Some days it’s best to just stay under your duvet. Try to convince your family to move in with you and make a teepee of fun for the day.
Retreating from the world is a restorative and something you should defi nitely do as regularly as you can.
We’re funny creatures, aren’t we? We get two weeks’ holiday maybe twice a year and we try and fill it with as much as humanly possible. Yet the most relaxing holiday I’ve ever had was right here at home when I was waiting on a contract for something and so couldn’t leave the country. I spent most of the week reading in bed, like I used to do as a child. I even had my little sister bring me up toast and tea and the occasional chocolate bar so I wouldn’t have to leave my little huddle of joy.
Someone once said ‘We are human beings, not human doings’ and, you know, whoever it was is quite right. Sometimes you just need to be rather than do. Being can involve contemplation or it can involve nothing more exerting than just vegging out and grunting in response to others for a day or so.
You can’t continuously behave in this way as then you’d be a person apart from society and, well, you’d probably be wanting to find yourself a mountain somewhere rather than read books on inner peace. However, you can occasionally opt out of it all. You can say ‘I’m not going to work. I’m not getting dressed. I’m not doing anything.’ In the States, they have a very honest concept called ‘duvet days’; here in the UK, we have the time-honoured tradition of the ‘sickie’. I’m not advocating lying to the people who pay your wages, merely negotiate a duvet day with your boss (perhaps a day off in lieu of weekend or overtime work?).
Also think about all the non-work things you do: the shopping, the housework, the helping with homework, the personal grooming, the buying of presents, the social engagements, the dinner parties and the weekend breaks. Are you exhausted yet? I’m feeling like I need a lie-down just looking at that list. We seem to be hell-bent on filling every single moment of time with something useful. If we’re not doing all that then we’re on the computer, emailing friends that we haven’t seen in ages. And why haven’t we seen them? Because we’re too busy!
Then when we do get around to seeing our friends, we feel compelled to have interesting things to tell them about so we run to the latest exhibition or to see a movie and a lot of it is geared toward remaining ‘current’ rather than true enjoyment. And so it goes on and on.
I remember a saner time. A time when, as a child, there was nothing to do so we just hung out. We’d walk down to the park or we’d go and collect conkers in the churchyard or we’d just sit on a wall and wait for the ice cream van. I’m the last person to hark back to a nostalgic, bygone era but I do think we’ve lost the art of doing nothing much in particular.
My friend the occult artist and hellraiser, Joel Biroco, describes a lot of what he does as ‘the art of doing nothing’. This is because he actually lives Zen philosophy while others just study it. He often just sits there, not doing much in particular apart from just being. The end result of these years of just being? A pretty amazing human being with a great deal of interesting knowledge and experience.
Here’s an idea for you…
If you’re a particularly social person, try a month of accepting no invitations. No parties, cinema trips, dinners or sports dates. And don’t invite anyone to yours either. A whole month of abstinence will make you realise how much leisure time you actually have and you can then use it wisely after your month’s fast to choose just those activities that truly make you happy rather than those you do out of a sense of obligation.
Defining idea…
‘Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.’
Zen proverb
How did it go?
Q I felt so guilty doing nothing that I went on a cleaning spree in the kitchen. Is that bad?
A Cleaning can be fun and pottering around the house is a ‘doing’ way of ‘doing nothing’. The most important thing is not to feel guilty. Don’t feel guilty about sitting doing nothing and don’t feel guilty about getting up and cleaning the kitchen. Just chill.
Q My son has no job and no prospects and sits around the house all day doing nothing. Surely that isn’t going to find him inner peace?
A Well, it won’t because clearly we have to pay for stuff in life like food, clothes, rent and if he’s not doing anything, at some point he will feel the pinch of not having money for that which he wants. Don’t bill-roll his lifestyle and try to have open discussions about what he would like to do in life. Don’t impose your ideas of what would be useful or good for him, let him decide. He may surprise you yet.
Q I never feel like doing anything. I just want to stay asleep under my duvet forever but it doesn’t really make me happy. What’s going on?
A I’m no doctor so I can’t say for sure but that sounds more like depression than the art of doing nothing. The lack of drive that accompanies a bout of depression is one of the most crippling things about it. Please do go and see your GP if this continues as nobody deserves to spend their lives wanting to be in a cocoon rather than out there in the world.