Michael R. Barrick

Is conformity so ingrained now that whenever someone does something outside of the bounds of acceptable creativity the refrain "they must have too much spare time" is sung? What does that mean? What is "too much spare time"? And how is using it creatively anything but laudable? The fundamental underlying premise is there there is something more valuable to do with one's time than be creative, and that one should not have "spare" time. What is spare time? I presume that is time where one is not required by necessity to slave for a pay-cheque, serving and producing wealth for someone else (i.e. working at a job.) And it seems people who spend all their "spare" time consuming mass culture aren't chided for it. I've yet to see anyone interrupt a water-cooler pow-wow about the six hours of television everyone watched the night before by yelling, "You people all watched all those shows? You must have way too much spare time!" I've never heard anyone accused of having too much spare time after spending their long weekend drinking beer and grilling burgers. I've never heard anyone accused of having too much spare time after spending thousands of dollars on their vacation to fly to some far away beach and drink rum for two weeks...

As long as you are producing for your masters or consuming their soma, it's all good. Take one moment to do something for yourself outside of the prescribed boundaries, and you have "too much spare time."