How We Do Love to Keep Busy!

By CHARLES M. GUTHRIE

of the editorial page staff

published by the StarTribune

November 12, 1960

   BACK WHEN I was young, dumb and vigorous I walked faster than most pedestrians and took pride in my stride.  Now everyone walks faster than I do, even babes wearing heels so high they do well to stand up.

   I wonder more and more why everyone else is in such a hurry, why they are so intent and purposeful.  You'd think it was a sin to enjoy the passing scene and that strolling was only for lovers.

   TAKE A LOOK at the face of the crowd, especially now that we're getting into the Christmas shopping buzz.  It's downright grim.  The relaxed and unhurried are oddities.

   The other day I was wheezing toward the bank to make a deposit that would keep me honest and came face to face with a young lady who almost stopped me dead.  She lacked both beauty and dash but stood out like a beacon.

   She was smiling.  All alone and smiling.  Moving along at an easy pace and enjoying herself.  Maybe she was a country girl reveling in the city wonderland.  Or she might have been smart enough not to let time be her constant taskmaster, to know that life's success can't be measured in minutes saved and that a day crammed with "getting things done" isn't necessarily a day to cherish.

   THE OLDER I grow the less I can hurry and the less reason I see to try.  In a day of speed and production, when the gross national product is the measure of our worth, I grow increasingly anachronistic.

   We loafers and dreamers have about had it, I guess.  The hustler is the glory boy.  He's sure that if he ever stops hustling he's through, even though what he's hustling about may have no more social significance than a blocked punt.

   Since the body wasn't built for the emotional pressures now put on it, it's no accident that ulcers and heart attacks are on the march, with the nervous twitch keeping step; no accident that a lot of us are as sore beset as a do-it-yourself linoleum layer.

   WE ARE engulfed in a tide of time-saving.  What we do fast must be done faster.  Man could no more return to the lazy, livery stable yesterdays than he could live without computers, coffee and committees.  Nature didn't equip the poor fellow for the ride.  It decreed that he have some time for contemplation, time to ponder life's meaning, time from the office and briefcase.

   But we are so beholden to the "busy" bug we even make work of recreation.  A good vacation is more body-wrecker than rejuvenator, its merit based on the number of miles traveled.  Vacation at home and you're either broke or insane.  And we wear ourselves out trying to use all the leisure-time
 duffle that bulges the basement.

   If I live long enough to retire I'll hie to a quiet cove, if there are any quiet coves by then, watch birds--if there are birds to watch--and retire completely.  And should anyone advise me to develop a hobby to keep from going to pot, I'll tell him my hobby is repose--repose, and escape from bustle and clatter and the fret of care.

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