"Busyness" looks too cute. Is that even a real word (or just a labored avoidance of confusion with the indubitably real word "business")? It's certainly a very commonly used word. A Google "news" search gets over 8,000 hits, including a NYT piece from a few days ago titled "Add This to Your Busy Schedule: Time With Family and Friends." It begins:
If I ask, “How are you today?” I already have a good idea what you’ll say.And Pope Francis recently put "the Martha complex of excessive busy-ness" as item #2 on his list of "diseases in our life in the Curia."
“Busy.”
We’re all busy. It’s reached the point that many of us wear our busyness like a badge of honor. And what better way to measure our busyness than with lists and numbers.
Did the children learn a new skill they can put on a college application? Check. Did we make it to all the “must-see” exhibits in the museum? Check. How much less did we pay for our vacation than our neighbors? Check.
It is found in those who immerse themselves in work and inevitably neglect “the better part”: sitting at the feet of Jesus (cf. Lk 10:38-42). Jesus called his disciples to “rest a while” (cf. Mk 6:31) for a reason, because neglecting needed rest leads to stress and agitation. A time of rest, for those who have completed their work, is necessary, obligatory and should be taken seriously: by spending time with one’s family and respecting holidays as moments of spiritual and physical recharging. We need to learn from Qohelet that “for everything there is a season” (3:1-15).The (unlinkable) OED has an entry for "busyness" — "The state or condition of being busy" — with historical example going all the way back to 1809 and a notable example from Henry David Thoreau:
1849 H. D. Thoreau Week Concord & Merrimack Rivers 380 Behind every man's busy-ness there should be a level of undisturbed serenity.
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24 comments:
LBJ was an officious busybody.
Idle hands are the Devil's workshop.
Meanwhile, many idle people keep their hands busy with the Devil's Xbox.
I am Laslo.
reflection, empathy, and seriousness are currently out of fashion. So many cultural entities want us to be 14 years old mentally.
Sounds like to much coffee and an interesting lexiconal (to invent another word) tangent.
"Business! Mankind was my business! Their common welfare was my business!"
Contentment and rest is a fruit of someone having worked very hard for 6 days and not been robbed of his labor by Taxes and Clerical demands to buy sacraments.
Big government parasites and the Bishop of Rome are not entitled to a dime of it until they quit scamming everybody all of the time.
Who can have leisure when there are so many Cheerleaders to observe? And then casually follow?
And overhear their cellphone conversations and learn the names of those they associate with, like OMG that slut Becky?
And sit behind on the bus and smell their wonderful Cheerleader hair, until they change seats?
And then sit in their vacated seat to feel the remaining warmth and gently stroke the plastic, hopefully finding a stray hair?
And make notes about what stop they get off at and at what time?
And make notes identifying the stray hair for the collection?
And make more notes about Becky and all those naughty things she's done?
Cheerleaders ARE The Great Society.
I am Laslo.
Who's Martha?
I prefer the hyphenated vesion - busy-ness.
Thorstein Veblen had quite a bit to say about leisure and consumption. "Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure."
We're busy trying took block-off the time in order to not be busy all of the time.
And the secret isn't being busy, but looking busy.
"Yea, you do. He looks very busy."
As for government policy, don't confuse "Do Nothing" with "Do No Harm".
A time of rest, for those who have completed their work, is necessary, obligatory and should be taken seriously
But what if your work is never finished?
I read that "Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" in college, before I ever lived in the area. One place I lived, in Derry, NY, had West Running Brook in the back yard. I enjoyed it then, I bet I would enjoy it now, knowing the area. I am betting it is public domain.
Of course the prediction was wrong. First, 100% of the people can't live a life of leisure, at least not for long. Accumulated wealth would disappear. Therefore, only a certain percentage can attain this utopian life, or enter into this "Great Society".
The only thing we can modify through government action is who and how many, via equal rights protection and transfer payments. The only thing that changes is the percentile line between the two societies.
"But what if your work is never finished?"
I think he was referring to one's day's work.
And Pope Francis recently put 'the Martha complex of excessive busy-ness' as item #2 on his list of "diseases in our life in the Curia.
Odd that the good Pope didn't just refer to the story of La Befana which means "The Epiphany" in Italian.
The sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.
It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.
They say to mountains, "Be ye removed." They say to the lesser floods, "Be dry."
Under their rods are the rocks reproved-they are not afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill-tops shake to the summit-then is the bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly sleeping and unaware.
They finger death at their gloves' end where they piece and repiece the living wires.
He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him hungry behind their fires.
Early at dawn, ere men see clear, they stumble into his terrible stall,
And hale him forth a haltered steer, and goad and turn him till evenfall.
To these from birth is Belief forbidden; from these till death is Relief afar.
They are concerned with matters hidden - under the earthline their altars are-
The secret fountains to follow up, waters withdrawn to restore to the mouth,
And gather the floods as in a cup, and pour them again at a city's drouth.
They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to drop their job when they dam'-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark and the desert they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren's day may be long in the land.
Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more fair or flat -
Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha spilled for that!
Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their common need.
And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessed - they know the Angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessed, and for them are the Mercies multiplied.
They sit at the Feet - they hear the Word - they see how truly the Promise runs.
They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and - the Lord He lays it on Martha's Sons!
Back in LBJ's time the elites thought that all that busy-ness of working in mines, factories, and mills was a wretched existence.
When we got rid of all those terrible places and occupations, people would be free to be writers or artists or surfers or something.
"the Martha complex of excessive busy-ness"
This caught my eye first, and I thought 'Martha Stewart'? But then I saw it was from Pope Francis, so probably not.
tim in vermont said... "I read that "Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" in college, ... I am betting it is public domain."
You'd be right: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/54
Most people, law professors aside, are under constant pressure to prove their worth. Its best that if you're not actually contributing work of value then *look* like you're producing work of value.
Then again, that can be said of professors too.
Martha and Mary, Luke 10:38-42
"38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one.[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.""
Frankly, Mary sounds like a dod-eyed fan girl and Jesus like a narcissistic prick. Martha was right to complain.
I used to do contract financial work for a well known billionaire. He used to sit on his dock or on his boat and contemplate for hours at a time. Sometimes he talked to the underlings, but they never understood what he was saying. They soon discovered he was actually talking to himself. His wealth is now triple.
Odd to think of LBJ as an inspiration for hippies. More likely there were similar things in American thought behind both hippies and the Great Society speeches.
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