not-doing in the gaps
it's a basic form of care
‘Nothing’ may be defined as ‘not anything’ but I think it’s actually ‘not-doing’.
Perhaps it’s best to leave the semantics and just sit with the facts - we all need time to switch off and zone out, but we’re generally not very good at prioritising it because…there’s always a phone to steal our time.
I’m so tired of the ‘phone = bad’ discourse but I equally detest the insidious control scrolling has over my attention.
recently commented that it’s not her five children disrupting her writing time, it’s her phone and I nodded along because whenever I slip into that bored/frustrated/stilted space where a problem needs to be solved, I distract myself instead of undoing the figurative knots.I keep my phone away from my desk now, it’s not in my bedroom at night and I charge it in another room when I’m resting. I don’t find this easy; it’s something I have to start again each day. Some habits take a while to stick, it seems.
When I say ‘rest’ I don’t necessarily mean a nap; it’s more an intentional turning away from work and responsibilities, if only for a few minutes, and letting yourself sink into the nothingness.
I agree, there will always be something else you could be doing; starting dinner, replying to an email, tending to the dehydrated plant. And yet if you want to be a well-human in a world that feels increasingly uncertain, doing nothing every now and then is a very simple form of therapy. It’s good for your body and your brain.
We all need gentle reminders on how to care for ourselves, especially when we spend most of our time caring for others.