Musings from the CU Suite

Written by Anthony Demangone

Black Friday. Holiday Cards. To-Do Lists that are longer than Santa's "Naughty" list.

This year's Christmas shopping season started before most turkeys were carved.  Somehow, a time that should be filled with family, friends and peace now has become a pressure cooker.  

And should that be a surprise?  Ask anyone how they're doing, and they'll tell you.

I'm busy! 

When I hear that phrase, I'm not sure if the person is complaining or boasting.  In today's world, if you aren't busy...something must be wrong. 

We've entered the age of the "Busy Trap," according to author Tim Kreider.  In an opinion piece in the New York Times, Kreider perfectly described the climate. (NYT)

Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs  who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet. It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.

He continues, extolling the virtues of....it can't be so...idleness. 

Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done. “Idle dreaming is often of the essence of what we do,” wrote Thomas Pynchon in his essay on sloth. Archimedes’ “Eureka” in the bath, Newton’s apple, Jekyll & Hyde and the benzene ring: history is full of stories of inspirations that come in idle moments and dreams. It almost makes you wonder whether loafers, goldbricks and no-accounts aren’t responsible for more of the world’s great ideas, inventions and masterpieces than the hardworking.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I'm all for hard work.  But I agree with Kreider that you need to give yourself some white space.  

And if you find yourself with a few free minutes every now and then, it isn't the end of the world.

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Related posts:

• Busy, busy, busy. 

And speaking of white space, here are a few shots of my Thanksgiving vacation with my brother and his family.

Zion National Park, at sunset.

We weren't the only ones enjoying the view at the Grand Canyon!