Health Homework (5) Relax and Do Nothing
If we want to think better so that we can work and live better, then we have to take time away so that new perspectives and thoughts can enter. “Being busy” mostly ensures that we'll do more of same.
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.”
Henry David Thoreau’s Walden [PDF provided]
Nearly all of us are “too busy” and yet we all know people who are “busy all the time” but don’t do a single activity of any consequence.
“Being busy” mostly ensures that we won’t think in new directions and that we will continue doing whatever we were doing previously, preferably all day long, preferably starting the day with plenty of caffeine which helps us do stupid/inefficient things faster and with a happier demeanor. We are rewarded for productivity, even when what we are producing is worthless or could be improved with a modicum of reflection.
If we want to think better so that we can work and live better, then we have to take time away so that new perspectives and thoughts can enter.
I talk about this in Inflammation Mastery in Chapter 4, where I included Style of Living, Stress Reduction/Management/Avoidance, and even Silliness in my 7-part treatment protocol. [PDF excerpt provided below]
“It is the stillest words which bring the storm. Thoughts that come with doves' feet guide the world.”
“You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?”
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra [PDF provided previously]
Graham Hancock wisely noted in his brilliant-and-therefore-banned presentation “The War on Consciousness” (provided below) that we in the West and especially in the United States primarily and exclusively advocate the form of work-productivity he calls “the alert problem-solving state of consciousness”, to which I would further add the descriptors “stimulated” (as we are a caffeine/stress/anxiety-driven society) and perhaps also “medicated”, as we are the most medicated population in the history of humanity, and much of our medicalization centers on stress-related problems such as anxiety and depression and stress-contributed diseases such as hypertension, dyslipidemia and therefore cardiovascular disease—the number one killer in Western societies.
For the sake of our health, we have to let our bodies, brains, and endocrine systems have a respite from the hourly stimulation of details, attention, and adrenaline.
“The alternative to work isn’t just idleness. To be ludic [of, relating to, or characterized by play : playful1] is not to be quaaludic [drugged into stupor]. As much as I treasure the pleasure of torpor, it’s never more rewarding than when it punctuates other pleasures and pastimes. Nor am I promoting the managed time-disciplined safety-valve called “leisure”; far from it. Leisure is nonwork for the sake of work. Leisure is the time spent recovering from work and in the frenzied but hopeless attempt to forget about work.”
The Abolition of Work is Bob Black's most famous essay, which he famously gave to the world for free, including unattributed reproduction [PDF provided below]
“It’s perfectly fine to sleep in a chair from Monday to Saturday.”
The Sundays, song “You’re not the only one I know”
Graham Hancock’s brilliant-and-therefore-banned presentation “The War on Consciousness” is provided below from multiple sources in case it is banned again.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ludic