Member-only story
How being Idle made me Happy and Productive — Chuck B Philosophy
I was walking down the hospital hall to do some “important” work, and all I kept thinking about was how I wanted to paint a picture. I had dabbled in painting on a few occasions in my life, but never put any serious effort into it. Nonetheless, the desire followed me through the day.
“I have had the weirdest impulse all day to paint a picture,” I told why wife when I got home.
“Like, you mean, make a painting?” she clarified.
“Ya, a landscape painting.”
She thought about that for a second and said, “Ok, go ahead.”
“What, no,” I replied, “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“It would be silly.”
After all, I was an important doctor doing important work. Do you know how I knew that was true? Because I was busy. Back then, I worked long days, many nights, and nearly every weekend. When you are that busy, you have to be important. And important people don’t just do frivolous things like paint landscapes.
“Ok,” was her noncommittal reply.
“I have other things I need to do” is how I had closed the discussion.
She gave me a shrug that said, “If you aren’t going to do anything about this, why are you bothering me?” Then she went back to what she had been doing.
I moved on to doing something “important” and deserving of my momentous attention. Something that seemed critical at the time, but I have no memory of today. And there is the irony. If I had sat down and painted a picture, then I would have a painting to show from that evening.
Busyness is a hedge against emptiness.
The fact is I felt anxious if I wasn’t “busy” doing something “important.” That wasn’t because I had so much vital work to do. Instead, it was because I couldn’t stand to be idle. I couldn’t stand to be alone with myself. I was proving the physicist, mathematician, and Catholic theologian, Blaise Pascal correct when he said, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
