The Art of Doing Nothing

Slow down, savor life, and see things differently -- your writing will thank you for it.

Photo by Ittemaldiviano 🇲🇻 on Unsplash

They call it arte di far niente. The art of doing nothing. Italians has embraced this concept and learned to savor the simple pleasures of life: sipping a cup of coffee in silence, watching the saiboats go by, dipping your feet in water and contemplating nature.

The real term is il dolce di far niente — the sweetness of doing nothing. It’s in those moments where you catch yourself savoring the waves of the ocean lapping at your feet, or when you lay in the grass and watch the clouds overhead. It’s an invitation to slow down and savor real life moments without chatter, without the buzz and the noise, without the glow of your cell phone staring back at you as you scroll your way into oblivion.

The Japanese call this moment ma. In Japanese films or novels, there are sprinkled moments of stillness like this, moments that at first, my busy brain wants to fill with action: Where are the characters? Where’s the plot? Where’s the surprise element that keeps me gasping and longing for more? Why are we suddenly under a tree gazing at mountains? What’s with the two-minute breeze through cherry blossoms? How long will I have to watch this character sit with a cup of tea?

Those may seem like wasted film or wasted page space. But they are not. Those are called ma. Ma means gap or better yet, pause. Ma is seen as the space in between, the moment of pause and breath between two scenes on the page or on the screen that gives you a chance to be still and find beauty in the midst of tension. If you cannot pause, than you cannot see or feel, or rather, you cannot see or feel differently. Hayao Miyazaki’s animation films often present us with these little moments. In the last Japanese novel I read, Before the Coffee Gets Cold, the author finds moments in the setting of a magical coffee shop where the Westernized brain is forced to slow down and dwell on small details and moments of silence between stories, between characters or sips of coffee, moments where the coffee shop patrols and staff are brought together around coffee and stillness as meditation.

In Haiti, you’re invited to also sit down and slow down: chita. Specifically, fè yon ti chita. Have a little sit. Take a break, breathe, drink a coffee. Stop running. Pause.

Here’s the thing about those moments: they are intended for you to slow down and see. Slow down and empty yourself of noise for one moment, take a breath, ground yourself in the now. They become necessary and you will find, the more you understand the concept, that this becomes indispensable to real, healthy living.

I have never loved a concept more. This philosophy of slowing down and being present is an essential and necessary palate cleanser, especially today when our television boxes and audio spaces and our screens have us on constant alert mode. We walk around often empty on the inside and we fill our lives with noise: How will I pay rent? Can I afford to fly to this destination? What will happen tomorrow? Is that Check Engine light on my dashboard a problem? Will I need a new car? And what about the presentation we have due? What about the situation in the Middle East? Will my loved ones be okay? I still haven’t opened a retirement account. Blah blah blah, etc…. All to fill the void and silence.

When you’re a writer, the multitude of things you could or should be writing about is endless. We never run out of ideas, not for long anyway. Opportunities and stories are everywhere, and with them come pressure: we feel the need to fill our minds with all kinds of information and carry this in us so the well of creativity does not dry out. Because imagine if it does! Imagine if you run out of things to say? Then how do we explain or justify ourselves to the world? Are we even really writers?

What would actually happen if we went against the grain and the hustle? The culture keeps telling us to do more, to rush, to get it all done before we die or worse, before another writer has that idea too and writes it and wins all the awards?

What if we resisted this idea of always doing? Or, in less radical terms, what if we just slowed down and embraced not writing? What if we allowed ourselves to just be and embrace the slow, soft life in our own terms? Meghan Markle isn’t the one to pioneer that kind of life, I promise you.

Photo by W il on Unsplash

We have the ability to do this, it is already in us, and lately I have found tremendous pleasure in savoring these little moments.

I surprised myself the other day enjoying washing my dishes by hand rather than sticking them in the dishwasher, because there was pleasure in cleaning and using my hands, just me and a lit candle in the kitchen while the kids played in the living room. The sound of their laughter, the flicker of the candle, the warmth of the water, maybe even a little music in the background, and the mood felt surreal. I was almost in a state of high where I felt recharged in a very organic, clean way and suddenly, my mind fet open. I could think and feel, and the prospect of writing my new novel became less daunting, less terrifying, more approachable and feasible and… enjoyable. The next day, I felt more prepared to sit at my desk and delve into that heavy, emotional scene I was dreading. The fear was gone. I had clarity and confidence that even if the scene or chapter was a failure, I would have written.

I cannot urge you enough to put down your cell phone. The constant chatter of social media and news and information will destroy you if you’re not careful. I’m learning to do this myself, spend less time staring at my phone and more time in the present moment. I’m learning to unrush the novel, unrush work, unrush everything.

