As someone who is known to those closest to me as a curious amalgam of discipline and ineffectuality, my idiosyncrasies often leave others bemused. Without fail, I rearrange the contents of my refrigerator with the speed and precision of a professional Tetris player, yet I once let a snake plant wither away because I forgot to water it for a month. I have no trouble waking up before sunrise, but I lack the patience to cook anything that takes more than seven minutes. I ran 16 miles recently, but I scraped my knee in the process, didn’t disinfect the wound, and ended up with a thriving colony of bacteria on my leg the next day.
In many cultures and throughout history, my minor victories would be considered virtuous, and my laziness would be seen as a moral failure. Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins, and Napoleon-era France, the late Ottoman empire, and modern-day America tend to stigmatize laziness while celebrating industry. The idea that an individual can embody both of these traits simultaneously might seem incongruous.
However, for me, a mere quirk of language has prevented me from viewing my behavior as problematic. I grew up in South Korea, where two words exist for “laziness”: geeureum and gwichaneum. The former evokes the same negative connotation as the English word, but the latter lacks such a connotation and even has a humorous tinge. Feeling gwichan (the stem word of gwichaneum) implies not wanting to do something or finding it too taxing. The crucial point is how the term fits into Korean grammar: Bob can’t be called a “gwichan” person, only a task or errand can be described as “gwichan” for Bob. The term attributes the defect to the act, not the person, making these errands the cause of laziness.
In my view, this is not mere wordplay; it is an epiphany. Gwichanism defines what’s wrong with the myriad errands that crowd our everyday existence: many of them aren’t worth our effort.
Thinking about our idle moments within this framework isn’t a shirking of responsibility either – our lives still require scrubbing toilets and feeding toddlers. Gwichanism, a popular neologism in Korea, is not a defense of anti-productivity, anti-work, or laziness. Instead, gwichanists are meta-productive, evaluating the value of each undertaking. For example, the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes allegedly wrote many books and tragedies, but in the presence of Alexander the Great, his sole request was for the monarch to stop blocking his sunlight so he could sunbathe. This illustrates a crucial gap between a lazy person and a gwichanist: the former is constantly unmotivated, while the latter is selectively, and intentionally, unmotivated. In this manner, gwichanism is a type of deliberate slacker-ism, a belief that success is attainable without a type-A personality.
To me, the downsides of being excessively industrious or lazy might manifest similarly: both an overcommitment to life’s obligations – no matter how trivial – or a refusal to commit to any of them can lead to a lack of agency in one’s life. Adopting a gwichan lifestyle, on the other hand, allows me to reclaim my time by neglecting tasks that aren’t worthwhile. During my mandatory military service in Korea, for instance, I decided to cover up scuff marks on my boots with a black marker instead of polishing them. While this aggressive corner-cutting would have dismayed my superiors, it freed me up enough time to read practically all of Vladimir Nabokov’s works.
Of course, gwichanism comes with its own set of costs. Because of the wide range of errands that I opt not to handle, my daily life can feel clumsily inefficient at times. On a recent trip to Europe, for example, I brought a portable printer along because I didn’t want to locate a printing shop to proofread my writing. At home, I scatter pens, Post-its, and legal pads around, as I won’t write anything down if they aren’t readily available.
What other people deem worthwhile or not may be arbitrary, but embracing gwichanism enables me to assert the priority of my preferences, no matter how eccentric. In its ideal form, a gwichanist lifestyle isn’t inherently sloppy; it’s breezy. To be sure, some tasks won’t be completed, but the ones that matter will be.
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