How to Embrace Letting Go

Vogue Philippines Features editor Audrey Carpio writes about one of life’s greatest luxuries.

In 2019, Jenny released Odell How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economya book based on a keynote speech that had previously gone viral on the Internet. In the same year Olga Meckings New York Times The essay, titled “The Case for Doing Nothing,” was shared over 100,000 times, quickly leading to a book deal Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing. Although the two authors approached the idea of ​​doing nothing from different angles, both sought to reclaim some time for ourselves that is wasted on distractions or wasted on productivity goals. It touched an audience who felt that society had reached a tipping point of busyness and burnout, and those who noticed the damage that constantly living online was doing to our humanity. As if on cue, the pandemic struck. Within a few months, many of us became experts at doing nothing, and some of us learned to embrace it.

Over a week ago I tripped and fell and broke my foot. It was a pretty shameful fall – I didn’t exercise, didn’t wear high heels, and didn’t jump off a ledge. It was just an unfortunate misstep over uneven terrain that landed poorly, and now my foot is immobile for the next six to eight weeks. I need to rest as much as possible and elevate my foot. As a mother of four children, I am used to rushing to prepare the children for school in the morning. I usually drive myself everywhere, running household errands, attending work events, or taking the kids to their various activities. Now I can’t do any of that, but rely on other people to serve me hand and foot. I sit on a couch in the living room most of the day. The days pass unremarkably, a time lapse full of activity and calm, light and dark. It’s a bit like being in lockdown again, only this time it’s not about the world, it’s just about me.

When Odell began visiting the rose garden near her San Francisco home to “do nothing,” she noticed the birds. It was an act that she says literally required nothing to be done. “Bird watching is the opposite of looking something up on the internet. You can’t really look for birds; You can’t get a bird to come out and recognize itself to you,” Odell writes. “The best thing you can do is walk quietly and wait until you hear something, and then stand motionless under a tree and use your animal senses to figure out where and what it is.”

I remember a day when, in the middle of the pandemic-related lockdown, I was driving around the village picking up groceries and sundries from various residents who were starting to engage in pandemic-related ventures. I got a bag of bread flour from one house, a potted plant from another, and a case of alcohol from another neighbor. I never saw another soul on the street; As I was picking up the items, a masked person handed them to me through a gate or screen. It felt like a doomsday scenario where everyone survived by trading staples. I haven’t done anything productive myself. But I noticed every wilted leaf on my plants. I paid attention to the hunger signals from my sourdough blob. I was very aware when the sun changed in the late afternoon (which meant it was time for a drink).

Odell said birding has changed the granularity of their perception, which had previously been “low-resolution.” At first she heard more birdsong, then she realized that it could be heard almost everywhere and always. In the Hitchcock film rear windowJames Stewart plays a wheelchair-bound photographer with a full-leg cast who, for eight weeks, can do nothing but look out the window and watch his neighbors go by. Of course, he notices when something unusual happens and suspects that one of his neighbors killed his wife. Forced into a period of doing nothing, his sense of his surroundings sharpened. Although I’d rather stroll through a flower garden than sneak up on my neighbors, I can’t do either and have no choice but to lie down on the couch and do everything.

In Mecking’s book about Niksen, the author describes how she often lies on the couch. But she rarely does nothing: as a mother, she takes on the emotional labor of planning and caring for her children and their needs; As a writer, she engages in the creative work of thinking about her next article. Niksen definitely doesn’t read a book, watch Netflix or scroll through Facebook. This isn’t even about mindfulness or meditation exercises that require focused thinking. “For Niks it means making a conscious decision to sit back, let go and do nothing at all,” writes Mecking.

Niksen is not an exclusively Dutch concept. Countries around the world are experiencing their own version of the joy of doing nothing. The Italians are joining in Dolce Far NienteThe Spaniards indulge in that siestawhile Filipinos are experts in its preparation Tambay. But in today’s culture of constant optimization and acceleration, many of these traditions are lazily shamed by productivity gurus and LinkedIn cult leaders. I know I feel guilty about losing two months of my life to an injury when I should be out there like everyone else. But should I? Maybe the universe has actually given me the time, the greatest luxury, to do nothing but heal.

Vogue Philippines: November 2024 Issue

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Photographer: Shaira Luna. Stylist: Neil Anthonie de Guzman. Makeup artist: Zidjian Paul Floro. Hairdresser: Mong Amado. Producer: Bianca Zaragoza. Multimedia Artist: Tinkerbell Poblete. Photo assistant: Emelito Lansangan. Model: Natasha from Luminary Models.