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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Saturday, September 02, 2006

entry arrow6:14 PM | Doing Absolutely Nothing

I allowed myself a day of complete abandon -- save for an hour of meeting I had this morning which I had earlier committed to a few students. I had an argument with someone I love a day or so ago, and to one accusation levelled against me, I had simply reasoned out with this: "You know how much work I have to do. I am a very busy man." The rejoinder was this: "Well, you chose to be."

Ouch.

I took that to heart today, however.

I wondered what my life could be like without the whiff of expectations or duty. Responsibilities railroaded to the side, work postponed -- all for the sake of doing absolutely nothing.

So there was the whole Saturday spent in bed, watching television, surfing the Internet until my fingers grew tired from pounding the keyboard and clicking the mouse. I wanted to be the very illustration of a sloth.

What I have found eventually is that it is utterly joyless, this kind of existence. I do not get the life of somebody who prefers whiling away days and nights doing nothing. How do you survive the excruciating moments of long nothingness? My mouth has become dry from the bile built up from dreaming up lazily of things to occupy me. The air has become stale, the room a prison.

So now I have taken a shower, and have planned to spend the remains of the day outside in the growing dusk. Whatever I can do to salvage my sense of self-worth today. Never mind the earlier reproach. I like busy. It doesn't even have to be about work. It can be about particular passions, and doing something about it with one's own hands. "Busy" is life itself.

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