Busy Doing Nothing(Charles E.J. Moulton) Busy Doing Nothing

An Article by Charles E.J. Moulton

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"Everybody's runnin' and no one makes a move. Well, everybody's a winner and nothing left to lose. Everybody's making love and no one really cares."

A buddy of mine from school introduced me to John Lennon's song "Nobody Told Me" back in 1984, posthumously released after Lennon's death in 1980. We had a Beatles Special Fan Club back then and, naturally, anything associated with The Beatles had high priority. Personally, I think my friend actually liked the catchy piano line and John's explosive "Most peculiar, Mama!" at the end.

I sit here, writing this, drinking a glass of Spanish Rioja, my favorite wine, listening to night jazz, wearing an Abbey Road sweater. So, naturally, my article has to begin with John's bewilderment of modern society.

How deep the song really is became obvious to me only in later years. John's foreboding Sit-In's with Yoko, his tongue-in-cheek comments during royal concerts for the rich for them to rattle their jewelry, the tune actually spoke of a lethal lack of neutrality in the modern world. A race that has totally lost track of order. Running for running's sake. Technology for technology's sake. Winning for winning's sake. So you sit there with a prize in your hand. Then what? What have you actually learned?

John Lennon's song from the year of his death, 1980, ring true in my ears. In fact, in the 42 years since its initial recording, the text has become more true than ever. The song lyric seems to tell us that everybody imitates everyone else without knowing why or making the real connections. Even UFOs crisscross New York City without anyone noticing them because they're too busy chasing their luck.

Modern man has become a consumer not aware that he is running against wall, as stuck as a model train with a missing wheel.

There's another way to live, though.

The universe is constantly making love to itself. Every soul, every body, every being a beautiful work of art. So think outside the nine dots and dare to make brave choices based on your gut. Kiss your bride, honor your children, celebrate life. And while you're at it, take a break. Busy doesn't do it.

Our society seems preoccupied with doing something all the time.  Doing nothing seems to be impopular. 

But, honestly, doing nothing is fun, just like Richard M. Sherman wrote in his song. Anyone who's tried it, discovers the power of silence.

"Because I'm busy, busy doing nothing
I find I never find the time to rest
Being busy doing nothing
I'm busy doing something
Doing nothing is the something I do best."

And I'm not talking about sitting on the couch, scrolling your smartphone. I'm talking heightened awareness. Trying to detect reality. Listening to the silence. Studying what you see. Meditating over facts. Thinking about solutions while not moving one inch. Feeling.

So, why do we scroll?
We are chasing the dollar.
Taking the dollar more seriously than life itself. We miss living because we worry why we haven't struck a goldmine yet.

So, we take ourselves way too seriously. That way, we become ridiculous, because we only take ourselves seriously and no one else. How can anyone take us seriously if we fail to take them seriously?

It's everywhere. The more we do, the better it seems to be to many of us. Stress has become an admirable asset. Life seems to have to be complicated, like an impossible code we have to crack. Most people seem to run around with a look of panic in their eyes, hoping that others will notice how popular they are.

"Nobody knows this, but I'm famous."

Who cares? Really?

"Wow," we seem to say, "he is making it. Never sleeping. Always on the go."

That is until the person dies from burning out, either through overeating, overdrinking, overworking, overagitating, overcrying.

A scene from the sitcom "King of Queens" comes to mind. The married New Yorkers Doug and Carrie accidentally take home other people's developed photographs from the drugstore, admiring all these other folks do and that they themselves seem to be doing nothing.

"They could be axe murderers," Doug blurts out.

"Well," Carrie responds, "at least that's an activity."

But have we learned anything at all if we are unable to love? A movie hero kills seventy people and kids go "Cool!" and at the end he kisses the girl and they go "Eww!"
Where did that attitude come from?
Busy society.

We are all so very, very busy, stuffing our days with endless activity. We even teach our children to do something, anything at all, even if it's wrong. Hyperactivity seems to be the ground rule.

This overactivity is not a new problem.
It seems to be linked to the modern world and how we view ourselves and what society tells us we need to have to be happy. It is a collective consciousness thing, something we tap into, choose to believe in. It's a train ride based on greed and addiction. We think this train is the only one running. But like any railway station, this place has other platforms. And this train of hyperactivity ain't the best one running.
In fact, modern society holds a million myths that tell us they hold the gold at the end of the rainbow. When we look deeper, though, the treasure we thought would save us is just a non-refundable plastic toy.

