Fog City

Doing Nothing

Doing nothing is nearly oxymoronic, because it implies the absence of action. Here in lies the conundrum. There is a great deal of activity, mostly mental, involved in doing nothing. Don’t you love the sound of doing nothing, quite melodious. Actually that statement is the first of many thoughtful diversions in the art of doing nothing. Just imagine the time spent comfortably applying musical references, sounds, songs, rhymes, even visualizing dance routines, to the fluid, “ing” “ing” of doing nothing. I think you’re getting the gist, or at least this simple example may set the tone for my explanation.
I’ve had just cause to try however ineptly to define doing nothing. The notion began harmlessly after I retired from regular, daily employment. Friends, relatives, acquaintances and strangers on the street, would ask, somewhat bewildered, what do you do now. What do I do now? Well my first reaction, being of a slightly confrontational nature, was to reply, whatever I damn well please, thank you very much! But I realized those good folks asking were generally curious, as most were of my age, and retirement loomed near and they were confused. I’d observed over time, work colleagues, as well as the average Joe, whether a bank executive or a lineman for the county, all stigmatized themselves, who they were, with the work they did. Their self-induced identity was job related, and hence their consciousness was burdened, chained unrealistically.
I first and foremost realized separation from the mental identity, the working you, was crucial in the transition to a new and better you, where anxiety plays a lesser role. But I found people’s habits aren’t easily changed or discarded. All I can say at this juncture is the more nothing you do, the easier it becomes. Doing nothing can take all day if you don’t try too hard. There’s another rather pertinent aspect to doing nothing, which ties into the work related identity crisis, and that is guilt. Our Judeo-Christian culture is steeped in guilt. There’s guilt for most everything we do, guilt for not coming to a complete stop, guilt for not saying I love you, guilt for calling in sick, guilt for ogling that beautiful woman, and the guilt goes on. Hence when you have nothing to do you feel guilty for not producing. But why?
I believe people wake up and think to themselves, if I don’t do something my day is wasted. They feel guilty. Here’s where I differ. In my long and happy journey to achieve nothing, or at least doing nothing, I’ve eliminated guilt. Some days it takes a good long while disassociating guilt with anything I’m not doing. Here we go, the art of doing nothing. My days are never wasted because what I do or don’t do is guilt free. This concept allows a certain freedom – a freedom to open your mind and absorb. If you’re letting the world in, through your silence, through your solitude, through your doing nothing, your senses are alive. The “ings” of living, seeing, listening, feeling, yes loving, these actions are the essence of doing nothing.
 My point of course is doing nothing is full of action. The key then is learning, acknowledging, accepting the reality of the moment, then doing it, being it, enjoying it. When I make coffee in the morning I recognize it’s only the beginning of my doing nothing. I have the good fortune, knock on wood, to live on a corner, with floor to ceiling windows. This particular environment is invaluable to doing nothing. I can spend an entire morning, and afternoon if I so choose, staring at a moveable feast, to use another author’s fine line, out the window. Watching parents walking their children to school, staring at the regular dog walkers, and making sure their dogs don’t poop on my stretch of sidewalk, checking out the senior ladies marching back and forth on their exercise walk, or and the most befuddling, watching the car parkers trying again and again to properly fit in a space too small. The thing about thinking is after a good long sample of all these endeavors, my mind searches the vault of memory for corresponding experiences. I can relive walking to school, the proverbial mile in the snow, I can remember the wild Weimaraner we had, who strew the neighbors garbage all over the alley, I relive parallel parking with ease, to the astonishment of the officer monitoring the driving exam, all this and doing nothing. I say time well spent.
If thinking guilt free still seems less than adequate for doing nothing, there’s the act of walking, which I consider doing nothing in motion. I will meander to the bank, well not really for there’s no need anymore, to the deli, or to the post office. I always carry my IPhone that I admit is addicting. I especially use the camera to record and share interesting and unique visuals of our beautiful city. These meanderings can zig and zag leading me nowhere in particular, but when I return home I’m full of wonder – the wonder of doing nothing. And as the day wanes like the winter moon, I’m aware I haven’t even read the next chapter of the more than a few novels I have at arm’s length, or tuned into the intriguing detective series I love on cable tv. You see there is more of nothing I can save for tomorrow and the tomorrows after that. Doing nothing is time consuming and endless if you only embrace it.
I found as I age and my world shrinks, doing nothing can actually expand the world, the world that matters most to me, the world in my head, my mind.

Living
learn-ing
stand-ing
stare-ing
listen-ing
laugh-ing
sing-ing
touch-ing
love-ing
think-ing
walk-ing
feel-ing deeply

You get the picture, doing nothing is not doing nothing!

As Sam Wainwright said “See ya in the funny papers!”