Too much time on his hands

http://boingboing.net/2002/02/03/too-much-time-on-his.html

119 41 16 years ago

unwind• 16 years ago

Why does a Real Author write "pass-time"? Isn't "pastime" the actual word, and "pass-time" just a weird homonym? Or is it actually "accepted" as a real word?

I realize natural languages don't have binary contains() functions for words, it's just something that I tend to stumble over as a non-native speaker.

nollidge2• 16 years ago

As a native speaker, I stumbled over it also. I've never seen it before. It may be idiosyncratic to Doctorow, but it's not in common usage.

twoshortwords• 16 years ago

He may be deliberately using a strange wording to point out that these activities "pass time" (and not much else). However, I agree that the wording is off. Especially considering that's what "pastime" means in the first place [1]. Paul Brians notes that "pastime" is correct, too [2].

[1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pastime [2]: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/pasttime.html

stan_rogers• 16 years ago

Usage and spelling have regional variants, and Cory is (like myself) Canadian. We Canadians of a certain vintage (those educated before American spellings were given the nod in the Canadian Press Manual of Style) have tended to retain older spellings. "Pass-time" is among them, and it appears in Canadian writing (with or without the hyphen) far more often than the single-ess version.

CodeMage3• 16 years ago

Sorry, but I disagree. A lot. For example, the author claims that "the slur brooks no possibility that the speaker has failed to appreciate some valuable, fulfilling element of the subject's hobby."

Here the Author claims that the Speaker failed to appreciate some element in what the Enthusiast produced. It could just as easily be interpreted as the Enthusiast's failure to produce something the Speaker could appreciate.

In condemnation of the phrase he hates, the Author ascribes malicious intentions to the Speaker who uses it. That's a misrepresentation. "Too much time on his hands" usually implies that the Enthusiast produced something for which the Speaker sees no use, which prompts the Speaker to imply that it would be better to apply the Enthusiast's energies and passions on something the Speaker finds useful. Along with passing judgment on Enthusiast's work (something that upsets the Author), the Speaker also recognized the Enthusiast's passion.

Of course, some of this stuff will surely be relegated to the scrapheap of history.

Let's face it, most of the "fringey" stuff is relegated to the scrapheap of history. For every misunderstood genius, you have many more harmless nuts who invent and patent "Method and apparatus for automatically exercising a curious animal"[1]. What changed is our ability to perceive them globally, or, to be more precise, their ability to broadcast to a wider public.

Having more freedom to direct your thoughts and opinions to a wider audience than before, does not mean you're somehow entitled to have those thoughts and opinions respected.

[1] http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6701872.html

nollidge2• 16 years ago

> It could just as easily be interpreted as the Enthusiast's failure to produce something the Speaker could appreciate.

Was the Enthusiast even attempting to produce something the Speaker could appreciate, or was it merely for their own amusement/edification? If it's the latter, then the Speaker's a Dick for going out of their way to insult the Enthusiast. The Speaker is not entitled to be enamored with the Enthusiast's tinkerings.

Saying "you've got too much time on your hands" is telling the person that they'd be better off spending their time on something else. But who are you to judge? What entitles you to make a pronouncement like that?

> the Speaker also recognized the Enthusiast's passion.

They're proclaiming that the Enthusiast's passion would be better spent elsewhere, which I suppose is a recognition of the mere existence of said passion, but it's hardly a gesture of respect, as you're implying.

> Having more freedom to direct your thoughts and opinions to a wider audience than before, does not mean you're somehow entitled to have those thoughts and opinions respected.

No, of course not, but neither is anyone entitled to actively disrespect every flight of fancy they come across.

CodeMage3• 16 years ago

Was the Enthusiast even attempting to produce something the Speaker could appreciate, or was it merely for their own amusement/edification? [...] What entitles you to make a pronouncement like that?

Interesting questions, especially because they don't have only one answer. Let's say I make a video of a "fringey" hobby I have; pick anything you would profoundly useless. Let's say I send that video to a group of my friends, saying "look what I did". If it somehow finds its way to a broader audience on the Internet, for which it was not intended, and some Joe Schmoe says "this guy has too much time on his hands", then you could say that he's being a Dick. You could also say my friends were Dicks for exposing me to Joe Schmoe's ridicule.

