Chapter 1: Being Busy

This book is about the social life of busyness, the busyness that we experience and encounter in our everyday lives that makes us weary or elated and that pushes us towards and away from other people. Busyness can validate everyday life or be an excuse for not doing something. It is not an exact thing or practice; if we are busy, it is because of a sense of fulfilment or of being overwhelmed. As an excuse, it is simultaneously watertight and vague. If someone says they are too busy to do something, this is their final decision, though the precise details of busyness need not be revealed. Busyness can be a default position we assume about other people, especially if we require something from them. Acknowledging busyness is often interspersed within the requests of others: ‘I know you are busy, but could you….?’.