On the difficulty of doing nothing
A short piece on the strange resistance that arises when the calendar has finally been cleared — and the slow work of letting an empty day be empty.
I have a small standing arrangement with my partner that on the third Saturday of every month, both of us hold the day completely empty. No social plans. No errands. No projects. No commitments. The day is, in principle, a free day to do whatever each of us wants — including, importantly, nothing.
I had thought this would be the easiest discipline I have ever held. It has turned out to be one of the hardest. The empty day produces, in me, a kind of low-grade restlessness that has been remarkably resistant to all of the contemplative practices I have learned for managing restlessness.
What the restlessness looks like
By mid-morning on a free Saturday I have, almost always, started to construct small tasks. I will sort the drawer in the kitchen. I will respond to the emails I had been letting accumulate. I will read the long article I had been saving. I will go for a walk and combine it with a stop at the small bookshop. The tasks are pleasant. They are also, in their accumulation, a way of avoiding the actual openness of the day.
What I have learned to do
Less. Slowly. I have learned, over years, to recognise the construction of tasks as a small flight from the openness, and to interrupt it. The interruption is gentle. I let myself do one or two small tasks and then I sit, in the chair by the window, with no task in front of me, and I let the restlessness move through.
The restlessness moves through if you let it. The first half hour is the hardest. The mind keeps suggesting things to do. The body keeps wanting to stand up. By the second half hour the suggestions are quieter. By the third half hour I have, sometimes, arrived at a kind of openness that the rest of the month does not contain.
What the openness is for
I am still not entirely sure. I have not, on these days, had the great creative insights that the productivity literature promises. I have not solved long-standing problems. I have not made the great decisions of my life on a third Saturday.
What I have done is rested in a way that the busy month does not allow. I have come to the next Monday slightly more myself than the Monday after a busy weekend. The third Saturday is, perhaps, the most useful day of the month, and the use is precisely that it is not used.
If you can hold a day a month empty, try it. Hold it. Defend it. Let the restlessness teach you what it has to teach.