Not Working

"In Not working, psychoanalyst Josh Cohen explores the paradox that inactivity is both a source of lethargy and indifference and a condition of imaginative freedom and creativity. He considers four of its faces - the burnout, the slob, the daydreamer and the slacker - alongside the lives of four creative figures associated with these forms of inertia: Andy Warhol, Orson Welles, Emily Dickinson and David Foster Wallace, arguing that a good life requires freedom from the demand to be perpetually active. Drawing on his personal experiences and on stories from his consulting room, Cohen gets to the heart of the apathy so many of us feel when faced with the demands of contemporary life and asks: how might we live a different and more fulfilled existence?"--Inside front dust jacket.