Stillness in a world that won't wait

I tried to rest, instead I cleaned the house.

There’s a certain phenomenon of our modern society that baffles me. I’m guilty of it as much as every other person I encounter. It feels elusive even though it’s within my control. It’s what I crave the most and yet it feels maddeningly impossible.

It’s rest, stillness, ease, relaxation.

Or rather, our inability to rest without being useful.

I pick up a book, put on some tunes, and settle into the couch. A few chapters later, I tell myself I should find a way to rest more productively. So, I do the laundry and clean the house while I listen to the audiobook. On a Sunday morning, I excavate my old watercolours from a dusty old box and paint the nature outside my window. After an hour of strokes, I tell myself I can relax and multi-task. So, I put on a video about how to get better at something that I’ve convinced myself I need to master.

Sigh. Why is it so hard to simply rest?

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

It’s a messy question. And tugging at the threads of my subconscious has shown me that I don’t feel physiologically safe to say, ‘I can rest and I won’t be left behind.’

It’s a frustrating revelation. At its nebulous core, is a wavering and fragile self belief—that I can figure life out. Everywhere you look, you’re confronted with a world hightailing towards an unpredictable future. In the face of it all, society expects us to be willing chameleons.

Such bequests of us aren’t new. We’ve have always had to deal with changes— technology, industry, upheaval. But I look around now and realise that the pace at which we’re expected to keep up feels unusual. Each tomorrow brings a new challenge. And it’s this persnickety external messaging that doesn’t let me safely unwind.

Beyond rest, there’s also an erosion of my capability to self-believe.

Philosopher, Byung-Chul Han posits an interesting theory. In our contemporary society, we’re no longer oppressed by others, and so we’ve turned that pressure inward into internalised demands to perform. We coerce ourselves to push harder and we reject boredom, failure or pause, seeing them as negativity.

He says—True rest isn’t physical but existential; a space where we’re not defined by usefulness.

Therein lies the rebellion I need.

Slowness, contemplation, and non-productivity are the forms of resistance I must take up.

To bolster my fragile self belief with the same words I find unable to utter: ‘I can rest and I’ve still got this.’ The world will continue to command that I adapt at the drop of a hat but I want to move forward with conscious sensitivity and mindfulness.

Progress may be hardwired into our evolution. But so is rest. So is self care. Somewhere, along the way, someone figured out how to disrupt the balance between the two and we fell for it. We bought into the myth that rest is earned. The answer isn’t to reject or ignore the world. It’s to move at a pace that honours well-being and creative expression.

You and I know this. Now, we just need the courage to live it.

Take rest.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

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