In that spirit, I’m going to be more open and transparent about my slow, soft life so that maybe it will inspire you to do the same. And then, together, we will see how our writing changes. Because if there is one thing a writer needs, in addition to a room of her own (Virginia Woolf was on to something there), it’s time. And that includes time to do nothing. When you are able to have that time, you can use your time in a multitude of ways:

• Cultivate Mindfulness. Meditating is not easy for most people, but active or dynamic meditation or mindfulness is achievable. In other words, you can go for a walk, a long, slow, meditative walk without music where you take in the sights and sounds of the world. Whether you prefer trails or city streets, the walking can be an opportunity to pause internally. Thích Nhất Hạnh, the great Vietnamese Buddhist monk known as the father of mindfulness, had a great following of people trailing behind him in “mindful walking” sessions through the city. Learning to take slow, mindful steps can be an entire re-education effort for many. But I encourage writers to try it.

• Nurture relationships. This means, spend time with the people you love and want to be around, in real ways. Zoom is one way, but you can also, you know, call them. Or visit them? Or invite them over, and you don’t have to go all Ina Garten on them and roast a chicken. You can make a cup of tea and sit with them, eat Biscotti and cut pictures out of a magazine with them for a collage session.

  Go through family photos. Somehow, this culture has shamed us out of doing all of these things as if they’re outdated, as if calling others on the phone or swapping family memories is something old people do. It’s seen as annoying, boring, which contributes in my opinion to the epidemic of dismissiveness of elders. There is so much beauty in the past: photos of our grandparents, their clothes, their hair, their cars, their stories, all of this can be fuel for us as humans and as writers. Slowing down to do this with your family and friends is resistance.

  Resist this. Be human. Love your friends, your elders, your children, your partners, your mentors, and soon your human experience is enriched, and your characters and understanding of life situations is expanded in your own writing. Now your novel is humanized. Now you reach beyond the community around you: you create a human-driven story that the entire world can connect with.

• Learn a new skill. If you’re not ready for full silence, you can teach yourself a creative skill. Yes, that would be doing something instead of pausing, but once you’ve learned it, the new skill becomes a creative conduit for meditation and or connection. For example, you might learn to crochet. Which means you have to submit to a quick tutorial video - yes, this would be considered chatter, but it will at least be the soft, less intrusive kind of chatter that helps you learn a new repetitive but creative skill.

  Once you learn to crochet or knit, you practice and you connect with textiles and fibers, embrace the organic, and this becomes an active meditation proven to help release anxiety. I know this firsthand: sometimes I can be an anxious flyer, especially with turbulence, and crochet has helped me stay focused on a task. It’s another practice of mindfulness that opens you up to patterns and plotting - you’ll hook and loop yourself through an entire story that way.

• Observe. Sherlock Holmes solved crimes not just through the science of deduction — it started with observation, noticing the little things everyone else overlooks. Sitting in a cafe and drinking a cup of coffee while doing nothing may paint you as odd (or creepy?) especially if all you do is observe. But there is no law against observing, or people watching, and you are allowed to let your eyes wander to the barista (it’s not easy work to make lattes with loud hissing machines and dripping hot coffee and microwave pastries for hungry customers all day long).

  I’m not asking we start stalking, but I am suggesting we watch how they work, how they speak and communicate. Observe what people order, what they wear, what makes them tick. How many are waiting for their coffee by staring at their phones? Chances are, they will be staring so hard they won’t even notice you staring at them!

  I like to observe things at thrift stores, study their shapes, turn them over and learn about the ceramic artist who crafted the tea set I find terribly ugly, observe the culture in the popular shops. I’ve witnessed physical altercations at thrift shops over coveted items, fights between collectors and antique buyers (real stories that happened at Red, White and Blue in North Miami during my younger years). You can learn a multitude of things just by observation.

• Go into your “wintering”. Trees go through wintering seasons, shedding leaves and baring branches in the cold. Animals hibernate and stay this way until spring arrives. Why can’t we, humans, also embrace a season of stillness and rest? Why can’t we value those moments and hibernate? So you’re not writing for two or three months, big deal! Do not give into the pressure of having to write everyday in order to feel that you are a writer. Writing isn’t simply committing to the page and finishing a draft. Writing is also thinking, ideating, building worlds in our minds while we fold the linen, shaping our stories while we make dinner. We need time and space to think of names for the characters and the places we will create. When we can reclaim that time for ourselves, we return to the page refreshed and really ready to do real writer’s work.

  

  I’ve developed a taste for actual tea time — because why not?

I’ve heard this quote and it has never left me: Distraction is the death of art, but boredom is the birth of it. If you do not allow yourself to be still and bored, much like when children complain to us of boredom, then when can we learn to be creative? It’s in boredom that children create new games to play. In boredom and in stillness, in the slow life, in the doing nothing, we make space for creativity to come. Even if you haven’t finished your novel, you’ve made a floral arrangement that will brighten your life and that of those around you, and that is also a valuable gift.

As always, I’m eager to hear your thoughts on this and mostly, I’m eager to learn from you on how you winter, how you pause. What are your sweet moments of doing nothing? What is your soft life like these days? What do you intend to do to find it?