However, if I take that same video, post in on a public site, with no access controls (such as YouTube ), saying "look what I did", then I'm inviting people to give their opinions on it. I'm entitling a hypothetical Speaker to judge my work.

I'm not implying it's a gesture of respect. I'm simply claiming that it's a recognition of that passion, because the Author's sentiment is that this passion is not recognized by people who use the phrase "too much time on his hands". Of course, we could quibble about the word "recognize". To forestall that, I'll explain that I'm using it in the sense of acknowledging something, not acclaiming something.

No, of course not, but neither is anyone entitled to actively _dis_ respect every flight of fancy they come across.

In other words: "Either offer a constructive criticism or shut up." That's okay, I agree with that completely. What I disagree with is reacting out of proportion to the disrespect. That kind of reaction usually comes from the false sense of entitlement, a feeling that not only people shouldn't disrespect your passions, but that they should keep quiet if they disagree.

aplusbi• 16 years ago

Nobody ever says to someone watching Law & Order reruns that they have too much time on their hands.

roc• 16 years ago

I think "Couch Potato" covers it.

If you ask me, I think it's a much further-reaching pejorative.

sophacles• 16 years ago

I don't know, because the couch potatoes are usually the ones delivering the "too much time" proclamation.

notahacker• 16 years ago

I think that Farmville players are the definitive example of people with too much time on their hands.

neutronicus• 16 years ago

I don't think it's as insulting as the author implies, more of a ritual placeholder response, an admission that "I have nothing intelligent to say about your work, but social graces demand a response and I refuse to default to sycophantic praise simply because what you did took effort."

KeithMajhor2• 16 years ago

I am frequently offended by the things people say out of convention.

CodeMage3• 16 years ago

Were you ever irked by a polite, yet completely groundless compliment, offered out of convention? For example, when someone who is completely unqualified to judge your work tells you "Great job!"

In a situation like that, I often feel two simultaneous reactions, one being "How would you know?" and the other "I appreciate the sentiment." Guess which one I choose to act upon?

Just as "great job" from someone who doesn't know anything about it is not such a big deal because it was simply a nice gesture, so can "too much time on his hands" be (sometimes) considered to be no big deal because there was no specific malice behind it.

In other words, while I agree with the sentiment, people sometimes need to grow a skin bit thicker than they have.

imd• 16 years ago

"Defaulting" to dismissal isn't a default, it's a decision. They could just say, hmm, interesting.

dkarl4• 16 years ago

As I said in the other thread, Cory Doctorow is an editor at Boing Boing and has a vested interest in other people creating art projects that make web surfers go "oooh, shiny!" for thirty seconds. It's in his best interest for people to work weeks or months to produce something that provides a few seconds of "wonder" for web surfers who then click on a YouTube video and forget they ever saw the Cylon moose or what-not. I think it's a very bad idea to assume that something has value just because it attracts clicks and eyeballs, and I don't think it's a bad idea for people to wonder what else they could do with their time and energy. But hey, if it's fun, that's a good enough justification for how someone spends their free time.

strick• 16 years ago

What about the merits of what Doctorow has written? I'm not sure his background is terribly relevant here. What if PG had written this piece and it was a defense of someone who invested lots of time and energy reading HN articles and making comments? Would you then agree "That guy has too much spare time"?

dkarl4• 16 years ago

I think Doctorow assumes a lot about the motivations and the depth of thought of a person who says, "He has too much time on his hands." The real substitute for thought is Doctorow's dismissal of critical judgment: "But who can say what? Who can say which technologies and movements will be the enduring delights of generations to come, subject of PhD theses and documentary films, and which ones will be merely charming but obscure footnotes?"

Who can say? We can say. We have to decide what's worth our time and what's not. We pass judgment on other people's work. We'll be wrong much of the time, but turning off our critical faculty altogether is worse than being wrong. At least "too much time on his hands" is a statement that can become the basis for a conversation, if you give the speaker some credit instead of assuming his statement is a "substitute for thought." The speaker might be prepared to expand on his opinion if someone wants to hear it. Anyway, a person who sees no value in something is irrelevant to its future. Its future depends on people who do see value in it, not on the open-mindedness or delicate consideration of people who don't.

