2021-09-04

Last updated Aug 15, 2023

https://interintellect.com/salon/in-praise-of-idleness-on-the-virtues-of-rest/ Recommended Reading:

• In Praise Of Idleness, Bertrand Russell (1932)
• how to do nothing, Jenny Odell
• when Richard Feynman felt disgusted by physics, his favorite subject

• The best things in life are often accidental or peripheral, and you can actually optimise for this
• Related: Beer v.s. Coffee Mode by David Perell
• Natural human behavior: fiddling; all of our tools should enable this
  • https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1079689685595607040

• Pleasure Time
  • unstructured
  • no sense that something should be happening
  • openness to whatever happens
  • not seeking to control what’s happening
  • Feelings that arise
• Leisure as connection, to nature, to people, to inner self
• “If you don’t schedule maintenance time, it will be scheduled for you”
• TED talk: Andrew Taggart on How Work took over the World
• The pedestalization of work
  • Cards/Work can become a god in and of itself
• Leisure doesn’t feel like work
• Wonderopolis: who invented weekends?
• Time sensitivity
• Buddhist Boddhisvata idea: doing work that feels urgent and happily taking it but from a place of wanting to, not from the obligation of shoulds
• Hedonic treadmill, constant illusion that the next leap is the leap home
• Don’t be pressured to achieve at a young age
• Comes from our inability to accept that we aren’t immortal
• Let go of what doesn’t serve you…e.g. past selves
• Who we are v.s. who we aim to be
• Sunk cost fallacy
• Give yourself permission to do less, and be less, and trust that it is enough and will be enough.
• Kate Northup: Do Less
• Treat the timeline as a stream of information, that you can take a sip from, no need to drown yourself.
  • Just like a buffet!
• Restful rest vs mindless rest, active vs passive
• The Oddysey: “there is a time for many worlds and there is a time for sleep”