Sample Essay: Slacker

Working hard is a modern trend in order to stick to the competition around in this world. The globalisation has changed the work culture to be oriented towards hard work. This has been happening since the Protestants’ time. However, in some philosophies laziness is a virtue and this aspect is referred as constructive laziness. For instance, according to the Greeks, leisure time would incite the growth in morality, wisdom and prudence. However the Greeks also recognized the necessity of work in order to meet the material needs. Present day competition required hard work and energetic people to absorb in the industrial and capitlalist set up of the world. Therefore the world has no place for slackers to survive in the long run.

This term ‘slacker’ came to use from the First World War and Second World War. It described the military men who were avoiding the draft. Lack of motivation, often indicated by a state of unemployment or some minor temporary employment in the service sector. A slacker usualy lacks in enthusiasm and is stagnant int erms of his activities. The 90s found this term to be well suited to the tendencies of young generation and the term ‘slacker generation’.

Richard Linklater adopted this word as the title of his movie ‘Slacker’. The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. The film is basically a plotless one and decribes one day in the lives of around twenty bohemians who were misfits in Austin. The film does not really stay with one event or one character and rather moves around all the characters. However the essence of the show lies in the true reflection of the meaning of this word in reality. The word is more common in military usage to refer to those soldiers who tend to lag behind or show their laziness in some way or the other. Some fictional slackers include Ferris Bueller in ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day off’, John Bender in ‘The Bender’s Club’ and Dewey Finn in the ‘School of Rock’.

The ‘term’ slacker is commonly used to describe a person who tries to avoid his responsibility or duty. Slackers perhaps do not conceive a tomorrow or even if they do they do not plan to do any work. Such people are often found to put away the duties till the last moment arrives and do not realize the importance of duties. He does the least that is required and is often characterized by laziness. Slacker not only means lazy but also indicate a habitual avoidance of work, duties or task.The british people takes this word, ‘slacker’ to indicate idlers. It may be said that it was the Britishers who came upw ith the usage of this word to the meaining. The books like “The Idler’s Companion (1997),” edited by Tom Hodgkinson and “The Importance of Being Idle (2000),” by Stephen Robins centers the title itself around an idler or a slacker. We may not judge a slacker by his makrs or results. It might happen that a boys core high grades with minimum hard work as heis intelligence. However, it is intelligence that helps him work less but we know that in today’s fast world one needs to prove himself through hard work specially in the private sector where the time spect in the workplace gains priority over the quality fo work performed. Thus the negative role of a slacker gains in prominence.

Slacker is a short and simple word  with an yet crucial meaning. The word is commonly used to call out to a friend who is lazy and sits back at home. The brevity of the word makes it popular among the young people. However, this word is often applicable to the young folk itself. In a nutshell it means ‘one who slacks’. The word, when referred to someone, is definitely insulting as in today’s world there is no virtue in idleness. However, usually slacker indicates the lack in some or the other activities. The term hardly takes into account the unobserved actions of the mind and brain which do a great job in thinking and conceptualizing. A person might be idle and yet doing a lot of thinking.

References:

“Slacker”, http://www.answers.com/topic/slacker

“Slacker”, http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=slacker