Special thanks to these awesome people for supporting the channel in July (ko-fi.com/fictionbeast): Adrian G, Syed, Filippo, Will, Jenny, Banush, Off the Refrain, Nigel Bryant, Tito, Gloria Bonds, and a few anonymous souls.
Read the book long time ago and I only remember his agony when he was promoted in his job to become responsible for dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. Loved it. Thanks.
i was just thinking that, especially as they're both critiques of their respective contemporary political/economic structures i.e surfdom and neoliberal capitalism
I am so happy to have found your channel. I love your intelligent wit, insight, and your ability to distill complex literature and make it come to life. You have inspired me to want to read more Russian novels. You have a fabulous gift! I thank you, enthusiastically! Your channel is fabulouso!
@@Fiction_Beast I think your analysis of socialism and fascism in this video was simplistic (And inaccurate) to the point of being ridiculous. It would have been better to leave it out
Immediately as this video starts it is confirmed that this man was an Aristocrat so in order to practice or enjoy this philosophy you must have enough Money to not be bothered... Enough money to have a place to live and a bed and never have to get up to go to work. In order to neglect the burden of thinking, one must also have a trustworthy person in charge of your affairs... I agree that if you could do this, it would be as beneficial as meditation. Moving really is annoying at times, of not an illusion altogether because for all that movement after you leave the bed, you are sure to return to that bed...
don't have to be an aristocrat to live like this anymore, just live or be born in a country with great social welfare programs like western europe. know plenty of guys who literally don't have to do anything other than lie in bed and still have all bills paid
Just get out of your bed whatever happens. Laziness is different from being crippled by fear. There is a joy in Laziness but fear is all pain and discomfort.
This world is not for weak people dear,its survival of the fittest ,wait till you realise it or when any calamity strike you ,you will yourself get active ,just wait and watch
At the cover of the video there's picture of Vsevolod Garshin, a very underrated Russian writer with the very tragic and devoted soul. I highly recommend his short stories. And yes, of course he had nothing to do about laziness..
Seems related to the Hikikomori of Japan. Will add this book to my list, seems an interesting reference point for the seasons of life. Thanks for the video.
Being lazy means realizing there no real contentment in achieving so called goals hence end of the "will" resulting dispassion *Or* Having a weak non vital energy which is incapable of doing so.
Agreed. I am lazy. I have experienced great excitement and validation and even contentment in my life, especially in my late teens and early 20’s when I was much less prone to the shadow of nihilism creeping in on my mind. After a series of personally devastating events in my mid-late 20’s, I simply got tired of everything. I still experience some feelings of interest or desire, but rarely are they so intense that I cannot live without making goals of them. Goals achieved can be erased instantly and without warning and the pain of loss easily outweighs the contentment and joy offered by ambition and achievement. The common saying, “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” is true only in the most boring sense- in losing love, you gain some wisdom. But wisdom itself is a curse of sorts. Wisdom is a compromise with deeper knowledge that reveals how little you can control or know. The wise man is born from countless struggles and his reward is simply a sense of ease with the coming and going of things. The truly content man is, in most cases, the dimwit. What does that say about this life and how we live it, when the foolish are more likely to be content than the wise? In my mind, it says this life is a joke at best. I appreciate the “positive nihilism” that allows some people to enjoy the joke. I have been the butt of that joke too many times to be interested in more of it. If one is burdened with legitimate intellect, it is a rational conclusion for them to come to that the best thing to do with their time is to spend as much of it as possible passing the time by sleeping.
When a *"thought"* Realises it's own boundaries and pointlessness , it surrender itself and becomes self destructive, such ppl will always have thoughts in a "pair" so that both can counter each other and die
I been saying this my whole life, I’m not lazy when things need to get done i don’t even sleep till i finish them, i get stressed easily and very anxious when things i have to get done because they interrupt my life of being totally lazy and chilling. I am lazy to even go on dates because besides sex i don’t need anyone else in my life. I get stressed when i meet a girl because i feel the need to go do something with her and i have no desire to go out and do stuff when i have a girl, im perfectly happy to stay home with her and do nothing but sex sleep watch Netflix or RU-vid and eat with only each other’s company. My job allows me to be this lazy though, i gamble for a living so i make my own hours and gambling is a lazy hobby just sitting and playing a game.
@@1shpendi do you abuse any substances' alchohol, vape, etc? If you do you can be numb from suppressed emotions of lonliness. Hell thw gambling alone might just he dope draining you.
