First, though, when she speaks of wasting time, she’s talking very specifically about hanging around, waiting for something to happen. She’s not talking about goofing off and having fun. She illustrates by referencing, “…all the young people hanging around outside churches and public places…”

So the quote is only appropriate if that’s the sense you have of wasting time.

And to her it’s a little frightening, but it’s *less* frightening than people shugging off to work as drones lost in the masses, “just so as to stay alive.”

If you haven’t read it, read the whole essay, and some others by her. She can be difficult to get a handle on, because her writing is very accessible (in translation) but her ideas are complicated tangles of emotion, ideology, philosophy, politics, everyday life, and more.

*Good luck with the essay*