When he is busy, it is closed off from him, as his attention narrows to the single thread held between his fingers. Thus the human experience of life, of the diversity of sounds and shapes and odours and textures, is the experience of idle time, not of busy working time. All the fullness and richness of life is the experience of idle time, and oblivion the experience of busy time. When idleness falls to the point where an individual is continuously busy, oblivion is total. And, in Idle Theory, zero idleness means death.
Human life is only free to the extent it is idle.
A life of zero idleness is a life of complete constraint. Human life is mostly lived somewhere between these two extremes, and human beings are part-time free agents. In Idle Theory, idleness means life, and work means death. These are not subjective associations, but are explicit within the Idle Life model, in which zero idleness is the threshold of physical death. This idea of incomplete or partial freedom, of human beings as part time free agents, underpins the entire approach of Idle Theory to human life, and distinguishes it from a conventional wisdom that assumes human freedom to be the datum of human life - something that comes automatically bundled with being alive.