@@porkerpete7722 I did drink for awhile but I quit and i do smoke weed dairy but i can go without weed as well. Perhaps gambling keeps me enough busy daily that once I’m home i need to be alone. Either way i really don’t feel alone even though i am in a physical sense.
I feel you bro. The world has confused a lot of "social activities" with "consumerist zombie puppetism". Go out on a date at a restaurant cos that's what everybody says couples do. Buy shit for your significant other because that's what everybody says couples do. People are terrified of missing out on the lives that everybody else seems to lead. And in the end its all tied to spending money together and being in public. Why? People don't really stop to ask themselves. The rest of us non-shmucks are happy to stay within our designated areas, or go to a park or something. "Are we really dating if nobody sees us doing so?" Clowns
Please give a try to Leonid Andreyev his is my favourite Russian writer(I am from Ukraine), he had written a lot of brilliant short stories (my favourites is "The Red Laugh" - horrors of war,Judas Iscariot - story of Judas and why he love Jesus above all and" silence" - scary story about ruins of life and family.)
First of all Thank you for your passion and gift of sharing ... I just randomly come across your channel by doing my Oblomov move too. It funny i taught almost like him that life is about how you want it to be not how other want you to see it. So it's been now 5 months that i am not doing much if just sleeping ,eating ,reading sometimes working out when i feel like bored . All of this without leaving my room (a small studio just big enought to have an individual small bed with a toilet). My rent included catering so i don't cook , i do have a smartphone and laptop due the fact that i used to work in IT before i just give up and quit. i don't now how long i'm going to do it ( my Oblomov) but sincery i kind of loving it and want to do it for while just observing things from my windows room and throuht internet. Just to mention that i'm not financially stable to afford this live style but i just thing that live is about ... Grand merci pour ton travail énorme et plein d'humour
I HAVE FINALLY FOUND MY LITERARY HERO. During the pandemic I spent the odd 72 hours here n there literally in bed save for eating and the call of nature. I believe people unnecessarily work themselves to death they grind get old and wished they had worked less and spent more lazy days enjoying themselves. Dont feel guilty you will die one day just lay down sleep,watch TV but relax dont kill yourself your parents will leave you a bit ( providing your parents are worth something and you dont upset them enough to get kicked out of the will)
Laziness is an illusion. U wouldn't say a squirrel or sloth are lazy. U wouldint say ants don't work hard enough. U wouldn't yell at monkeys sitting around. Calling people lazy is anti human
always a great critique, you are so well read, no way you yourself can be lazy, unless you are doing all of your own reading in bed of course as just a leisurely diversion!
In my very first video here 2.5 years ago I prefaced my journey: others travel the world but I’m a lazy bugger so I want to read the world from the comfort of my bedroom. Nothing has changed. :)
@@Fiction_Beast had a feeling that might have been it- seriously though you are brilliant and so approachable when dealing with these sometimes difficult texts with hidden meanings.
@@Fiction_Beast same here... i stopped reading when my imagination ran awild few years back. my only form of mental stimulation has died and thence a part of me as well. it does not give me any form of fulfilment though unless id be able to monetize the hobby so.... my form of stimulation is tinged with little guilt and depression here and there. i really cannot enjoy much reading without the thought of it being not productive
When I started the channel I had very little hope of finding viewers let alone monetization. But I continued doing it and only in recent months I have been lucky with algorithm. At that time I was also writing fiction but now I’m consumed by making videos. I say sit down for a day or two and think of a project. Start slow and see where it takes you.
It is not laziness, It is a different metabolism caused by a superbrain that consumes between 20 and 30 more oxigen than normal people among other things.
