Somewhere in the vast universe there was the busiest place in the universe.
Even in the dark hours of the night the place lit up bright, masking all the stars that surrounded it. For the people on this land were busy.
There were places to go to, deals to be made, problems to be solved, careers to be pursued, acclaim to be sought, power to be obtained, and wealth to be amassed.
In the pursuit of busyness, the busybodies in the place organized themselves together into busynesses. The more of them in the organization, the more influential they considered themselves to be. The more places they were in, the more powerful they declared themselves to be. The more the powerful they declared themselves, the more the pursuit of busyness, or careers, they opened. The more the busyness that could be counted, the more the wealth they said they generated.
Together, the busynessess declared themselves to be the economy.
That, they declared, was the way to keep busy. For if they were not busy, there wouldn’t be places to go to, deals to be made, problems to be solved, careers to be pursued, world to be changed, acclaim to be sought, power to be obtained, and wealth to be amassed.
The busybodies in busynesses made goals, things they said they must do in the time earmarked for it. They built themselves tables that they called spreadsheets, to track their goals. They set themselves targets, or volume of goals they must accomplish in time units they called quarters, representing a quarter of the journey of their planet around their sun. They had everyone report their busyness every week. They summed up the busyness over every quarter. They reported busyness every year in a competition to outrank other busynessess.
Everything they did, then, had to be about the places to go to, deals to be made, problems to be solved, careers to be pursued, world to be changed, acclaim to be sought, power to be obtained, and wealth to be amassed.
Everything to be measured, then, had to be for shorter and shorter periods. For that was the only way to speed, the best indicator of busyness. That, says one legend, was how the busybodies came to become short termers, or those who pursued more and more busyness in shorter and shorter time periods.
If you were not a busybody reporting your busyness to build the influence, power, and wealth of some busynessess in the busiest place in the universe, you were probably a lazybody.
Lazybodies had no goals about places to go to, deals to be made, problems to be solved, careers to be pursued, world to be changed, acclaim to be sought, power to be obtained, and wealth to be amassed. Instead lazybodies spent all the time in the universe asking about why. Why they do what they do, or why they don’t do what they don’t. Why they come together with some others, and why not with many others.
They spend time thinking about purposes. They think about the purpose of every relationship they have with busybodies and lazybodies. They think about whether the purposes that they pursued in these relationships were shared with those in these relationships. They think about how to change themselves and the purposes they share in their relationships.
Shockingly, they declared their relationships with busybody’s as ones that were exploitative. For these relationships were about the short term, the period in which busybodies had to report their busyness. The busybodies had no interest in the lazybodies Short Now, or a hundred years. In fact, they didn’t even understand what that was. They didn’t understand that the Short Now is about sharing purposes of feeling the universe together, of seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, touching it together, of cherishing it together, of nourishing it together so that it may continue to give joy to those that came after us. It is about laughing in joy at the beauty of our common purpose. It is about experiencing the mystery and magic of togetherness. It is about falling in love with togetherness. It is about valuing the eternity of the lifetime of every life born now.
Lazybodies can feel without seeing. They can paint the mystery and magic of the universe. They can share without words. They can touch without being present. They can be together even when they are apart.
But on the busiest place in the universe, the busybodies are too busy to read. They are busier to even think. Busybodies are too afraid to hear the sound of their mind, to feel the touch of their heart or to follow the fragrance of the purposes they share.
If you are a busybody, on the busiest place in the universe, looking for the path to be less busy, it is not about seeking to be less busy. It is about finding all the barriers within that yourself that you have built to remain a busybody. For when you let go of the barriers, you will become who you might be. You will, then, be the artist of a beautiful world.
One day, perhaps, you will share the togetherness in the dark hours of the night with the moon and stars that light it. When you will not be busy. When you will not worry about places to go to, deals to be made, problems to be solved, careers to be pursued, world to be changed, acclaim to be sought, power to be obtained, and wealth to be amassed.
One day perhaps we will share the purpose of feeling our universe together, of seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, touching it together, of cherishing it together, of nourishing it together so that it may continue to give joy to those generations that will come after us.
We will laugh in joy at the beauty of our common purpose. We will experience the mystery and magic of our togetherness. We will fall in love with our togetherness. We will be the eternity, right now. In the Short Now.
Till then let us spend a moment in prayer and another in hope on that day they call earth day after the busiest place in the universe.
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#All views expressed in this column are the authors and/or individuals that may be quoted and Pune365 does not necessarily subscribe to them.
He can be reached @AnupamSaraph
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