touché, productivity nazi

"It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: 'Busy!' 'So busy.' 'Crazy busy.' It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint."

My wise and well-missed friend, Rich, posted this New York Times article The ‘Busy’ Trap by Tim Kreider to the ubiquitous facebook. Like he was reading my mind (or my blog).

"Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets."

Self imposed and unexamined busyness. The Importance of What I Do. The Meaning Endless Meetings provide.

"The Puritans turned work into a virtue, evidently forgetting that God invented it as a punishment." 

This busyness I've recently become immersed in is a mindset that is fundamentally false, a "boast disguised as a complaint." I guess I am not so self-aware that I don't need to be reminded of simple, common-sense things. Thank you.

fallow build-up

Sometimes you just have to loaf around on the weekend until your energies are replenished. But sometimes loafing around just leads to more loafing around. Didn't feel like I got shit done on Friday.

Saturday I went food shopping (truly should get some kind of bonus for facing the grocery store each week) and closed my Chase account. (It was time to put my money where my politics were, so it's the inconvenience of my local credit union for now on. Seriously, I was so glad to get that done.) But I still felt like I was swimming against the current the rest of Saturday.

Then, this morning I got up before 7am, cut my hair and cooked 7 days worth of meals before heading over to a friend's house for dinner.

The best metaphor is either laying fallow or letting the pressure cooker build up steam...I don't know. All I know is that I kicked some middle-aged ass to day and boy am I tired.

imbalance

What triggers anger? Fear? Arrogance? Impotence? My anger is a rich blend of all three and something deeper and more primal. No, it's more about my inner child. My history.

Many smart, capable female friends have been posting on Facebook about getting old. And fat. And not being pretty. I see decades of creativity sucked dry by bullshit. And I got angry.

"Why do you waste your energy puling about aging? All you have is time and you're pissing it away. There's a million more fascinating, enriching and amusing things to do out there than moan than something you can't change. I am 53. I don't give a rat's ass about getting older. Get on with your lives and stop this ridiculous, first-world whiny shit.
You are smart and I love you but you are wasting your precious time. The End."

It probably won't make a bit of difference and I'll offend people and make them defensive. I should just block them so I don't have to read it. 

Who do I think I am, telling people that they're full of shit? 
Who do I think I am, telling them I know better than they do? 

This goes back to power. And balance and imbalance. 

Do I have the right? 
Do I have the obligation? 
Do I see clearly?

Well, I guess I think I do. I think I have the right and obligation to say that the Emperor is stark naked. I am pretty sure, however, that it falls on deaf ears and I want to be okay with exorcising cultural demons even if it seems I'm the only one witnessing the act.