Humans these days, they always have something to do. Aren’t you busy? But the questions is do they really have something to do, or do they make up things to keep them busy? Busy-work is a great term, and often self-inflicted. For some, it is a point of pride I have so much to do. Me? I enjoy periods of having nothing to do. Not to many, mind, but it can do a body good to have off times here and there. I don’t know why it is so great to be constantly busy, constantly on the run.
I have always been wary of people who claim of working 12-16 hours a day, because, at least in the case of work that engages one’s intellect, I see it as very difficult to concentrate and produce quality work for such a long period of time. You may end up working more fixing mistakes or things that you had no time to plan properly. I remember my father once asking a fellow engineer, colleague of his, who was talking about how much he is doing but when do you have time to think? People don’t think about things as much these days, who has the time? Things to see, people to do! But I digress.
It is considered weird for some to have time and people brag about how busy they are, for some reason. I make a good living working efficiently 4 hours a day and then I have the rest of the time to enjoy life is more brag worthy if you ask me. Very often people are busy doing the most inane things. I have no issue with being busy doing something worthwhile, I mean we all need to pull our weight and be productive, it is what moves things forward, and we all need to follow our passions. But instead of creating busy work just to be busy, maybe take a bit of time, once in a while, and do nothing.
"You aren’t scared of limes, are you?" asked Charlie, before remembering that he’d given the lime to Daisy.
The creature laughed scornfully. "I," it said, "am frightened of nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Nothing," it said.
Charlie said "Are you extremely frightened of nothing?"
"Absolutely terrified of it," admitted the Dragon.
Neil Gaiman Anansi Boys
This may help. It may get you in touch with yourself, and make you see what drives you to constantly be busy, to fill your brain with noise. It is very noisy, our modern world is. Constant brain spam is everywhere.
People usually say that Facebooking is doing nothing, because it is occurring during downtime. It is in fact a way to fill your brain with noise, and spend time liking others’ crap, just so others like your crap. They say the same about watching TV. But that is not what I would call nothing. Doing nothing is a different beast, and an art in itself one that some humans lost.
Sometimes is good to just empty you brain and do nothing. You know, not a thing. Not watching, not clicking, not posting. Go outside, to a park or forest or meadow, whatever tickles your fancy, lay on the grass beneath a tree, look at leaves and how the sunlight filters through them. Try not to think. About anything. Empty you mind for a while. After a period, you can allow your thoughts to wonder, maybe towards nothing. I mean, after thinking nothing, think about the concept of nothing.
No, I don’t mean meditation. Not that I ever did it, but meditation sounds like doing something. And something is not nothing. Let’s not go making nothing sound important. Although it can be.
The brain may need the occasional break from over-stimulation of the modern world, which is everywhere, and leads to people applying the tl;dr method to anything more than a simple meme. We are so easily distracted these days. I sometimes find myself watching half hour TV episodes because two hour movies seem too long . Nothing can be a cure.
It’s boring work, doing nothing, you may say. Not necessarily, and anyway boring isn’t always bad. Boring can make you creative, teach you a thing or two, and you may even learn that there are ways of not being bored in one’s own company.
Or, you now, don’t do any of those things. Alternatively you can keep browsing steemit. That might also work.
Meditation is actually trying to think nothing. But mostly, it's about awareness of what your monkey-brain is doing and training it to actually slow down when you want off-times. It's a great tool and you can ignore all the mumbo-jumbo and the spirituality part and still see enormous benefits.
If you are interested I recommend you start with 10minutes a day and this cheapish app [ free for one month ] https://www.headspace.com/
Another really cool thing is this coursera little course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/science-of-meditation/home/welcome
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But you see, you don't need an app to do nothing.
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I second your view on this. I also agree with razvan...doing nothing is meditation. At least that is the way I meditate. If you view meditation as a chore, or something that you must 'fit into your schedule', then I see your point. But, that isn't the best way to view meditation in my opinion. For me, meditation is exactly what you describe. I sit, empty my mind, and do nothing. Sometimes it lasts an hour, sometimes 10 minutes. The truth is, it's difficult to tell because time doesn't seem to exist when the mind is in a meditative state. In any case, I like your suggestions, regardless of how it's defined.
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Eh it was mostly a joke on how the word meditation is different then the word nothing :). I think some people think meditation needs practice, and nothing sounds more natural. I practiced plenty of nothing during University lectures. Block out the noise a.k.a the professor.
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Haha. The world needs more nothing!
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