The Practice of Doing Nothing

I can think of just once where I felt bored out of my mind. Boring beyond comprehension in my current life as a hustling New Yorker, the time was a much-needed boot camp in doing nothing.

Bored out of my gourd

After completing a busy four years of college, I went to São Gabriel da Cachoeira in the Brazilian Amazon for five weeks with a vague notion of tropical fruits and sun. After the initial waves of fascination at the tremendous and sudden rain, shrieking alien bugs and the indigenous villages along the Rio Negro, I sank into utter boredom having nothing to do other than attend a daily service at 5:45 AM, teach music class for a couple hours in the afternoon and pick at unappetizing meals under the curious eyes of the indigenous women. I had so little to do that going to visit the chickens in the yard with my one friend and sitting up for an hour to make sure I had digested my malaria pill became significant events in my day.

I napped a lot and spent a great deal of time mindlessly swinging back and forth in my hammock waiting—waiting for the next thing to happen, waiting to have a chance to go out to the city, waiting to fly out to São Paulo, waiting to go home to Los Angeles. I wavered from trying to quiet my constantly racing mind so that I could appreciate the idyllic environment to feeling anxious that I was doing nothing productive. Having grown accustomed to always running around feeling productive—and at times overwhelmed—I found it very difficult to be still even for a few weeks.

I left the Amazon knowing that the time was good for me—good for my spirit, my character, et cetera—but without a concrete understanding of how it had impacted my life. Mostly I was excited to finally get to a city again with lots of people instead of flesh-eating bugs. It wasn’t until months later that I realized how much my brain had processed without my knowing it.

The effect

Before the Amazon I was set on applying to doctoral programs in composition. Without having thought about it, the plan just melted away during my break from activity and I discovered that I actually had no interest in pursuing a Ph.D. even though it seemed to be the logical next step.

Had it not been for my break from society, I probably would have just kept going on the path laid out before me, too busy and preoccupied with my schedule to have full access to what I was really thinking and feeling, and unable to assess honestly what I wanted to do. The time in the Amazon acted as a glaring stop sign that made me reconsider my goals and sort out everything crammed in my mind. This happened without conscious effort.

The practice of doing nothing

I haven’t been back to the Amazon, but I still practice a kind of interruption each year where I go home and do nothing but sit around and go for walks. I see few people other than my immediate family members and hardly use my phone or social media.

It took practice, but doing nothing has proved invaluable.

And although I don’t always have the luxury of taking big blocks of time off, I make time daily to do nothing except let my mind wander. I used to feel anxious about looming deadlines while doing nothing, but I’ve since given myself permission to be present in a state of inactivity instead of waiting for something to happen or thinking about what I have to do next. Now I find that I spend this downtime processing, conceptualizing and brainstorming actions vital to my career as a creative professional. I might be making it sound like work but it isn’t really—it is simply spacing out.

I’ve been thinking more about this lately as I follow WNYC’s Bored and Brilliant series and converse with the Tronvig Group staff about various topics including the value of boredom. James has written in praise of boredom a few times on this blog. I obviously agree on the benefits of inactivity and powering down. It took practice, but doing nothing has proved invaluable.

I wouldn’t be doing everything that I’m doing now without having done nothing first.

To learn about the Tronvig Group process, click below to sign up for our mailing list and get access to our library of downloadable guides, including the following:

Photos by the author