Beware the barrenness of a busy life. –Socrates
This morning the weatherman (yes, gentle reader, it was a man) for the first time this fall gave us the temperature and the ‘wind chill factor.’ The dreaded ‘wind chill factor’ will now be with us in central Indiana well into March of 2018. [An aside: I wonder if I would feel less cold if I only knew the temperature without the ‘wind chill factor;’ I think I would.]
It occurred to me as I was driving to my favorite coffee shop this morning that behind our ‘chronic busyness’ (one of the many addictions that we in the United States have) resides a ‘Busyness Factor.’ Our Culture has integrated, among other deep assumptions, the assumption that ‘Busyness’ is judged by the ‘Quantity of our Activity.’ The irony here is that ‘more’ only whets our appetite for ‘more.’ Being more busy and increasing quantity does not, in themselves, satisfy our deepest hungers (our ‘hungers’ include our physical hunger, our intellectual hunger, our emotional hunger, our spirit(ual) hunger and our social-relational hunger).
We have, in our Culture, developed a syndrome: ‘activity for activity’s sake.’ Don’t believe me. Stop, step-back and look around – take the time to observe. Now, this simple exercise itself will probably reveal to you, gentle reader, how addicted you are to ‘activity’ for I have a sense that you will not be able to simply stop, step-back and observe (cease your activity) and do so for only a few minutes (at most, I would bet).
In 1971 (you might recall, gentle reader, that I cherish, savor and return to books written decades and centuries ago) Wayne E. Oates coined a phrase for us; his phrase also became the title of his book: ‘Confessions of a Workaholic.’ Wayne coined the term: ‘Workaholism.’ In our Culture we have expanded his term so that today ‘workaholism’ has been replaced by ‘Busyness.’
Wayne Oates told us that he did not become aware of his being a ‘workaholic’ until his wife and sons started calling him on the phone in order to make an appointment to meet with him.
[Another Aside: What does it mean to ‘connect’ with another? For me, sending a text and responding to a text does not equate with ‘connection.’ I experience ‘connection’ when I can hear a voice, pick up on a tone and voice inflection, feel the energy – or lack of energy – emanating from the very being of the other – add to this the ‘visual’ and all that accompanies the ‘visual’ – think: non-verbal, for example – and the ‘connection’ becomes more powerful.]
Our bodies respond to ‘chronic busyness’ by generating bio-chemicals that help keep us going. Sadly, when we abruptly cease to be ‘busy’ these same chemicals begin to ‘attack’ our weakest organs. I am thinking of a famous college football coach who retired in ‘great health’ and had a heart-attack and died six months later (even though he had been deemed to have been in ‘great health’). In the 1970s I would, each October, take two weeks off and would always become sick – some virus would put me in bed for days. I woke up in the early 80s and decided to let go of being a ‘workaholic’ (chronic busyness) and once I did I no longer became ill that way (and have not been ill ‘that way’ since then).
Consider this, gentle reader, that ‘chronic busyness’ is an addiction that is more challenging to treat (let go of) than many of the drug addictions, including alcoholism. Why? Because our addiction to ‘Busyness’ is a Cultural Addiction. Because our ‘Chronic Busyness’ is also directly connected to – and fed by, nurtured by and sustained by – our addiction to ‘Quantity.’ By the by, our ‘Chronic Busyness’ is also sustained by our addiction to ‘Distraction’ and ‘Speed’ (‘Hurry Sickness’ as captured so well by Milan Kundera). Unlike the other ‘addictions’ our Culture socially approves of (think: ‘honors’ and ‘rewards’) ‘Chronic Busyness’ and ‘More and More – Quantity’ for its own sake.
I wish I could continue but I must stop now for I have a great many things to attend to today; I am sorry, but I am really busy.
Life seems a quick succession of busy nothings. –Jane Austen
Searcher-Seeker 
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