A teenage boy sits on the couch day after day, and his father springs into action by writing a book. Go figure. One man's sloth is another man's motivator.

Tom Lutz, author of "Doing Nothing," couldn't believe that his 18-year-old son seemed to have no drive whatsoever. Young Cody was taking some time off before college to live in Los Angeles with his dad and pursue a career in the music or film industry.

But as far as the elder Lutz could tell, his son was nothing but a slacker, wasting away his precious youth.

Lutz considered his own ill choices during adolescence and didn't know why his son's sloth should bother him so much. But it did, so he researched — perhaps a little too extensively, for a book about indolence — the history of idlers, loungers, loafers and bums, seeking to find an answer to America's simultaneous proclivities for torpor and workaholism.

He found that the two are more closely related than they appear.

"If the self-made man pulling himself up by his bootstraps is the typical American, the slacker is his necessary twin, a figure without whom American history is equally unthinkable," Lutz wrote.

Behind every bathrobe-clad, "Big Lebowski"-style dude, there's an inventive, nose-to-the-grindstone Ben Franklin.

asap caught up with slacker guru Lutz to get tips on how NOT to do nothing. Here's his advice to an idling generation.

HOW NOT TO DO NOTHING

#5 "Don't read pieces like these."

Top-five lists don't exactly hone the skill of stick-to-itiveness. They don't cultivate a long attention span; they reward restlessness. But enough about that — moving on ...

#4 "Follow your passion."

That's what motivates you to get going.

Renowned philosopher William James, for instance, did not want to follow the career in medicine his father thought he should pursue. Instead, he did what he loved and became successful for it.

"He found a career in which he could continually follow whatever he was interested in," Lutz said.

#3 "Make a decision."

Sometimes the variety of options available renders us motionless.

"People get stuck on the couch because they could either go to medical school or become a philosopher or a cook or a carpenter, and they can't bear to make a decision because they don't want to get stuck in the decision that they've made," Lutz said.

Fortunately, people these days get to change careers a lot, so this fear need not be so paralyzing. "You don't have to feel like you're giving away your whole life to whatever it is you decide to do this week," Lutz said.

#2 "Remember that the slackers you're emulating were created by engaged, productive people."

Beatnik Jack Kerouac wrote about hitchhiking hippies in "On the Road." Kevin Smith directed the movie "Clerks," about apathetic twenty-somethings stuck in boring jobs. Richard Linklater created the self-explanatory film "Slacker."

But it takes work to write books or make movies, and Kerouac, Smith and Linklater are some of the leading producers in their fields.

#1 "Listen to your boredom."

"If you're doing anything worth doing, you won't be bored," Lutz said.

"If you're bored, that means it's time to do something. The Xbox simply postpones the next spell of boredom, whereas work actually is the cure."

___

Hillary Rhodes is an asap staff reporter.

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.