Apocryphal fables: The man and the tortoise

Man: [Waters flowers, gives tortoise fresh water] Hi, little turtle. Tortoise.

Tortoise: You’re a little close to my rock, you’re making me nervous.

Man: Sorry. [Steps away from rock]

Tortoise: Hey, nice shoes!

Man: I… carry on, don’t let me distract you.

Tortoise: You have any more of that lettuce? For once I finish here? What’s up, you look down in the dumps.

Man: No, nah. I’m fine. I have time on my hands, is all. Just not infinite time, so I’m forced to prioritize my goof-off agenda, which re-stresses me.

Tortoise: Have you vaccuumed?

Man: Yep.

Tortoise: Mopped?

Man: Just finished.

Tortoise: Made the bed?

Man: Eh, yeah, sure I made the bed.

Tortoise: Decided what to cook on Sunday and done the shopping?

Man: I’ll do that tomorrow.

Tortoise: [Nods]

Man: I mean, should I play the cello, fire up the theremin, try to compose something, record something, write something?

Tortoise: Have you weeded the vegetable garden?

Man: I did that last week.

Tortoise: It grows back, you know. Mowed?

Man: I’m putting that off until tomorrow, in the hopes that it rains and gives me an excuse not to.

Tortoise: Respect.  [Stares at man]

Man: What?

Tortoise: Did you really make the bed?

Man: Mostly.

Tortoise: If I were you, I would write an erotic novel entitled Transit of Venus.

Man: I think that’s been done.

Tortoise: Can’t copyright titles, dude.

Man: Plus, aren’t you supposed to write what you know?

Tortoise: I would totally write it, but I’m busy.

Man: Maybe I will try to come up with a name for the musical genre in which I compose. Unfortunately creepcore is taken.

Tortoise: Crashcreep?

Man: Hrm. Nice.

Tortoise: Don’t mention it.

Downtime

I read somewhere this morning that wireless devices result in too little downtime for our brains.

Somewhere. I say somewhere. On the crapper on my laptop is where.

The human brain, according to my research, (brain taken here to mean the whole shebang, heart, soul etc) does need downtime. Staring into space time.

Best is actual staring into space, except for the falling asleep on the picnic table while falling stars light up the sky above you part. Second best is walking. Driving isn’t bad but you might be someone who prefers to concentrate while driving.

Meditating is good, but that’s already getting a little too organized for me.

As if I knew.

Some people are better at embracing downtime than others. The others call those who are good at it “lazy” and yell at them for not helping with the housework, according to a recent study I performed last night.

Downtime.

There is a German word, Muße, or Musse if your monitor can’t handle the double-S character that looks like a B, that is translated as leisure but has, for me, a far more delicious nuance of just goofing off, walking around, staring into space from a hammock, aimlessly doing nothing, whereas leisure is scheduled and organized and ambitious unless you are talking about a person of leisure or something.

Who would have thought there was such a word in the German language?

And yet, there it is.

Muße.