I made that mistake in my youth.
"I can't. I am stressed," I proudly exclaimed when a vendor approached me with a request on the street one day. It really was pride, you know. After all, this was during a time when I, in spite of everything, felt lost. The answer, I said, must be fame. "If I am stressed," I thought to myself, "I must be climbing the social ladder. And if that's true, I must be having a career."
Whoop-de-doo, then I've solved all my problems. When I become famous, my foot doesn't hurt anymore. I am no longer a neurotic diabetic and my social anxiety problems are gone with the wind. Scarlett O' Hara can finally stop postponing her agendas. Right?

Well, ask Cameron Diaz, Lady Gaga or Tony Hale what they think of fame and it won't be that their problems were solved. Au contraire, mon fraire. They got more problems. Even Antonio Banderas gets star struck when he meets Robert de Niro. And Mickey Rooney died poor and alone.

Somehow, we are like lab rats confusedly running in their maze. But unlike them, we think we are civilized. Lab rats know they're in a maze. We don't. We think all this is real. It isn't. It is a negotiated contract based on vibrating non-physical energy.

What do you choose?
What do you believe?

"None of this is real."

This quote is not only the title of a 2017 album by DJ Rozwell as well as Morpheus words in "The Matrix". It is also a quote by spiritual teacher Frederick Lenz and authors Christopher Priest and Katlyn Charlesworth. And Noble Prize winner William Phillips and Albert Einstein have results that can prove it. Atoms are fields. Even Erich Fromm said it. "An illusion shared by everyone becomes a reality." Things remain illusions.

In my view, love is the most real thing of all. That and the soul. Nothing beats a kiss.

The hyperactive reality is tearing many of us down, because the physical illusion is fed at the cost of the more than true eternal spirit. In the year 1800, the world had a population of one billion. Now it has 8. The world noise level has increased a 1000 % in decibels in that time. A normal brain two hundred years ago was fed with maybe at the most three to four pieces of information before breakfast. Now, it's three to four hundred.

All we have to do is look at the way films were done in 1948 and how they are done in 2022. Hitchcock's 1948 thriller "The Rope" had 10 cuts. Professional film editor Gabor Kortai estimates circa 2000 cuts in a standard movie length of 100 minutes today, which is a new cut every 1.5 seconds.

What does that do to the brain?
Dr. Leonardo Cohen and author Kristen Lawrence have, in their work, proven that taking breaks in imperative to learning. The synapses will only connect while resting. A German laboratory proved that thoughts have weight. Guess what kind of weight hyperactive thoughts have.

Now, if brains do process information while we rest, it makes perfect sense that we get the best ideas after a good night's sleep. Composer Franz Schubert used to fall asleep with his glasses on his nose so he could rush to the desk and write down song ideas upon waking up.

But it doesn't end there. The Institute of Heart Math in northern California has proven not only that the heart has more synaptic nurites than the brain, literally being emotional storage spaces. It has also proven that we are electrical power systems with 1.4 Volts in every single cell. With 37.2 trillion cells in you, we have 52 trillion volts in every individual alone. In comparison, the local transmission line of an average city is from 13,800 to 44,000. So you carry the power of Las Vegas within you. Now you understand why they called Elvis electrical. What did author Rhonda Byrne say about unlimited potential in her book "The Secret"?

If we then are electromagnetic, why the hell have we not used this to our benefit? I will tell you why. Because people are continually using you to believe in their agenda. Look around you. You are being distracted 24 hours a day by a million people who think their idea is better than yours. But they just want you to buy their idea so they can get rich. But if you are electrical and your non-corporeal identity connects with a million souls a day, then you are one with them already and that means you are one with everything else. That is bigger than fame.
God beats fame by a long shot.
And so does that kiss.

Energy never dies.
Émilie du Châtelet's first rule of electromagnetism is that energy never dies. It just changes form. All we have to do is to think logically to understand that, if we are energy, our energy has been here before. Countless times. 3 year old James Leininger had correct memories of places, people and planes to prove he was a World War II fighter pilot. Sri Lankan girl Purina knew the intimate circumstances of her death as a far-away arrend boy, even what she had carried with her in her pockets at the time of death, a fact her late mother had told no one. I know for certain who I was in a former life because I have correct memories of that life I proved were true.

Society's hyperactivity surpresses this, because it does not give heart, brain or soul a chance to make the right connections.

"Slow down, you move too fast.
Vienna waits for you."

Billy Joel's words from his famous song are truer than ever.

Make the connections, my friend.

The spiritual world is waiting for you.
All you have to do is ask the angels to guide you there.
Believe me. They exist. I've seen them, heard them and continuously feel them. So respect what they do. They do a great job. As do you.

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