Doing Nothing Means Just Being Where You Are

Fun Is A Virtue

For some people, like me, resting is hard. I have grown into a habit of mind that sees rest as boring, unintersting, and a waste of time. Call it an occupational hazard or a product of culture or just a character flaw. But I do often have that lyric from Hamilton in my head:

How do you write like you’re running out of time?
How do you write like tomorrow won’t arrive?
How do you write like you need it to survive?
How do you write ev’ry second you’re alive?

Some books I’ve read about rest, like Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, frame rest as a productivity hack. As if the goal of rest is so you can do more. And, yeah, there’s something to that.

But I’ve found approaching rest from that perspective robs rest of its real importance and power. That there is more to life than achievement. Doing things just because they’re fun is important because fun is a virtue (take that, Aristotle). And doing “nothing” is important because the world is amazing and life is amazing and part of a good life means relishing the experience. Of going outside and seeing the trees and the streets and the birds and the bugs and just letting yourself get swept away in it all.

As Ben Sisko told his son, Jake, in Star Trek: Deeps Space Nine:

It's life, Jake. You can miss it if you don't open your eyes.