Is idle mind a devil’s workshop?

Everybody knows or at least believes that they know what it means. But I feel it depends on what you think is idle. Some four months back I was literally jobless (I was getting paid after tax in my office for doing some mundane unmentionable stuffs) and I think that’s being idle (since it was mechanical and I think being mechanical is like a machine which doesn’t think and hence idle and not the figurative idleness of a machine which will rust without movement).Anyway ,the point being, I thought I was wasting my life and so started writing my thoughts on MSWord( since stationary is not provided in my office to help in cost cutting) and really felt happy after typing my thoughts and my mind was really working fine churning out ideas on all themes . So I concluded that being idle (with no innovation being done) helps you to think a lot and thus makes you creative. To be clear, being idle makes one want for more and thus end up being creative.

But to steer my brain from the above mentioned workshop (since being idle is bad) I started going for MBA classes from IIM to get busy. Well, I need to say no more as my classmates might know. But for the benefit of the others, I hardly had time to think, not that I had no interesting subjects or that I was working 24 hours, but the reason being the difficulty in managing both office and studies. My life became so busy that I couldn’t afford to worry on a single thing at a time since the second event would come up so quickly that you totally forget about the first irritant.

Well I can say this for sure, MBA definitely teaches you to grow numb to problems whether you solve them or not. The side effect being, you become (or at least I became) so blank that I stopped thinking (of course thinking for strategic management or economics is different) and consequently forgot that I can write something about my feeling (remember I told in the previous lines that I became blank).Suddenly, one day, I started thinking when I was traveling and since there was nothing else to do but sit idle ( I forgot to get my economics book that day) I started wondering if I lost touch with the words and so resolved myself to write some before I forget. In fact, in the 20 minutes I traveled I managed to develop a good article in my mind but of course, I couldn’t manage to translate it that day since I got busy at office and had to finish off my assignment after coming home. So you see, I could not write since I got busy and consequently I am not thinking if I get busy, which implies that those who think are idle, which in turn means they are devising evil schemes?!?!? Which brings out the fundamental flaw in my original reasoning that I was idle doing mundane stuffs.

In fact, I have managed to write this confused article after my first quarter exams. You can readily imagine the effect of management on a healthy brain, previously all my articles were debatable topics and I managed to maintain a strong view on things at least to myself and remain sane and consequently the articles were of relevant topics. But now, I want to prove if an adage is true or not as if it matters if someone sits or runs all day.

So the moral is, it doesn’t matter if you are sitting idle or running all over the country to attend classes, don’t worry if you are bored stiff or if you hardly have time to breathe. But manage to think even in adversely busy conditions, since the end result should be to let the brain remain in running condition. Devil’s workshop is when you don’t think and not when you don’t work, now remember thinking and workings are different (at least in 90% of the cases in India-no offence meant!)