Truly Busy and Blindly Busy

By Lao She

Being truly busy means occupying yourself in things that really delight you, like writing love letters, tilling the land, discovering a nine-tail comet, composing poems and drawing with spontaneous inspiration. These sorts of activities won’t tire you when you engage in them, even if you have been working ceaselessly day and night, forgetting to eat and sleep. It is this truest kind of work that makes great things happen, which in turn may help form a good culture. When you are truly busy doing something, what you keep in your heart, in your gaze, and even in your dreams is that which busies you. You don’t have time to worry over trivialities, material benefits, or the like. You are fully occupied and absorbed in the work itself. So, the busier you are, the more comfortable you feel, and you will be more likely to become a saintly man. This is the reason why love letters can easily become great literature.

Being blindly busy, on the other hand, looks harried and raucous, ostensibly, but as time goes by, it makes you numb, and the culture around you suffers. If it proves to be meaningless, nobody would be willing to undertake the work. And even if you are forced to do it, it would be only because that’s your means to earn the bread. You labor mechanically, eat until you are full and sleep soundly, or only half-full and half-asleep. You become a working slave instead of a free man. It is hard for slaves to form a good culture. This kind of hustle ruins your hope and health. It incurs resentment, for which you’ll try every possible way to escape from it.

(From A Collection of Laoshe’s Prose and Humor, Wenhui Press. Translation: Joseph Ma)

真忙與瞎忙

文/老舍

所謂真忙，如寫情書，如種自己的地，如發現九尾彗星，如在靈感下寫詩作畫，雖廢寢忘食，亦無所苦。這是真正的工作，只有這種工作才能產生偉大的東西與文化。人在這樣忙的時候，已把自己忘掉，眼看的是工作，心想的是工作，做夢都是工作，便無暇計及利害金錢等等了；心被工作充滿，同時也被工作洗凈，于是手腳越忙，心中越安怡，不久即成圣人矣。情書往往成為真正的文學，正在情理之中。

所謂瞎忙，表面上看來是熱鬧非常，其實呢，它使人麻木，使文化頹廢，因為忙得沒意義，大家并不愿做那些事，而不敢不做；不做就沒飯吃。在這種忙亂情形中，人們像機器般地工作，忙完了一飽一睡，抑或未必一飽一睡，而是半飽半睡。這里，只有奴隸，沒有自由人；奴隸不會產生好的文化。這種忙亂把人的心殺死，而身體也不見得能健美。它使人恨工作，使人想方設法去偷油兒。