There are two things every school child should be taught as the basis of their education:

1. Learn to do something
2. Learn to do nothing

Learning to do something is obviously important since most students will have to earn a living. Doing something well is a prerequisite of wealth at all times.

As far as I’m aware, learning to do nothing is not in the National Curriculum. It should be. I’ve spent most of my life perfecting the art of doing nothing, which is probably why I ended up as a writer. When you do nothing, you enter mysterious depths where the real treasure is to be found.

The Pre-Budget Report was so obviously written by someone who can only do “something”. If Gordon Brown had learned as a lad to do nothing, he wouldn’t have got us into this mess in the first place.

It’s like the phrase, “He thinks out of the box”, implying that most people are forever confined to their boxes — the Undead, perhaps. Well, Gordon Brown has given us a vivid impression of a vampire over the past decade, syphoning off the country’s life blood.

Only those who have learned how to do nothing, know there’s a third way. For them, there is no box. They can see far beyond the current consensus to a world of infinite possibilities.

Meanwhile, the climate change hysterics are trapped in their nightmare of tsunamis and things that go “crump” in the dark. Anything can happen, and probably will. They live in constant dread and feel impelled to force the rest of us to comply with the rules of their savage, preternatural world. Their antics could well draw down other kinds of disaster, but not the ones they fear.

There’s an old tale about the frog who lives in a well and his cousin who lives by the sea in the sand dunes. One day, the sea frog visits his relative in the well and, as happens on these occasions, the conversation turns to philosophy.

“The universe is infinite,” says the sea frog, “surrounded by blue seas and topped by a wonderful blue sky.”

“Don’t be daft,” replies the well frog. “The universe is tubular, about 10 feet across and bounded by a slimy brick wall.”

The difference between them is that the well frog is forever busying about making up for the deficiencies of the dank, slippery well, while the sea frog is quite happy to saunter about his magical landscape contemplating his good fortune. Eventually, however, the well frog’s activities will undermine the foundations of the well, causing it to collapse, depriving everyone in the neighbourhood of fresh water.

The Pre-Budget Report and all its predecessors after 1997 were made by a denizen of a deep, dark well. He is forever “in the box” unable to see how illusory it is and always destined to do “something” rather than nothing.

Learning to do nothing is just as important as learning to do something.

John Evans

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