IN DEFENSE OF SLOTH (AND TREE-GAZING)

My friend sent me a fascinating article recently from the opinion pages of the New York Times. My interest in it was multi-faceted; firstly, the writer wrote about a topic I’ve been meaning to rant about for a long time. Secondly, he espoused my exact thoughts - and much more - so effortlessly that after reading it I banged my head on an obliging hard surface and mumbled in wounded tones to my desk lamp out of mouthfuls of my hair that I would never write again while he was alive, because there was no point.

"He", by the way, is Tim Kreider. His NYT piece was called The 'Busy' Trap. He valiantly unmasked the way most of the modern world finds both validation and respite in responding to every "how are you?" With "OMG, SOOOO BUSY. Work is crazy. I have done so much overtime this week, just got tonnes on."

...Do you think, in times past, people responded to that question differently? I mean how often does the cultural paradigm shift to the point where the correct response to that question completely changes? What would Jane Austen’s characters, for example, have responded to "how are you today?" with? I’m fairly sure it wasn’t “ARGHH, SOOO busy.” When did this become remotely normal, or cool, or just what voluntarily tumbles out of our mouths? 

Now, this is not to invalidate the legitimate concerns a lot of my comrades have around the fact that, clocked overtime considered, their workplace is quite possibly a cult, intent on stealing their lives while they are sleeping. (*Not that they have time for sleeping anymore anyway, because they are at work, but metaphorically, you understand.) No, it is rather a red flag to those of us who with our free time, as Kreider put it, hedge their inner emptiness with the buffer of busyness; of becoming inherently worthy from the feeling of being put-upon, sought-after, time-poor.

Someone once told me:
"You are as busy as you want to be." I think this is true, and this year, after roaming everything from West-coast mountains to West Village streets for four months and staring intently into my soul, I realized that it was time to slowww the goshdarn heck down. Embrace thy inner sloth. Because, I mean, it had gotten to the point where I had convinced myself that I was too busy to read books. Which frankly I know now to be a large heap of finely desiccated coconut. Evidenced by the fact that this week when I was home sick with the flu I managed to read two books in three days, through bleary eyes and hourly naps. I'm as busy as I want to be.

We are as busy as we want to be.

The image of the tree above is photographic evidence of possibly the first time this year I stopped to take in my surroundings. That evening, I had just gotten off a long flight to my favourite city, (three guesses) and was meandering down Jane Street back to my hotel. And I saw this tree. And I stopped, and I stared, and I took photos. Which I later Instagrammed, because I'm part of my ridiculous generation who believes that if it didn't make it to social media, it didn't happen. I wasn't thinking about Instagram in that moment, though. My arms just kind of flopped to my sides, and I gazed up at that tree for a socially awkward amount of time, and I breathed very deeply, the kind of deeply where it actually starts to hurt your ribcage a little bit. And I realised with such sadness how scarcely I'd taken stock of little glimpses of perfection like that of late. And it sparked in me an obsession with fauna-gazing that has been hard to kick ever since. 

I'm better for it.

Here is a poem that should make you think about busyness, and trees, and other things: 

(*I even foraged through the deep recesses of the interweb for the above tiny-res picture of the author's original manuscript from 1914, because I'm dedicated to you like that.)

LEISURE

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare. 

- W.H. Davies