SHACK 4012 BUSY DOING NOTHING

Songwriters: Johnny Burke / Jimmy Heusen-van

Busy Doing Nothing lyrics © Burke-van-heusen Inc

La-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la                                         
La-la-la-la-la-la                                                           

Laa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

We're busy doin' nothin'
Workin' the whole day through
Tryin' to find lots of things not to do
We're busy goin' nowhere
Isn't it just a crime
We'd like to be unhappy, but
We never do have the time

I have to watch the river
To see that it doesn't stop
And stick around the rosebuds
So they'll know when to pop
And keep the crickets cheerful
They're really a solemn bunch
Hustle, bustle
And only an hour for lunch

La-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

We're busy doin' nothin'
Workin' the whole day through
Tryin' to find lots of things not to do
We're busy goin' nowhere
Isn't it just a crime
We'd like to be unhappy, but
We never do have the time

I have to wake the Sun up
He's liable to sleep all day
And then inspect the rainbows
So they'll be bright and gay
I must rehearse the songbirds
To see that they sing in key
Hustle, bustle
And never a moment free

We're busy doin' nothin'
Workin' the whole day through
Tryin' to find lots of things not to do
We're busy going nowhere
Isn't it just a crime
We'd like to be unhappy, but
We never do have the time

I have to meet a turtle
I'm teachin' him how to swim
Then I have to shine the dewdrops
You know they're looking rather dim
I told my friend, the robin
I'd buy him a brand new vest
Hustle, bustle
We never do have
We never do have
We never do, never do
Never do, never do, never do have the time
Never do have the time

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Johnny Burke / Jimmy Heusen-van

Busy Doing Nothing lyrics © Burke-van-heusen Inc

 The Zen Master looked at a flag moving in the wind, the monks came and said to him 'does the wind cause the flag to wave and if so who caused the wind? Master, neither it is only your mind that moves!?

They came to him lounging on the lovely chair in his porch and they said ' you are a lazy critter, you just lounge about probably lazy and depressed, you are a waste of space' Are you happy when you do nothing he said'? No we fidget and we must do something and if the world were like you we would have no food, money and the good things of life' Do you have the cell /mobile phone with you all the time, even beside your bed, do you have the radio or TV or computer on most of the time, do you have to take sleeping pills, or listen to tapes or have porny thoughts to get you to sleep'?  'Mostly they said' 'Well I have none of these he said'  'Well I guess we are all different and have different choices they said' 'So why did you call me a lazy critter and perhaps depressed'? They went away saying 'You're a nutter, a weirdo, a freak you contribute nothing to society, you should be ashamed' He went back to lounging on his chair. Little did they know of his past and history. Maybe the Do’ (道) in SHACK 4010 has something to do with it?

I was in a caravan in Scotland with my late wife many years ago and we had a great friend with us, the caravan was small so Gill slept at one end and I slept on our cases in the middle and our friend on the other end, they were single pull out beds, its a long story but the bookings got mixed up. Our friend eat bacon and eggs for breakfast, we had fruit and porridge, he smoked albeit outside the the caravan, all day he had earphones on and at bedtime had a small radio on all night, which I switched off when he was asleep, we were at Findhorn and wanted the peace and the spiritual upliftment. He knew this and said just getting away from his London environment was his meditation. Well we spent three weeks like this and we got along. The caravan smelt of cooking of bacon and various cooked meals which I our friend indulged in----were we saints to put up with him or was he the saint who put up with us? I still don't know the answer I guess somehow the respect and love we had for one another may have be a factor.

For the last three months or so I have been the lounging man and all my rituals, disciplines and meditations have gone by the wayside, I started to feel guilty, my spiritual images seemed to be useless, my body felt dozy and heavy and once I realised this is a change in me, a radical shift, that I did not have to meditate, pray fervently, just be grateful to be alive and thinking being driven out naturally when I say driven , not by force but of no use, science seemed useless as it refuses to shift, medical stuff became boring and just was busy doing nothing and in that meditation was there all of the time a quiet sort of low humming joy and once the guilt  by the deeply imbedded programming of spiritual practices, the 'right' foods to eat and the impositions that I thought I didn't have and wrote about the empty mind 'haha' came to surface the ghost I thought was not there, surfaced I went through at first sheer hell. My friends did not berate me though although they felt love and wanted to help when I asked them to just listen and give me space.

So now I'll lounge and eat what feels OK and hopefully the Do’ (道) will move me on in someway or another or maybe not. 'Does the fallen leaf move or does it need the wind or decay to metamorphize into the unknown next step should there be one'?

GEOFF AKA SHACK