Perhaps you live to be 200 by living an unconventional life. Okay, that won’t work for everyone and it didn’t work for Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock (December 30, 1869 – March 28, 1944). But he did in fact live unconventionally. For at brief intervals throughout his adult life, he stopped thinking altogether. By his own account he never tired of being mentally inert, but he did find it impossible to earn a living in that state of mind, so he regularly left it and resumed professing political economy and chairing the Economics and Political Science Department at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. Oh, and in the cracks of time that arose while doing these jobs, he also wrote books, essays, and articles on economic theory (and yes, humorous fiction—the only pursuit from which he would earn notable money and recognition). But then, whenever opportunities presented him with a large enough interval of time, he reentered inertia, his preferred state of being.
Among his works of humorous fiction are essays like the six we present in our illustrated collection, Self-Made Men, Six Humorous Essays by Stephen Leacock. From this collection, we present to you a free pdf version of How to Live to be 200. One partial disclaimer: I am uncertain how closely Leacock followed his own advice during intervals while out and about and actively conscious, but as I alluded to earlier, it didn’t work for him if in fact he did. I confess, however, I am tempted to give it a try and see if it works for me. One more point, as with all six of the essays, this one is expertly illustrated by Marc Johnson-Pencook. Enjoy!