Busy Work

It’s commonly said ‘Nature has no waste’. Dead animals are quickly reabsorbed as is foliage in the forest or plants at the end of their season. Some of nature’s processes are fast, some are slow, but all are efficient. Everything has its purpose, everything has its time. Only since the expansion of humanity has waste started to poison our planet. In the name of efficiency we ‘save time’ with prepacked meals that we eat in front of our TV screens before discarding the wrappers into landfill or into the oceans to drift for eons. Whole industries have been spawned to support this inefficient use of resources and to expand the variety of toxins that we expose ourselves to telling ourselves there’s no link to disease, it’s tomorrow’s problem. Eventually, perhaps tens of thousands of years later, nature will detoxify the planet from our spoilage but humankind probably won’t be here to see it. Instead we have just created unnecessary ‘busy work’ for the forces that govern our environment. Nature will not be mocked. Our rising temperatures are causing rising oceans and rising tempers as Pacific nations are descending beneath the waves and displaced peoples accuse an uncaring world. “Steady as she sinks”. The situation is reflected in our corporate institutions where inefficient use of resources requires ever increasing armies of administrators to satisfy the demands of a pointless bureaucracy. We introduce schemes of busy work that lead to corporate obesity with attendant problems paralleling diabetes in the individual. Just as peripheral neuropathy in the individual can lead to gangrene and amputation, poor communication within an organisation can lead to festering resentment, lack of contribution and ultimately to departmental restructuring if not closure. Busy work in organisations is dangerous. It’s easy to understand how mindless adherence to outdated processes embeds stagnation and stifles creativity. Vigilance is necessary to prevent busy work becoming ingrained in our organisations. Periodic attention to the underlying motive of the work, and regular reorientation toward our organisation’s mission can prevent enslavement to unproductive busy work. It also keeps alive worker’s interest and willing participation. It’s a short step to consider how the political life of our societies can become similarly afflicted. To me the extreme positions of the US Presidential candidates can be likened to the way in which cancer cells develop an ability to mask themselves from the body’s immune system. Everyone knows the system’s rotten but normal processes cannot stop it. Corporations are controlling puppet politicians and the voters’ efforts are relegated to national busy work. Political chemotherapy periodically knocks out union representation under the pretext of restoring democracy leaving decent society weakened. Meanwhile the cancerous growth of corporations continues to suck the life out of economies as society gets polarised into extremes of wealth and poverty. I guess the political equivalent of Gerson Therapy is to get back to first principles and allow a broad field of politicians to truly represent their electorate rather than the profiteering motives of the few. This will require regular inputs of pure green juice – fresh and eager, non-affiliated politicians to provide nourishment to parts of the country that have become neglected. We’ll also need a regular purge of corrupted politicians – a coffee enema, to keep turnover ‘regular’. In a properly functioning society citizens contribute their talents and skills willingly for the common good. There is no need for the distraction of ideological polarisation. There is no need for busy work to mask corruption and greed.