I Can, But I Won’t

by Babs Rappleye (aka Tucker Neel)

Artillery Magazine, May/June. 2020.

Dear Babs, As an artist practicing social distancing I’ve begun feeling guilty for not doing more with all this new free time. I look on social media and everyone is being so productive, making art, and learning new skills. I’m not making art or much of anything. Should I feel guilty about my laziness? 

—Lazy in LA

Dear Lazy in LA, There’s a self-help industry out there filled with advice about how to get your creative mojo back. If you are expecting me to regurgitate the truisms from that life-coaching morass, I’m sorry to disappoint. Read Julia Cameron’s timeless book The Artist’s Way and see if that helps. 

What I really want to suggest is that you use this opportunity to consider what your “laziness” actually is and question why you feel guilty about it.

Given that America brands itself under the false pretense of hard-working exceptionalism supported by Horatio Alger myths and the lie of meritocracy that smooths over the bleak reality of systemic inequality and the evils of unbridled capitalism and corporate greed, it’s no surprise most of us feel guilty when we don’t want to work, or in our current shelter-in-place realty, cannot work. To not work is far too often seen as evidence of a great personal failure. The expectation for constant production in service of growth, whether in the form of quarterly reports, lines on a CV, or Instagram approval for one’s self-actualization, certainly contributes to that feeling of paralyzing anxiety about being lazy you’re now experiencing. So it makes sense that people feel obliged to “make use” of this new “free time.”

Obviously not everyone is fortunate enough to experience the same sort of freedom, certainly not the workers on the front lines of the battle against the virus and the people who are keeping life itself afloat: the millions we rely on to heal, feed, clean and care for this reality we each inhabit with unequal resources and varying positions of privilege. Some people have to work; our free time is their overtime. It’s worth taking a moment to appreciate this fact before moving along, not to make you feel more guilty, but because we need to acknowledge that we are not “all in this together” in the same way. If volunteering to help out might get you out of your funk, then by all means do so. But also know you’re not obligated to make masks, fundraise or make art about the pandemic. All that is great, but as long as you’re doing your part to responsibly slow the spread of the virus you’re doing something.

If you want to make art, make art. If you don’t, then don’t. But please don’t fall into the trap of feeling guilty you’re not creating the next masterpiece or conquering Duolingo. Perhaps you’re learning to be okay with not being productive, and that in the end may be the most productive thing you can or should do.