Glossary
- ataraxia
- Epicurean ideal of tranquility.
- bohème
- The artistic underclass of 19th-century Paris.
- bohemian
- A person with creative interests who disregards conventional standards of behavior.
- botherer
- A person who makes it their life purpose to needleslly meddle in the affairs of others.
- bourgeois
- A person whose attitudes and behavior are marked by conformity to the standards and conventions of the middle class.
- china faking
- Repairing broken plates and saucers to sell.
- dandy
- One who elevates personal appearance and refined taste to a philosophy.
- dilettante
- A person who cultivates an art for pleasure, not profit.
- flâneur
- Someone who wanders detached from society with no other purpose than to observe.
- freedom surplus
- The gap between what you earn and what you spend.
- garret
- A small top-floor room, traditionally the cheap lodging of artists and writers.
- grafting
- A person who can successfully sell a commodity to a crowd in order to solve the problem of existence.
- lifestyle inflation
- The tendency for spending to rise in lockstep with income.
- loafing
- Being intentionally idle.
- mallsterbating
- Spending time in a shopping mall and intentionally not buying anything.
- otium
- The Roman ideal of time spent in study, writing, and contemplation.
- skivving
- The courageous act of shirking imposed duties in order to follow one's own creative path.
- slacker
- Somebody who is not doing what is expected of them and trying to live an interesting life. Rose to prominence in the 1990's.
- solving the problem of existence
- Finding a way to provide one's basic needs.
- stroad
- Hostile infrastructure of American suburbia.
- third place
- A social environment separate from home and work.
- wabi-sabi
- The Japanese aesthetic of beauty in imperfection.