It’s taken me thirty six years to figure out that ‘Nothingness’ is smart.
Until now, fast meant pro-active, which in turn meant busy, which had to mean smart. A friend of mine at IBM used to use the phrase ‘busy fools’ – there were so many of us who were trapped in the wilds of our inbox and working on weekends. I now know what he means.
Anyway, the penny dropped this weekend. I found myself in Spain sorting out some family business. I took Anne Fadiman’s ‘At Large and At Small’ with me for company, on the recommendation of Russell Davis’ (very excellent) blog.
It’s Sunday morning and I’ve just finished the book. It’s wonderful: a celebration of the ‘Familiar Essay’, a step back in time to essayists and letter writers of the nineteenth century, where the author pours more than a little of him or herself into the material and takes it slow, reveling in the text like a good old rambling chat (I’d liken the format to an extended newspaper column, where familiarity with the author is at least as important as the content itself).
Fadiman covers a variety of unconnected topics: ice cream, arctic explorers, moving home, the Royal Mail and Coleridge. It’s random and unpretentious and I loved it – mostly because I know the author has taken a great deal of time collecting and composing each essay with no other goal but to please herself.
Which got me thinking. The setting helped. With no distractions other than Spanish network television, the book was the clear winner of my attention for two days. I can’t remember the last time I read a book in this way. In the bath. In bed. In the lobby. In the bar. It was one of my top experiences so far this year. But what, I now wonder, was so enjoyable?
My conclusion (written in a moment of clarity, pre-dawn in the airport lounge) is this: above all other things in life I most enjoy doing nothing of importance.
It wasn’t really where I read the book that mattered, but how. I had long periods of ‘downtime’ so I just grazed on it, re-reading passages and stopping occasionally for ten minutes to mull things over. The content encouraged this approach. It’s the literary equivalent of Seinfeld. A book about ‘nothing’.
The concept of ‘nothingness’ deserves more thought. As a category, I’m beginning to see its value, especially when assessed against its alter ego, ‘busy.’
My wife and I are at our best together when doing nothing. We’re at our worst together when stressing about work. We love each other when we’re tootling around at home or abroad. We generally hate each other when we revert to a space race of working ‘importance’ to justify why we can’t do nothing.
We have a boy, Lucas, 18 months old. Set against time BL (before Lucas), walking a pram is nothing. Sofa bombing is nothing. Sleeping in on the weekend with his snot on my face is nothing. Whereas doing email on Sunday is busy. As is having a beer with Gerry and replying to emails on my phone.
Hindsight, of course, is a wonderful thing. But if I evaluate my major decisions of the past 12 months, then broadly speaking they’ve erred on the side of nothing – or at least creating space for nothing. We moved from East London (busy, helicopters, property boom, shoreditch leisure pirates) to Lewes (real ale, south downs, cottage, not much driving). I changed my work from software development firm (large opportunity doing something I had no affinity for) to marketing agency startup (good opportunity, lucrative, more respect for the work, more time spent cogitating on problems I enjoy).
I’m still working hard, of course, but between Lucas, Lewes, a weekend in Spain and some long conversations with Gerry, I know that quality (of life and of work) has absolutely no correlation with quantity or speed (of either).
So, rather than carving out opportunities to do more busy stuff, I’m convinced I’ll do better fatherhood/work/husbandry by dedicating time to pursuing the ‘nothingness’ in life.
Next up: thoughts about attention spans and software.
Footnote:
My Netvibes account is down to x2 tabs. I’ve slashed my magazine subscriptions from around eight to x1 weekly magazine, x1 monthly and x1 quarterly. I’m working from home one day a week. I’m reading one non-business at any one time. I don’t carry a smartphone on weekends. I’m spending a lot of time calendaring domestic events and activities. I’m taking baths. I’m booking a camping holiday in July with the Warner clan. I’ve falling in love with my wife again.
