Tea at Trianon: The Problem of Being Too Busy

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, April 12, 2015

The Problem of Being Too Busy

From Seton Magazine:

Of all the excuses invented by man to cover a multitude of situations and to justify unavailability, none is more prolific than the response “I’m too busy.” Of course people who work are occupied with responsibilities and do not have all the leisure in the world to accommodate everyone’s requests. However, if a person is busy on Monday, he should not be equally busy on Saturday or Sunday.

If a person’s work is demanding during seasons and cycles like the sowing and the harvest of the field, the intensity of the work does not persist in all the seasons or months of the year. No one works at the same pace every day, week, month, or year. Busyness is an all-purpose excuse for all seasons.

A person has no time to read, exercise, or pray. A person has no time to call, visit, or write a letter. A person has no time to attend social occasions, host parties, enjoy outings with friends, attend cultural events, or pursue a favorite hobby. The explanation is always the same: I have no time. I am too busy.

No one can be that busy. No one works all the time day and night seven days a week or has a schedule with no free moments at his disposal. Chaucer hints that the busiest people are often the most distracted, filling their time with many trivial, frivolous, or unnecessary activities or burdening themselves with projects, distractions, and unnecessary work deliberately to avoid the more social, civilizing, and human activities that lend balance and contrast to an active life.

Excessive busyness can arise out a compulsive restlessness that breeds the incessant activity known as “workaholism,” an inability to be at peace or have a sense of leisure. Human experience requires both an active life and a contemplative life. (Read more.)