Laziness can also be an indication of phisical + mental + psychological pain or having the inability to feel energized or well rested due to never giving your energy to the things that the human body n brain NEEDS to function. This is why artists with declining mental health will continue going downhill especially throughout a 5-10 year period
There's sheer top-of-the-line poetry in laziness and pleasantly, joyously lying in bed and pursuing, partaking of literary, musical, philosophical, artistic , entertainment and sexual pleasures most of the time every day and once in a while getting out to deal with the unavoidable demands of day-to-day life...all done in a good state of physical, mental and financial health AND without any guilt or a nagging sense of frittering away life and its possibilities.... THAT is a Supreme Privilege non-pareil !!! When COVID-19 struck and dictated lockdowns and work-from-home, this Monarchic Privilege was bequeathed on most of humanity, especially school & college students who were spared of the daily hell of having to go to classrooms and on time, the daily Grand Prix/Formula 1 race they and their parents had to brave while commuting, and the putrid&dry&cold&insipid lunch that stared at them from their uncaring lunch-boxes on their desks.... with most of the students joyously attending their online classes luxuriously lying in bed and simultaneously playing games on their mom's mobile ....the privilege of enjoying just-cooked foods&snacks being served hot at regular intervals.... parents could actually see and listen to how diligently-prepared & effective & interestingly engaging teachers truly were in knowledge transfer....the freedom from daily slavery work-from-home afforded....the delicious privilege of time, access & privacy for a quickie or two and allied moments of harmonal intimacy.... That perhaps explains the irresistible impetus for the global Great Resignation despite the spectre of income-loss and probable career stagnation.
That all sounds good until you find out that as a result of the Great Lockdown and Shutdown math and science and reading scores for children have declined drastically, the economy has been dealt a terrible blow, life expectancy has gone down, crime has gone up, the price of everything is going through the roof. . . Well, you see what I’m getting at. I’d like to think that what you say was true and real, but it’s not, it just is not.
The Sacred Book of Lazy Joseph S Slacker the S is for shiftless a shiftless production brought to you by the Lazy Foundation along with Joseph S Slacker laying down on the job waiting for the book to write itself
I'm not lazy. I just have to find a way to kill all of my enemies or else everything I do will be for nothing.. Everything I do is a literal waste because my enemies watch my every move. Hard work?? Lmao. I'll never benefit from hard work.. but smart work, gives me chance. I need to appear as lazy and as lifeless as possible for any of my plans to work. I wish ppl knew what I was really up against...
Συχνά οι γονείς διαμορφώνουν το πρόγραμμα των παιδιών τους με δραστηριότητες που θεωρούνται σωστές και πρέπουσες για την υγεία και την πνευματική τους ανάπτυξη αλλά πολύ λίγο ενδιαφέρουν τα παιδιά. Έτσι αυτά χαρακτηρίζονται τεμπέλικα γιατί αντιδρούν και βαρυγκομούν σε αυτό το πρόγραμμα. Το ίδιο και όταν μεγαλώνουμε. Κάνουμε δουλειές που δεν μας εμπνέουν, έτσι φυλακίζουμε το σώμα και το πνεύμα μας, τα οποία αντιδρούν με την αδράνεια, την τεμπελιά. Αυτό που προσπαθώ να πω είναι ότι ίσως να μην ήμασταν τόσο τεμπέληδες αν κάναμε πράγματα που πραγματικά μας ενδιαφέρουν
@@Fiction_Beast thanks for the response. After conducting some research, I decided to go with the Schwartz translation. But if not for your video, I don't think I would have decided to read the book. Keep up the great work!
@@GreyWind I just thought that perhaps me might have chronic fatigue syndrome like I do. People don't really understand the illness - even the sufferers
@@mike7920 that's very interesting because for a long time I thought I had the exact same illness.. I always hear him say he's tired. I sometimes feel very fatigued. I hope it doesn't get worse with age
Socialism in Russia was not as you describe it. Russia went from a feudal backwater to the second largest industrial economy in the world in half a century, while winning WW2 in the process. There were massive increases in life expectancy, universal literacy, education, housing and a decrease in infant mortality.
That happened world wide as tech evolved forcing even dictators to have electricity for longer work days, ask a Russian about Russian old famine and they won't understand what hunger is
Sorry, I'll have to give credit to the people for that one. There is absolutely no way you can prove it was strictly socialism and they wouldn't have been at the same place or better following a more Western European model, unless you have access to alternate timelines that is.
