BEING IS THE REASON FOR BEING: MORE ON IDLENESS

It is warming up here, and I am hoping it will lead to some work that I have been totally unwilling to do for the last many days. I used to think writing was my reason for being, but now I know the dangerous truth that being is the reason for being. I must admit I have enjoyed just lounging about in bed for several hours in the morning, emailing, looking for and ordering things on amazon.in, chatting with P, reading , which I am enjoying because it is a reason for staying in bed longer. When I finally get out of bed in the mornings, around 9,  I just like to mosey on downstairs, look at the growing things in the garden, give the staff their tasks, and then sit, simply sit in the sun with the dogs. Often I open the gate and look at the stream, the work the staff did the other day to clean up areas, encourage flow in some areas, and the deodars they planted, the brain delightfully blank, and all my energies going into, no, not my senses, though there is the beauty and the feel of the warm sun on my back, but just . . . blankness, perhaps, the need to meander some more, and some more. There is a sleepiness in it, a certain healthy dullness in which eating and drinking are delights (though I am maintaining my weight even though I would like to lose some more, but no compulsion about it), organizing a little and putting things away the entire meaning of my days.  

I thought I would do the timer trick -- tell myself I will work for twenty timed minuted -- today for working on both writing and music, since that seems to work, and like an animal I need my rewards. Yesterday I did weights, yoga and walk for an hour and that helped me feel some sense of accomplishment. Even being has to have its doing for the sake of more being.

OK, now for the timer and puttering on my files for just 20 or at most, thirty minutes, after which I’ll turn to music, since, as Heraclitus says, “change is rest.”