Furthermore, it's hypocritical for an editor of an extremely popular, carefully polished and curated blog to pretend he doesn't discriminate. People visit Boing Boing because Boing Boing consistently delivers quick nuggets of feel-good eccentricity whose substance is optional to the experience. Like any successful blog, it has a consistent and narrow culture. You won't find an impassioned screed advocating Communist government on Boing Boing, or a gallery of tattoos commemorating murders committed by the tattooees, or Buffy incest fanfic, or a patent for a WiMax antenna, or a discussion of why it's a bad deal for individual investors to buy corn futures.

"The genuinely disruptive, novel artefacts are by definition unpredictable," he says. But he chooses items for Boing Boing that have a predictable flavor. That's okay. The world needs to be organized, and sometimes it has to be organized by collective or individual taste.

Maybe the whole thing is just a plea to protect the fragile ego of creators. Express your taste, guys, but do so in the politest terms possible. Bullshit. If you can't handle a simple "too much time on his hands" comment, then you shouldn't present your work for public consumption. Hide it away from the sight of anybody who might accidentally have an opinion about it. Especially if you're bothered by opinions that (per Doctorow's assumption) are vacuous, because as H.L. Mencken said, injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice. If you can't handle thoughtless, vacuous criticism, then god forbid anybody takes your work seriously; you'll have an aneurysm.

stcredzero2• 16 years ago

It could be said that I am that guy. It's not that I have more time to spend than other people. I'm just more profligate with it.

eavc2• 16 years ago

Your last sentence is key.

Cory is primarily talking about intrinsic value.

shadowsun7• 16 years ago

You are giving us a highly convoluted ad-hominem attack. Debate against Doctorow's arguments (particularly his assertion that passion shouldn't be dismissed), don't point out to us that Doctorow is biased. This is equivalent to saying "Oh of course he'll say that, he's a politician" without giving any thought to the ideas said politician has presented. See: http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html (where that example of a politician was taken from)

dkarl4• 16 years ago

I didn't say Cory Doctorow should be ignored because he is a blogger; I said he is defending the production of material that benefits his own interests. Pointing out interest is not the same as attacking someone's identity. Your example is false; it is not like saying someone's argument should be ignored because "he's a senator." It's like pointing out that a senator is arguing for a bill that benefits a company he holds stock in. There's nothing convoluted or ad hominem about it.

mortenjorck• 16 years ago

Beyond any implicit insult, I don't like the logical fallacy upon which "too much time on his hands" is founded.

There's no way for an outside observer to know how much free time someone has based only on a viewing of the fruits of their hobby. That guy who built an ornate castle out of clothes pins may well have a packed schedule, and it was all he could do to cram the building in a few hours a week.

Actually, remember the guy who built a fully-functioning Daft Punk helmet that was making the rounds a couple of weeks ago? That took him 18 months. It was a labor of love for no external gain, but he quite likely had very little free time for it to take him that long.

gxti• 16 years ago

"It was a labor of love for no external gain"

Actually it was a commission, although he made one for himself as well.

kenjackson• 16 years ago

It's not an implicit insult. It's an explicit one. At least when I say it. I could also say, "I wouldn't have wasted my time doing what that.". And sometimes I do.

If you don't want to hear my opinion, don't make your ears available to me.

And just because you spend 18 months making a hat, doesn't mean that I have to like it, appreciate it, defer judgment on it, or anything else.

Is this statement preferred, "That person clearly has different priorities or available time on their hand that would allow them to, what I would consider, waste it, on such a frutless effort." I guess I just prefer the shorthand.

akadruid• 16 years ago

It doesn't seem strange to me that anything unique enough to be described as a hobby will have it's detractors. Even massively mainstream activities frequently attract meaningless dismissives: couch potato, exercise nut, more money than sense, and so on.

Humans are natural pattern matches and subscribe to a set of ideals; anyone that does not fit their pattern and forces them to think differently is going to cause defensiveness in some people; the least of which is simple dismissal.

