UNIVERSITY WILL PAY YOU FOR DOING NOTHING

A research project at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, Germany, is going to give three people $1,900 each to do nothing. They’re calling the money “idleness grants.” The project is going to study lack of ambition for research. The results will be presented in an exhibition next year on sustainability called “The School of Inconsequentiality: Towards A Better Life.” It hopes to examine a society that consumes less energy, wastes fewer resources, where people can meet friends, put up their feet and say “I have time to do nothing.” Friedrich von Borries, the creator of the program, said, “Doing nothing isn’t very easy, If you say you are not going to move for a week, then that’s impressive.” Two of the questions on the application form are: “What do you not want to do?” and “why is it important not to do this thing in particular?”
* Just filling out the application shows you have too much initiative.
* If you sit around doing nothing so you’ll have time to do something, doesn’t that ruin the experiment?
* How stupid: “So, Test Subject, what didn’t you do this week?” “Everything.”
* Why doesn’t he just pocket the money himself, sit back and experience laziness first-hand?
* Do you really want Germans sitting around with nothing to do? That didn’t work out so well on at least two occasions.
* You don’t need to hire test subjects to do nothing. Just talk to my brother-in-law. (Or “my neighbors with the lawn full of junk” or “our sales department” or “any member of Congress”)