The Wit’s Guide to Puttering
Or, pleasantly desultory
They don’t want us to putter. I’m sorry to sound so conspiratorial about it but that’s where my research has led me. All the red strings on the crazy wall in my attic prove it. But let’s back up.
“The art is, to fill the day with petty business, to have always something in hand which may raise curiosity, but not solicitude, and keep the mind in a state of action, but not of labour.”
— Samuel Johnson
When we talk about puttering, we are talking about the art of occupying yourself in a “desultory yet pleasant manner, doing a number of small tasks and not concentrating on anything in particular.” Desultory? As per my Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (perhaps the most desultory reference work on the market), Roman circus riders who would leap from one horse to another were called desultores, from the Latin “to jump down.” To be desultory is to jump from one thing to another. So why do they say “desultory yet pleasant,” as though leaping from horse to horse is not an inherently fun activity? Again, they don’t want us to putter.
“I putter. I nurse old grudges. I fold origami while nursing old grudges. I think about the past. I wonder if there's any grudges I should start.”
— Roz Chast
A key strategy deployed by the Anti-Puttering Lobby (call it capitalism, the patriarchy, white supremacy, society, the deep state, as per your preference) is to divide and conquer. In both England and North America, there are proud traditions of absent-minded dabbling, but we use different words.
In North America, we call it puttering. In most dictionaries, it’s the third definition of the word putter, the first being a golf club and the second a verb used to describe the audible progress made by a slow-moving vehicle. In the United Kingdom, they call it pottering, a term with gardening overtones. A potter’s shed is the heart of the garden. Blessedly, it has nothing to do with wizards.
“The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. ”
— Laurence J. Peter
The United Kingdom is united in part by their well-developed vocabulary of idleness. The Scottish term to spraff means to speak excessively or pointlessly. Meanwhile, to faff about is to spend more time than necessary in a task. Who among us doesn’t enjoy the luxurious pleasures of a faff and spraff? What better prelude to a putter?
The fact that the North American definition sounds vaguely mechanical may explain why puttering often leads to tinkering. Richard Feynman, one of the most accomplished scientists of the last century, spent his childhood fooling around with radios, spark plugs, and anything else he could find. His particular genius, per his friend Marvin Minksy, was understanding this: “The important thing is not to persist; I think the reason most people fail is that they are too determined to make something work only because they are attached to it.” Jump to another horse!
“I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention — invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness.”
— Agatha Christie
This takes me dangerously close to making an argument for puttering as a spur to creative problem solving, but I strenuously don’t want to make it. Yes, sure, by ever-so-briefly being less overtly productive, we might actually become more productive. Which is like counting calories at a Michelin-starred restaurant: Exactly how you miss the point. And hey, instead of conversation, we can just hand each other USB keys full of data. Peak efficiency!
“The imagination needs moodling — long, inefficient happy idling, dawdling and puttering. ”
— Brenda Ueland
I’m also going to add the modern specification that puttering is a distinctly analog activity. Yes, you can jump from one website or app to another in a desultory manner, but in practice this is nothing like happily puttering in the home or garden. A more accurate physical comparison would be wandering around a casino, where every element of the experience is designed to manipulate you. Puttering can’t happen in a marketing funnel.
“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. ”
— Mark Twain
Puttering is also incorrectly defined as loitering, dawdling, or procrastinating, but it’s key to underline the fact that nothing about the term puttering implies that you’re faffing about instead of doing something more important. This is the insidious bit that puts me in mind of a conspiracy: The phantom whip held over the head of the putterer, suggesting that they really ought to be doing something else, or at the very least doing the small tasks more efficiently. Why? For who? That’s not what the word means, yet the Protestant work ethic is baked in.
“Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment. ”
— Robert Benchley
Puttering requires a certain listlessness. And by that, I mean there shouldn’t be a list of chores to accomplish. Or perhaps there is a rough list, not written down, and supremely open to substitutions and alterations as the mood strikes. The twist of Robert Benchley’s classic essay How to Get Things Done is that he installs some shelves, gets a haircut, catches up with his correspondence, arranges his books, and comes up with several new ideas while avoiding a deadline. Now imagine doing all that without the deadline: Total bliss.
Rightly considered, puttering is pottering is life: A series of random tasks completed in the order and at the speed you choose before the ultimate deadline that ends it for us all. Mox nox!
“I have a simple philosophy: Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. Scratch where it itches.”
— Alice Roosevelt Longfellow
ReccoMention!
For my paying subscribers (C$30/yr!) this week, a new series I’m calling Reference Preference! In writing this newsletter for the last five years, I’ve accumulated a groaning shelf of esoteric reference books, and I’m taking this opportunity to share the juiciest bits of the best of them. In the delightful words of M. Louisa Locke about this first installment: “Well this was a pip of a post!”
Riposte Card
Again with the premonitions of mortality! This month’s limited edition art postcards went out in the mail last week, and here for the first time is May’s installment by the wonderful Montreal illustrator Gwendolyn Le Cunff:
Subscribe today and I’ll send you an egg-bound skeleton on horseback!
Quote Vote
“To be idle requires a strong sense of personal identity.”
— Robert Louis Stevenson
I had such fun writing The Wit’s Guides to Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance that I’d like to pick another famous grouping to work through.
Issue No. 253 of Get Wit Quick covered a subject I think about a lot, though not as much as I actually engage in it. My book Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting can be indefinitely moved from shelf to shelf, if that amuses you. Why not tap the ❤️ below in a desultory manner?
The problem is going to be using spraff and faff in conversation before forgetting them
The question, of course, is whether one actually COULD produce something without a deadline staring one in the face. Much of my work has been accomplished by screwing around (or puttering) until the last minute, then going with what half-assed idea I’ve got so far.