On the other hand, it's great that society has progressed the stage where people are being rude about your hobby instead of violent because of your skin colour.

eavc2• 16 years ago

Relevant comic strip: http://wondermark.com/638/

InclinedPlane• 16 years ago

Who cares? After the needs of the bill collectors and the tax man are met our time is our own. To use fruitfully or waste in triviality as we desire. If other people find our trivialities interesting, so much the better, but there's no fundamental need for that. Nor is there a fundamental need to justify trivialities to others. If someone disapproves of how another person spends their time, they can cuddle up with their puritan sensibilities and cry about it in the corner.

packetslave• 16 years ago

Probably my favorite quote on this subject is from Dan Wineman at Rogue Amoeba: "You say 'looks like somebody has too much time on their hands' but all I hear is 'I'm sad because I don't know what creativity feels like.'"

stcredzero2• 16 years ago

Always be thankful when the carelessly dismissive reveal themselves so cheaply and easily.

BrandonM• 16 years ago

> The next time you meet some person who is utterly captivated by some undertaking that completely mystifies you, give him the benefit of the doubt.

Why not try to understand him? Everyone (and I truly mean this) would be much happier if we threw out our ridiculous preconceptions and actually tried to understand people.

There have been a few times where I've been in the perfect frame of mind where I'm 100% focused on a person and on my interaction with that person, with absolutely no distractions. It's almost crazy how easy it is to understand someone's way of thinking. Even complete strangers can't help but be intrigued by someone who seems completely consumed by them, even if only for a moment.

So don't file it away to try to figure out on your own later; that makes no sense. Talk to him right now, really listen, and share a part of the human experience that you previously had no knowledge of.

powrtoch2• 16 years ago

Agreed. I think part of the venomous nature of the remark that the author is getting at is that it automatically assumes you've understood him completely: "I have looked on your works, and the only worthwhile conclusion is that your passions are stupid". Seeing something different and declaring "that's just stupid" feels like you've summed it all up and are ready to move on (and that anyone who disagrees should expect a similar appraisal).

My dad was always fond of saying "Knowing is a barrier which prevents learning". I'm sure he stole it from somewhere...

Groxx• 16 years ago

Really? I've traded that line with people before, always followed up with a grin and genuine interest in what they've been doing. We take it as a compliment: it's similar to saying you're so motivated and interested in what you're doing, you've produced something amazing which shows how much work you've put into it. Too much. Beyond what was necessary to make it work.

Granted, it could be meant as a slur. So could "good job", or "that's f'kin amazing", or anything. It's all context; take it in context.

The_Igor• 16 years ago

What I realized fairly recently, partly due to growing up and partly due to reading "The Alchemist" is that most people will simply discourage you.

Be it with remarks such as the one the author rants about. However it takes many forms.

Just remember: when you do something creative, something you love, something outside of the mundane you do not have to justify your self to anyone. Chances are, if what you are creating appears utterly pointless to others, it makes you happy. Who cares what others think or say?

True art should be made for your self, not for any other critic be it real or pretend.

rblion• 16 years ago

this is more like it. if only everyone posted essays like this...

elptacek• 16 years ago

Funny, I say this from time to time. Every time, it is meant as an ad-hominem. Because my schedule is often packed, and it astonishes me what sorts of antics other people get up to with their resources? No, not really. Typically because the limitless creativity of the human mind deeply impresses me, but not always in a good way.

As a college student in DC, I once went out and joined a march on The White House. As usual, it turned into an opportunity to observe people (since I really didn't care much about the actual issue driving the protest). The variety of the intent of the other marchers ranged from people who had traveled some distance at their own expense, putting their lives on hold because the issue at hand was quite important to them to what can be described best as, "Hey! A big group of people making a lot of noise! Wheee! LOOK AT ME!"

The problem with this rant is that it lacks context or scope. Although, we should respect each other a la Golden Rule. You might be prompted to dismiss a person because they disagree with them. You have that right. You even have the right to insult someone. Of course, when you do this, the corollary is that you trade away your own passions being taken seriously. I'm pretty comfortable doing that with people who, from context, appear to be jumping up and down, waving their arms and making noise to draw attention to themselves. But I can't not respect that other person who is obviously invested… even if I disagree with them.

Also, I'm totally happy to watch some jerk fritter away her credibility. If she can't tell the difference between, "I disagree" and "You have too much free time," her opinion isn't worth squat.

Too much time on his hands

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