And Then I Do Nothing
I had Sunday, most of it, to myself. This is rare. Every two months maybe I have most of a day to myself. So this time, Easter Sunday, as it happened to be, I was left alone after lunchtime, ten, eleven hours lying in front of me. Obviously, I ran for two and a half of them. Then I had a bath. I had lunch, and snacks, and dinner, and further snacks, in a mostly continuous fashion that felt more like grazing than distinct meals. I watched a movie. But mostly, I did nothing.
Classic decision paralysis. One day is not enough to crawl out of the pit of overwhelm and fatigue, so I look at the options that are not the path of least resistance and I do none of them. Do I have a glance at the Chinese textbook I have had open as a PDF for three weeks? Nope, football highlights I don’t care about. Do I write words, nonsense like this or fictional nonsense that I’ve been doing extremely gradually for months? Nope, I’ve cracked out the 2FA and logged into Twitter again. Do I try read any technical books or, God help me, write some code to, if nothing else, ease my mind in this grim job market? Nope, I specifically disable NextDNS because I’ve specifically used it to block Reddit and an hour is gone. It’s five pm, is there anything to be said for another mass? It’s six pm, they’re probably on their way back already, maybe a TV episode or something. It’s seven pm, the hybrid car is making that UFO noise and the back door opens. I’ve done nothing.
I may read this in the future and realise how far I was lost down an every-moment-must-be-productivity chasm. But even if that’s true, I don’t want every moment to be wasteful bullshit. Write a paragraph, pet a cat. Put down the phone. I don’t like the phrase “eating your vegetables” as implying something you have to do against your own will, because I like vegetables, don’t have any problem eating them, and generally feel pretty good after doing so. I need some mental vegetables.
I’ve read a few books by Cal Newport, they’re mostly on the theme of “what if you took your time and didn’t get distracted so much”. But one thing I took from it that has definitely proven true is that if you’re dropping wasteful bullshit, the time still exists so you have to replace it with something. I struggle to find that something that I’ll reach for instead.