The denial of idleness

The word “business” means being busy, occupied.

In Portuguese, the word “business” is translated as “negócio”, which stems from “negação do ócio” (denial of idleness)

But idleness is very important for us designers or anyone who works with creativity – we need some idleness to experiment, innovate, create value¹.

So there’s this paradox at the heart of our professional practice: we need to run a business, and we need to create and innovate.

A creative business needs a lot of idle time as fuel; the busy time must pay for itself and for the idle time.

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