The return of the slacker
‘Hustle hard, brother.’
‘The sure fire way to success is hard-work!’
And, so at some point we began romanticising struggle.
The ultimate reckoner of a purposeful and meaningful life.
The one built on the foundation of sweat, perseverance and fighting difficult odds.
It actually does sound like a pretty decent narrative, that can and must be revered by humanity.
For some of us, who were were born in it, and for some of us, who got prematurely inducted into it, the ‘new age world’ was brimming with myriad possibilities. A world where you could do anything, be anyone — The youngest, the coolest, the moolah raking entrepreneur or the most crucial, the most followed, the most influential influencer. The new world had a beautiful promise baked into it. The promise of ‘living up the dream’. If only you were willing to hustle for it.
How could brands not jump into the bandwagon of selling this dream? And, so came a slew of brands selling the hustle ethos or being the ultimate aids to the individual’s hustler journey.
I can remember two campaigns for it —
Muscle Blaze’s “Ziddi Hoon Main”. The never give up attitude despite all odds. Too stubborn to give in to the nay sayers, not even life’s challenges. Just keep hustling on!
And second, the sophisticated OnePlus as a perfect companion for the “hyper-taskers”. The apotheosis of the hustler culture. The coinage itself feels like it’s addressing a breed of android like humans that operate beyond normal humanly capacity.
More such narratives are common place.
And then, came the pandemic.
Now, one would assume that the pandemic would have fuelled this way of life. Think about it! We all had more time, lesser distractions, and more scope to be immersed at work, with side projects, with passion pursuits etc. But, it didn’t pan out like that.
There, emerged a counter narrative. The one that advocated living slow, doing nothing, going nowhere, and achieving nothing. The angst against hyper productivity, compensated by the other extreme of being languid, leisurely ,carefree-stress free.
We see some satirical stories emerge from counter culture brands that brought forth the sentiment
Exhibit A : Cheetos dust paralyses you/ gives you an excuse to not do anything!
Exhibit B: 5 Star’s “Do nothing”
The re-emergence of the slacker has been the revolutionary turn of our times. The shirker, the keeps it cool guy, the one who’s not hungry to outshine, or to get a million youtube followers — That guy is cool again.
We had our fair share of celebrated slackers in the 90s. Go back and remember how cool you found Shahrukh from DDLJ who flunked his grad school, forgot about his graduation ceremony and was drinking beers floating around in his swimming pool. What a cool guy!
Or do you remember — the good for nothing, yet endearing tapori Munna in Rangeela played by Aamir, who eventually gets the girl, defeating the popular, sophisticated, and financially sorted Jackie Shroff!
Well, selling out wasn’t cool back then.
But the slacker lost out to the striver soon after.
The era of the social media influencer was born. Who’d go to any lengths to sell out. Selling out was celebrated. One would work their ass off, make a complete fool of themselves, put themselves out there — to gather fame and influence power.
A brilliant campaign by Diesel raises its head against such hustle culture, the narcissistic and pointless influencer community. In favour of living a life fully, and joyfully and not in the chase of an empty dream.
Take a look :
All this makes one wonder, what is it that has caused this shift in mindset? Why now? Why at this point of time? Like I said the pandemic should have fuelled the hustler’s momentum? Why has it worked in the opposite capacity?
My best guess, that the pandemic made it glaringly obvious what hustle culture was really costing us. Perpetually working and being productive meant sacrificing your time with your loved ones, the joy of wasting time doing nothing, no agenda, just living. Whatever little moments of respite we had unknowingly — where we socialised, bonded and whiled time, the pandemic took them away from us— reducing work calls to agenda driven two hour screen fests, with no room for small talk. It took away forcefully even the option of spending time with our friends.
And, it’s only when something’s taken away without our consent and will, does it begin to ache.
And hence came the pandemic conversations around mental health, stress meters going through the roof, the “it’s okay to not be okay” slogan. No wonder hustle culture became brutally offensive at this point.
Another thing, I surmise, that happened was — that the big promised dream of the hustle collapsed. We became humbler in accepting that some things were beyond our control. That realisation was a rather deep nail in the hustle coffin. The understanding that perhaps our best efforts, fighting against all odds by our sweat and perseverance won’t necessarily lead us to the goal we had fantasised about. Our fantasies against the force of the world were rather juvenile.
As I write this, I think back to my life. Personally for me, the pandemic made me more productive for sure. I took on improving my fitness, indulged in my creative pursuits, started a new meditation practice. All things productive by the book. But, I wouldn’t label myself as hustler. I did those things not be productive as it would look like. I did those things because I truly enjoyed myself doing them. And they made for a beautiful utilisation of my time while I did all the other things that were quote unquote unproductive — laughing and bantering with my parents, introspecting by myself in the room, running a playback of lost memories, and also staring at a fan.
So I leave you with this. Hustle. But, hustle the right way. Not as a means to an end . But as an end in itself. The unparalleled joy of just being.
