What stoners teach us about self-care

“The last two years have been pretty much a write-off,” said a friend of Zoom, defeated and bored. Followed by: “I was so unproductive.” It feels like the two pillars of 2020 and 2021 are productivity anxiety related to Covid-19 and Zoom.

Research into inproductivity is popping up everywhere as employers languish over the prospect of allowing their employees to work from home. Supposedly people will spend all day on Animal Crossing forgetting that in this hellish landscape we have to work to eat.

But it’s not just research. Friends and family got in touch, exchanging stories about the nothing we do all day, see nothing we see and nowhere we go.

I used to long for lazy nights on the couch with a shitty B-movie and a joint to pass the night away. Now somehow every day feels like this. Coupled with COVID-19 productivity anxiety, it makes me think that maybe I shouldn’t be feeling so good about it anymore.

But as I listened to my friend talk about the so-called zombie state that many of us have been in since the pandemic began, I thought about the intersections of productivity culture, Covid’s fear of missing out, and the stoner- Ethos to just let up, man.

Covid 19 and productivity anxiety

Ever since employers realized that their workers could have a life and go home and smoke, the media has been full of derisive reports of the lazy stoner. In counterculture films, however, these depictions were more comedic. Although at times there was an underlying feeling that these people are not what we should be striving for. Of course, we now know that much of the media correlation between weed and laziness has been a smear campaign. Even then, many stoners actually took on the lazy image.

The thing is, slacking off is a pretty radical act in the culture of immediacy. And the shortcomings of this culture only became more apparent with the arrival of Covid.

Overwork, getting multiple jobs to get by, working overtime, working overtime without pay, getting hectic every day, just feeling like we are worth something when we hit any milestone in our life – all of these are part of the productivity culture. They were all glorified and encouraged, which harmed the physical and mental health of the workers.

Photo by: Austin Distel

Covid and lost time

When Covid broke out around the world, pandemic-specific productivity fears came to the fore. For the first time, it sheds an unflattering light on the problematic productivity and work culture that lies within us. The workers had little guidance on how to turn their lives upside down and face this novel problem lost time.

There are three main problems related to productivity:

1. Fear of being unproductive: I haven’t achieved much and this will come back and bite my ass
2. Feelings of guilt about perceived laziness: I don’t have to achieve a lot because I’m so lazy
3. Fear of wasted time: I could have done this thing this year, but not because of COVID, which means I may never do it

This toxic combination of bad feelings has, of course, led to a skyrocketing increase in mental health problems.

Virtually every worker experienced an unprecedented and harrowing disruption in their work flow. As my friend said, two years is a write-off. But I couldn’t accept that. Two full years – that’s 731 days or 17,544 hours. Could none of this help?

When I went out on lazy nights with a joint in hand and giggled in front of the television with a buzz in my ears, was that a write-off?

Is it worth spending time doing something that is considered “productive”?

So what do we do to deal with fear? Experts have recommended everything from reducing your social media use to creating a new routine. These are all helpful suggestions that might work for most people. However, I find that criticism of the underlying problem is sorely lacking in mainstream reporting.

Here, in my opinion, we can take a well-smoked leaf from the stoner manual.

What does it mean to slack off?

Picture by: Sony Pictures

I first encountered slacker films at university. At that time I juggled studying, part-time work and intensive extracurricular involvement. All of this was part of a futile effort to meet unspoken expectations of productivity.

From Pineapple Express to The Big Lebowski, I looked for catharsis from the various slacker leads. The latter in particular made a remarkable impression. When I saw the film, I was jealous of The Dude’s outlook on life, especially his bowling analogies about the nature of life such as “strikes and gullies, ups and downs”. But one quote sticks in my mind: “I can’t worry about that shit. Life goes on, man. “

The movie hasn’t changed my life or anything, but I think about it a lot when the subject of productivity messes up my luck.

Conventional attitudes would lead us to believe that slacking off means being less committed, and that is a bad thing. Well, you know, that’s just your opinion, man.

The term “slacker” actually originated in the 18th and 19th centuries and gained importance when Sudanese workers “slacked off”. AKA worked very slowly and without energy to protest the mistreatment of the British.

At a time when hyper-efficiency and maximum productivity are a constant expectation, the smartest and most moral thing to do might be to let up.

Regain time

Across the world, increasingly absurd work demands, low wages and abusive superiors mean that people are becoming the ethos of the idler. Now stoners who have long been vilified for their lack of work ethic can finally be justified.

Indeed, the Covid era has seen the rise of the anti-work movement, reflecting the mounting frustration of workers, which has been exacerbated by the unsustainable work situations many have found themselves in due to the pandemic.

All of this is only for me to say, the next time you feel the fear of being unproductive, take some time to take care of yourself and disconnect from the noise of the world. Finally, psychiatrists recommend stepping back and respecting downtime as the key to combating Covid productivity anxiety. Experts emphasize that this is really not the time to think about this promotion. But it’s also important to question why you need to feel bad in the first place. We are in the middle of an ongoing global pandemic. Lives are lost and at stake. Let yourself go a little.

In the 90s and 00s, the term “slacker” caught on, thanks in part to a series of films that dealt with the subject of slacking. It is no accident that this period coincides with the release of some of the most famous films in stoner culture.

Richard Linklater directed one such film, aptly titled Slacker (1990). Here’s what he had to say about the slacking off:

I want to change [the definition of a slacker] to someone who does not do what is expected of them. Someone who is trying to have an interesting life, do what they want to do, and if it takes time to find it then so be it.

Richard Linklater, Mondo 2000 (9)