I’m sitting in the dim of my room, early evening of a hot, hot day, begrudging the fan that only spins air that tickles and taunts, never really cooling. It’s only November and already summer has fallen down upon us like a ton of bricks. As I sit wishing I could throw my annoyance at the weather-gods, I wish I had spent my late afternoon at the beach or the pool, for then I wouldn’t be so prematurely weary with summer. Instead I spent my free time reading and snacking on tea and biscuits. And now I think of the time I’ve shamefully been a-wastin’, and all the thousands of other uses I could have put my afternoon to.


This permanent shadow of doubt that lingers over me, leaving me with a perpetual sinking feeling that there is something else I should be doing is much worse than the unwelcome heat. However I rack my brain I can’t think what it is I should be doing. And that, quite simply, is because there really is nothing else I should be doing. Yet despite no task being forgotten or mislaid, I suffer under the inescapable feeling that whatever is not work, is morally reprehensible time wasting. In those free moments in which I pick up my book, I am haunted by an impeccably guilty conscience drummed into me by years of study. Ill at ease I look over my shoulder, watching out for the essay that must be hanging over my head like an axe about to fall.

But there is nothing there, and so I begin to fret. Because surely, there must be something I have to rush of and do? Surely there must be something I don’t want to do but have to do, ready and waiting to disturb my free time?

Here I could begin my thesis, on the ultimate unattainability of true freedom, but instead, I think I shall devote my time to learning how to master the art of joyously doing Sweet Fuck All.