They say the devil makes work for idle hands. They talk a lot but is there some truth to the statement? Or is the reality, perhaps, that we – ‘the common people’ – are easier to control when we are too busy with the burden of constant duty, with all consuming workloads and the frantic speed of our lives? We have less control over our own lives if we perceive ourselves as being too busy to sit for more than a single moment and simply be?

How often do we find the time or grant ourselves the sacred opportunity to sit quietly and contemplate our own existence, our personal and collective place in this universe of wondrous beauty and eternal possibility? Are we instead too busy to find a meaning deeper than the enforced and duly undertaken requirements of the diligent citizen? Consuming, toiling, sleeping, consuming, toiling…

Do we believe the TV programmes, adverts and magazine articles that tell us how terribly fast-paced our lives are? How valued human beings are those too busy to find the space in which to let go of material trappings? We dutifully submerge ourselves in constant chores – never explained, always repeating – clinging onto self doubt, beset by nagging voices – external and self-imposed – persistent insecurities, groundless fears and incessant hopelessness.

But there is another way. When we allow ourselves the right to be idle, we accept that there is more to living than being busy. We can release ourselves from mundane modernity and wallow instead in the timelessness of matter, endlessly unfolding; following ancient patterns and cycles that are neither man-made or quantifiably by man’s ordinary mind.

To be idle is to accept the inevitable; to welcome with open arms and heart and soul the now and the now and the now; to let the past be what it was, the future what it may; to accept what is, without a sense of failure or submission to passivity.

Allowing ourselves the opportunity to do nothing is, perhaps, to understand the power of simply being; we can open our ears and eyes to the many layered sounds and multicoloured visions our world emits with boundless joy and peaceful passing.

To do these things, to practice such habits and experience these life-enhancing qualities is to allow the boundaries of our perceived limitations to crumble and fade; our self-confinement to dissolve. Is this not a path towards positive growth and enlightenment?

But these slow, self-aware habits do not enhance the status quo; the idea of business as usual; industrial pressure; economic desire and greed for more and more even as it so clearly yields less and less of what is truly worthwhile. Rather, these idle practices threaten to expose the gross failings and utter futility of our society’s confining systems.

So, let us take up arms of quiet, idle, restful, thoughtful, personal and yet universally connected escape against the sea of busy repression. Let us take time out, away from daily drudgery. Let us wallow in the reality of a life more enhanced than we can yet imagine. Let us throw off the mantle of yesterday’s consumption and hurriedness, obligatory earning and slavish behaviour.

Let us instead embrace the present for what it really is. Let us embrace ourselves for what we really are and the power we each hold inside. Let us embrace each other for what, together, we can be. For in such idleness a beneficial, satisfying, worthwhile future lies.

Categories: lifestyle

Tags: ecomonkey, philosophy, racheblue

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