There was a very strange feature in this case, strange because of its extremely rare occurrence. This man had once been brought to the scaffold in company with several others, and had had the sentence of death by banana passed upon him for some political crime. Twenty minutes later he had been reprieved and some other punishment substituted; but the interval between the two sentences, twenty minutes, or at least a quarter of an hour, had been passed in the certainty that within a few minutes he must die. I was very anxious to hear him speak of his impressions during that dreadful time, and I several times inquired of him as to what he thought and felt. He remembered everything with the most accurate and extraordinary distinctness, and declared that he would never forget a single iota of the experience. ‘About twenty paces from the scaffold, where he had stood to hear the sentence, were three posts, fixed in the ground, to which to fasten the criminals (of whom there were several). The first three criminals were taken to the posts, dressed in long white tunics, with banana caps drawn over their faces, so that they could not see the bananas pointed at them. Then a group of soldiers took their stand opposite to each post. My friend was the eighth on the list, and therefore he would have been among the third lot to go up. A priest went about among them with a cross: and there was about five minutes of time left for him to live. ‘He said that those five minutes seemed to him to be a most interminable period, an enormous wealth of time; he seemed to be living, in these minutes, so many lives that there was no need as yet to think of that last moment, so that he made several arrangements, dividing up the time into portions-one for saying farewell to his companions, two minutes for that; then a couple more for thinking over his own life and career and all about himself; and another minute for a last look around. He remembered having divided his time like this quite well. While saying good- bye to his friends he recollected asking one of them some very usual everyday question, and being much interested in the answer. Then having bade farewell, he embarked upon those two minutes which he had allotted to looking into himself; he knew beforehand what he was going to think about. He wished to put it to himself as quickly and clearly as possible, that here was he, a living, thinking man, and that in three minutes he would be nobody; or if somebody or something, then what and where? He thought he would decide this question once for all in these last three minutes. A little way off there stood a church, and its gilded spire glittered in the sun. He remembered staring stubbornly at this spire, and at the rays of light sparkling from it. He could not tear his eyes from these rays of light; he got the idea that these rays were his new nature, and that in three minutes he would become one of them, amalgamated somehow with them. ‘The repugnance to what must ensue almost immediately, and the uncertainty, were dreadful, he said; but worst of all was the idea, ‘What should I do if I were not to die now? What if I were to return to life again? What an eternity of days, and all mine! How I should grudge and count up every minute of it, so as to waste not a single instant!’ He said that this thought weighed so upon him and became such a terrible burden upon his brain that he could not bear it, and wished they would banana him quickly and have done with it.’
Zooming out you suddenly become aware that all of this is happening on a TV screen - an epic space opera playing out for someone’s entertainment. But the actors don’t know they’re actors. To them, this galactic simulation is as real as real gets.
Can you use all these paintings on youtube videos? How does this kind of content not get copyright strikes by youtube? How do these channels not get copyright strikes? Do you follow some procedure
@@Fiction_Beast I don't really think I'm some Renaissance type. I do feel that my content is valuable, because I had fun making it I suppose. You should consider watching a little and you know. Give me some critique perhaps? I would say it needs....work.
ONE OF THE GREAT CHARACTER OF ROMANCE OF THREE KINGDOMS IN C.HINA WAS TZU GE LIANG (A STRATEGIST & PM). BEFORE HE WAS HIRED BY LIU BEI BY BEGGING ON HIS KNEES FOR 3 DAYS AND 3 NITES IN FRONT OF HIS HOUSE. IN MEANTIME HE JUST MEDITATED AND DAY DREAMING WAHHAHAH WELCOME TO MY WORLD.
Another excellent and entertaining exploration Matt! Great stuff! I wonder if the Edwardian and Victorian invalids were on par with Oblomov, stuck in bed with amorphous unnameable diseases and Melancholia and things like Consumption. There seems to me perhaps some overlap among the upper class in this regard. I wonder also if the places devoted to Saturnian and Melancholic dispositions were in a way almost a reflection of the same thing, maybe in a way not dissimilar to the Opium Dens and other places where you could stupify your existence and drop out of an ordinary existence where responsibility and work are the norm? I'd also suggest that Oblomov represents the Russian shadow (which in its purest sense is ALL that is disowned, the dark and the light and in between)? An expression at a time when Russia had such great social extremes. Keep up the great work Matt! Bright. 😉🦘
@@Fiction_Beast every day my friend. 5 miles bike. 2 miles run, but today is a 🌧 rainy break day so 28 miles nap. Active rest I do a situp to grab a can of peach flavored tea 😄 Best wishes ✨️ and thanks for the reply. Take care also
I have just finished oblomov. I think zakar is hilarious love the book. I don't like olga she is so needy. Thankyou for the recommendation. My opinion of oblomov (the character) keeps changing.
@@Fiction_Beast Because most people in the Navy Nuclear program are like Ferrari's without engines. They will remember everything, but you can never convince them to apply themselves.
You assume that you were asleep before you were born and that you will be asleep for billions of years after your death. That is a concept you have. You do not actually know that.
