Friday, April 29, 2011
Always Busy Syndrome..
Sometimes it gets me thinking, why is everybody so busy all the time(including myself), that we dont even have time to enjoy some simple things. Five days of the week (no wonder they are called the working days), most people I know (including myself most of the time), end up just working, and doing the basic diurnal activities. Barely managing to get some time to cook, or sneak in any other activity in the packed 24 hour day. Crazy as it might seem, i am starting to think, that this is actually a syndrome with the current generation, the being always busy syndrome. We want a lot from ourselves, we want to excel and grow at work, we want to travel , we want to workout and stay in the best possible shape, we want time to read books, play with our electronic gadgets, we also want to pursue a few hobbies. The laundry list of things keeps growing. Its not that we should not have any goals and just sit and do nothing, but I think , many of us are converting ourselves to high efficiency machines, aiming for even higher efficiency. We expect a lot from ourselves, and sometimes we get extremely involved in achieving that, that we forget the simple pleasures and human interaction.When do we spend time to just sit and talk, or get involved in some human interaction? Well, its just an observation and I could be wrong, but maybe we are evolving towards becoming self fueled egoistic machines, with more of efficiency and less of human traits :-) .
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2 comments:
Having a baby slowed down things for me considerably :). I agree largely with what you have written though. Most of the time work consumes me and leaves me fatigued for everything else. And then when weekend comes, I want to do every single thing that I missed during the week, so I end up getting more tired by Monday morning.
I think we should set some time aside to do nothing. Which reminds me of a quote on vacation - "How beautiful it is to do nothing and then rest afterward."
Have a good weekend! Do nothing :)
"...we forget the simple pleasures and human interaction.When do we spend time to just sit and talk, or get involved in some human interaction? ..."
@Shubhika:
While your portrayal of busy syndrome is appreciable, the above solutions "quoted" appear part of the syndrome.
@Shachi:
That way Shachi is more close to a workable cure. "Doing nothing.."
I would like to add the following--
Can you recall Greenboard in the classroom of your college days, the clean Greenboard with nothing written on it? We normally don’t notice that clean Greenboard. Then the teacher enters and starts writing on it and our mind starts following the white-line curvaceous patterns creating symbols, words and sentences. Suddenly the Greenboard is almost non-existent and we are totally lost among the woods of words. This Greenboard is infinite (not noticeable) and the words written on it are finite (noticeable). Sky is the background (the infinity) and stars the tiny dots. Space around you is infinity and you are the dot in it.
Here you can see two activities, one observing the clean Greenboard (the infinite background), a no-mind activity and two taking note of what (finite) is being written on the board an activity where the thinking mind is engaged.
In the first activity only our intrinsic consciousness (the untrained, worldless consciousness) is involved. Its like observing the blue sky, listening to the chirping birds, smelling the flower, feeling the wind breeze etc. They are part of the infinity. As we can not decipher this infinity the thinking mind disengages itself and hands over charge to the senses for feeling. This is the let go state, the state in which surrendering happens. In these “FEELING” activities we are not deciphering anything we are only immersing our being into a pool of the moment, therefore our mind doesn’t think and we are not “BUSY”. These feeling activities are sense-centric where the momentary-ambience around is sensed by the bodily-senses. They become the moment of our rejuvenation.
In the second activity, however, the mind is continuously engaged in following the white-line curvaceous patterns on the board creating symbols, words, and sentences and thereby deciphering the principles or some meaningful data. The thinking mind is now engaged and we are busy.
Listening to a pure music without any lyric can be regarded as a no-mind relaxing activity. But a lyrical music at times may not be as relaxing because in that our mind makes us move with words primarily. Here too the musical way (Swaras) is the infinity (the background like sky) and the lyrical-words are the finites (the stars). Together they create a song where actually the music (infinity) sways (surrender) us and we enjoy. Just recall favourite music track and ponder for a while why it is favourite one? One finds it is primarily the way (musical rendering) it has conveyed a certain emotion using some words. But the stupid mind goes with words and we mostly appreciate the lyric only when we say what a song! Next time when you listen to a track of your choice, feel the way of rendering with closed eyes, the pure music.
Even while reading these lines you can feel the infinity, surrender to that and relax. The gap between the words is the part of the back ground (the infinity). The words create meaning only with support of this mystical back ground. Thus while reading also we can experience relaxation by feeling these gaps by stopping there and by admiring their importance of nothingness.
On any other occasion you can still feel the pool of the infinity around you surrender to it and relax. This is what (infinity) we should try to feel ourselves immersed in all time.
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