How to do Nothing
The Practical Polymath #21
Hi Friends,
I’m writing this week’s newsletter from my childhood bedroom in Brussels. After a year and a half of not seeing my parents and my brother, we finally managed to all be reunited and it is pure joy.
Every week, I’m featuring a newsletter from someone whose writing inspires me. Today, we continue our journey with The Menu, a newsletter about writing tips and delicious recipes written by my friend and Twitter thread wizard Amanda Natividad. Check out her hilarious rant about the Do’s and Don’ts of copywriting.
I’m taking a break from writing this week to be fully present with my family.
See you in two weeks!
Florian
How to do Nothing
Have you ever tried doing nothing?
It’s harder than you think. I’m not talking about meditation, that’s cheating. I’m talking about real nothing.
So what does that look like?
Set up your alarm. Preferably at an absurdly early time. Let’s say 6 am. Wake up, go to your living room, sit on the couch. Do nothing. For as long as your mind can bear it.
Crazy right? Why would you do this? What a waste of sleeping time. What a waste of time, that precious resource we’re always out of. That commodity we must squeeze every droplet of value out of.
As you’re sitting on your couch, eyelids heavy, you might think “What am I doing here?”. But bear with me. Ease into it. You’ll start to see the beauty of it.
Your mind, free of instructions, will start wandering around. Time is space for thoughts. Let those thoughts stretch out. Go to places they don’t usually explore.
You’ll start hearing the humming sound of a new idea. I vividly recall author Morgan Housel’s take on this: “Spend more time doing nothing, if you schedule every minute of your day you’ll squash your creativity”.
But perhaps, you’ll just sit there and spend some time with time instead of trying to coerce it into something useful.
It’s 7am now. Back to my to-do list.
Weekly Wisdom
🧠 Cerebral Art: I’m a big fan of Marcel Duchamp, the 20th century artist most famous for his piece, Fountain. Conceptual art abounds these days but in 1917 when Duchamp submitted a urinal signed “R.Mutt” to the Society of Independent Artists, it was rejected for being unworthy of being called art. The video below gives a good overview of the role Duchamp played in transforming art from a purely visual discipline to one that would also appeal to the mind.
☯️ Tao Te Ching: I took advantage of the few hours that my son was asleep during our flight from New York to Brussels to read the Tao. This short classic text is so full of timeless wisdom I regularly had to stop reading to take it in. This is one of my favorite lines: “A room is made from four walls, but its usefulness lies in the space between. Matter is necessary to give form, but the value of reality lies in its immateriality. Everything that lives has a physical body, but the value of a life is measured by the soul”.
🎯 The Tyranny of Objectives: My former boss and now Head of Global Tech Policy at Stripe writes a fantastic newsletter about technology, philosophy and politics. I really enjoyed this piece about how objectives can sometimes hold us back from finding the right solutions to the problems we’re trying to tackle. He proposes an alternative approach anchored in experimentation.
Lateral Thought
I can disagree with your opinion, it turns out, but I can’t disagree with your experience. And once I have a sense of your experience, you and I are in relationship, acknowledging the complexity in each other’s position, listening less guardedly. The difference in our opinions will probably remain intact, but it no longer defines what is possible between us.
Krista Tippett
Enjoy family, Europe, and taking a little pause!