The Stillness Card

As an anti-dote to busyness and business, and the over-coagulated life... the stillness card.

Just as Aristotle warned us of the barrenness of the busy life, so too have many advised us of the magical qualities of a quiet life, of la vita contemplativa, where living is largely spontaneous and attuned to its nature, and where there still remains a modicum of otium, that Latin activity that denotes no activity, in which contemplation can occur. Indeed, the very nature of business is the negation of otium (nec otium, from where we get 'negotiate'), and by extension, any contemplation. To be sure, all animals have to negotiate, whether it be their way ahead, or with other plants and creatures, but when those negotiations drown out any possibility for reflection then we know we are in trouble. This, for many, has become the state of affairs in the modern workaday world. The loss of reflection and contemplation, and a general existential absence, replaced with a sort of controlled manic depression, due to our incessant state of being busy.

Stillness, and not doing, is the antidote...