon. He was criticized for not working a proper workday, but he insisted that taking a break in between kept him sharper for longer periods of time. So he wasn't lazy in that he did nothing—he wrote a series of histories and was one of Britain's most influential prime ministers—but he worked a unique schedule.
- neilc 17y agoRight. But I don't think the facts support that he was a "lazy, lazy man" or that he only worked for "short bursts."
- VMG 17y agoKarl Pilkington played with ladybirds for thirty-odd years of his life and then came up with Rockbusters.