The art of being IDLE, is not appreciated in today's world obsessed with being busy. Every person I talk to is Occupied, Busy, Over-whelmed, Pressed for time, no one seems to have any time for anything. What are all these people busy doing? Working? well from what I gather, man has been working ever since he came to be, and in the past probably worked harder. With today's gadgetry at hand shouldn't work and hence life be made easier? apparently not. People are far more busier worrying about work, home, family, relationships than they ever were, we are all uneasy, somehow, always harassed, hurrying, never at the place we are fully, forever wanting to get to the next one!
I have lived that life. Ran the rat race. I somehow felt proud, deep down, for being so overcome by events, by people, by life. It was something to brag about in a complaining way ( when we all knew that the complain is really a brag) "oh, I'm sooo busy, time he nain hai", sort of statements. We all feigned the bitching, feeling a little uppity at the same time about how important, wanted, necessary, and needed we were. That urge to be everywhere at all times, to fulfill a multitude of roles, do many things at once, be all to everyone, do beyond what one is capable of doing. Why? what was is the need to be needed so?
I have been at the other end also. Being Idle, having all the time in the world to devote to what I pleased. Since, the world didn't stop being busy with me, I was a misfit in this place of 'doing this and doing that', I was always doing 'nothing', I was a mum, a wife, I read, I cleaned, I wrote but all that I loved doing, and it didn't seem like work. After all I wasn't getting paid for all this Idling so hell I wasn't working per say, and also I wasn't leaving my house to 'go' to work so hell! I wasn't working! I was a lazy person, free, doing nothing, loafing about, good-for-nothing. Idle people are an anathema to society, they are a threat to the super-busy, super-scheduled, super-planned life of other sane people. They pose a danger, a danger of what happens when life slows down, how people tend to think and behave when they are not all pervaded by just doing. Idleness makes you do one thing for sure, it makes you pause, take stock of your own self, your life and others in it and around you, it makes you ponder and reflect, on your actions, your words, your responses.
BEING IDLE HAS BEEN AN EDUCATION OF SORTS, IT HAS MADE ME THINK OF MYSELF AS A PERSON AND WHAT I AM SANS ANY DEFINED OR ASSIGNED ROLE.
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