To hell with unemployment: I think it’s a fine thing. I like
sleeping all day and having nothing to do but read, write, and
sleep whenever I feel tired. I like waking up in the morning
and going immediately back to bed if the weather is foul. In
short, I think it’s a fine situation for a man to be in:
provided, of course, that he has enough money to eat and pay the
rent.
I don’t … and therefore must work: but what the hell? Is it
anything to cry and pray for forgiveness about? [ … ] Hell no
it’s not. I get goddamn tired of getting letters telling me to
“buck up”, to “keep my chin up,” to “keep trying,” to "pray and
be virtuous," and to read Horatio Alger books. I like being
unemployed. I’m lazy. There are plenty of jobs, but I just
plain damn don’t want to work. It’s that simple [ … ] and I have
an ode:
“Ah, lives there a man with soul so dead, who never to himself
hath said, as he hunched and rolled in his comfortable bed:
To hell with rent … I’ll drink instead!”
Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives … and to the “good life,” whatever it is and wherever it happens to be.
So there you have it: a slacker’s credo for pleasure …
— Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, “The Proud Highway”
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