An idle mind is a devil’s workshop. Explained further, apparently inactivity invites sin. How so? Because satan finds mischief for idle hands! It is precisely thus that the poor sloth has been castigated to the realms of a sinful creature. So if you are habituated with a disinclination to exertion, consider yourself in the same mental, physical, spiritual and pathological class as the rodent.
I am forced to challenge this line of thought since I emphatically disagree with the Gods who consider inertia as one of the seven capital sins. Because in that state, the mind and body do not cooperate with committing mass shootings or slander the inefficiencies of the stock market nor does it hover around country clubs asking for handouts. It simply manifests itself in its own dreamworld and lotus eats it’s way through life.
A good example would be any teenager on any side of the globe. Do they all not wake up around 2 pm on a Saturday in their given time zone? And, that too only when the smell of fresh cooked poha or upma or idlis invade their olfactory nerves. They next stir when the witching hour beckons them to a watering house. Fake ID in hand these cherubs imbibe a few and either are hauled by the gendarmes to a bed of concrete for the night or by the family chauffeur who hauls their behinds through a window to a sleep number bed with satin sheets. Has anyone been hurt in this process – most definitely not.
The same Gods then anoint Diligence as a virtue. I understand this eight letter word may be a bit of a grasp so let us instead look at it from the divine perspective which celebrates as virtuous, that who is steady, earnest, energetic and who painstakingly works to accomplish an undertaking. Even as I put a period behind this last sentence, the name Charles Sobhraj comes to mind. An adapted version of CB’s Wikipedia page would be in order at this point. He killed hippies for money, fullstop! He diligently and methodically devised plans and put them into action, with the sole purpose of entrapping the poor souls and relieving them of their monetary possessions. Do some of those hippies wish they had never left home for the mystic East in search of nirvana? I am thinking the answer is yes. Do they think CB was virtuous? Probably not given that they would rather have met the Dalai Lama or finished their vacations in a less bloody manner.
If all are agreeable let us move the poor sloth whose only sin is that of no motivation and a lack of desire to do anything but survive in a slumberous state, out of the condemned category. Simultaneously, I cannot chastise all the non-murderous diligent humans out there, because that would be a travesty against Miss Harnaaz Sandhu, Miss Universe 2021 who won India a crown after twenty years by advocating women empowerment even though to get those final words in, she had to mew like a cat.
Now that we have managed to categorize laziness as not a bad thing and given the sloth it’s due dignity, let us contemplate on why Steve Harvey is still still presenting at the Miss Universe contests, in spite of several gaffes at the podium.
