The Slacker Manifesto

I’d like to start off this article with a short anecdote. Once upon a time, there was a boy named Little Willy. Of course, this wasn’t his real name, but I call him this for two reasons: 1) because it’s easier to say, and 2) because it fits him in more ways than one. Anyway, Little Willy grew up in the late 1800s, a time when many changes were taking place throughout the world. Big things were happening, but Little Willy didn’t care. Little Willy only cared about one thing and one thing only: croquet. Yes, that’s right. Croquet. Little Willy dreamed of becoming an Olympic croquet champion. Day after day, night after night, he worked hard toward accomplishing this goal. His friends would constantly beg him to take a break and hang out with them, but Little Willy would sternly reply, “No! I have to keep on training if I want to become an Olympic croquet champion! I can save fun time for later!” Little Willy was an admirable young boy. He knew that if you worked hard enough, you could always achieve your goals.

In 1900, before Little Willy had gotten a chance to compete, croquet ceased to be an Olympic sport. Deeply depressed, Little Willy turned to a life of drugs and prostitution, and died soon after of an opium overdose.

The point of that story was partly to distract you while I stole your wallet. But it also carries a very important message: Even if you work hard and make sacrifices, there’s a definite chance that you’ll fail to get where you want. This, of course, is very depressing. This also means, however, that if you’re making big sacrifices in the hope of achieving a long-term goal, you’re taking a huge gamble. If you apply this theory to school, it’s plain to see that anybody who’s busting their chops to get to the top of their class is not only an overachiever, but also a natural gambler.
Of course, the obvious counterargument to this is that to be successful, it’s necessary to take risks. Yeah. Tell that to Little Willy.

One would think that it’s better to relax and just follow the old saying: “Live each day as if it were your last.” This seems like a good way to live, right? If you answered yes, you’re a complete idiot (that is, unless you’re female and attracted to me. In that case, you’re still a complete idiot, but with a nice body and a great personality). I mean, think about it. If you lived each day as if it were your last, you’d be able to completely ignore consequence. You could do no work, break a million laws, and do heavy drugs, all the while thinking to yourself, “Hey, why should I care? Today’s the last day of my life!” So, if you meet anybody on the street and they tell you, “Live each day as if it were your last!” I personally give you my permission to smack them upside the head.

So, by using simple logic, we can deduce that it’s stupid to do no work, and yet it’s equally stupid to do a lot of work. Therefore, the smartest people are those who position themselves somewhere in-between these two extremes. “But where is this middle ground?” you ask. “And who are these people?” The answer is simple. This middle ground is known as mediocrity. These people are known as slackers.

Slackers are the masters of the ancient art of mediocrity. They recognize it as the delicate balance between effort and carelessness, and strive to achieve this balance. For these beliefs, they have been constantly persecuted. Throughout history, slackers have been labeled as “lazy,” “unmotivated,” “foolish,” or even “retards who would rather hang out at the local pizza place than study for Calculus. What idiots! I’ll rip off their arms and beat them with their own fists!” Of course, these are all false accusations (except for maybe the last one, minus the threat of arm detachment). Slackers are not stupid. They are hyper-efficient pragmatists. They are committed to doing only as much as they need to in order to succeed. Any more than that, to a slacker, is a huge waste of time and effort.

Many of you may be wondering exactly why I wrote this article, considering that no slacker is going to read it, since it would take too much effort. I guess that’s right, but perhaps I didn’t write this for the slackers. Maybe I wrote this for those hard-working individuals who thumb their nose at people that don’t “work to their full potential” and don’t “stay up all night writing reports on how processed pig lard relates to the American Revolution.” This article might be for them, so that they can see the error in their ways, and bring an end to slacker-related hate crimes.

Then again, maybe I wrote this article to try to convert more people to the slacker lifestyle. In fact, if I can get everyone to slack off, then in effect, nobody will be slacking off. We’ll have a state of educational equality, where nobody is smarter or harder working than anyone else. Perhaps that’s what slacking is all about: equality. Yeah, that’s it. Equality. And maybe Olympic croquet. I can’t get enough of that stuff.

[not written by me, but i love it anyway]