Yet Untitled 075 - Doing Nothing

A holiday dispatch about staring at lists

Dearest Yet Untitler

Remember by frenetic posts about how it felt being on shoot? The poems? Like this one:

I’m happy to tell you that I’m done with all such madness (for the time being) and am writing to you while on holiday. I didn’t label this instalment as a holiday dispatch when I started; but remembered that - oh yes - I had made these a thing before. More than once:

Yet Untitled 043 - Holiday Dispatch

Why does it feel right to label these holiday dispatches up front? Because I feel they telecast a change in gears - mostly to me. It gives me a cue to think differently. I like the idea of riffing off changes in my external circumstances to tap in to new insight.

I need to unpack from the last mode of being and to settle into a new one. Feel me draw that deep breath, dear Yet Untitler.   

Here’s another cue I took from the author Pico Iyer.

Do nothing

Doing nothing with MH and KA, c. 2023

Long ago - in boarding school - my friends Angad, Anuj and I (labelled “The Three Musketeers” by a teacher) used to make elaborate lists about everything we would eat the minute we got home. These lists would easily account for a calorific intake of 4000+ calories a day. We would perhaps manage half of that on the first two days and by the third day the novelty would wear off and we’d be like…blah… “what list?”.

I’m making this point because, in my head I made elaborate lists about what I’ll do once shoot was done. It ran into pages. The justification in my head was - I’ll have all this energy and momentum spilling over - I MUST DIRECT IT SOMEWHERE. Then I caught the flu on my last day of shoot and the most I could manage with my energy for a few days was a few trips to the bathroom.

My brain was still flagging me - list! list! list!

By body simply said F__k Off.

There days were spent mostly napping and being left alone. My demeanour seemed to announce to anyone within five kilometres that it would be advisable to leave me alone. In my fatigued delirium, I did watch Master and Commander again, having this conversation with myself

“…is this my favourite film? Quite possibly. But wait, how can it be? I can’t possibly say that. It’s too masculine. There are no women in it. No one should know. But man, what a film. Ok just keep it to yourself. Enjoy the cello and the violin.”

I did emerge marvelling at what a grand piece of cinema the film is. And how enjoyable it was to simply… watch it. Not as a reference. Not to educate myself. But, as enjoyment.

This itself was a cue. I couldn’t do this for many months. And now it was time to do it again. Was the cue telling me that I should now be filling my cup after spending myself so extravagantly over this shoot. Should I not be negating this depletion? Should I not be charging the soul?

As a response to this cue, I sent out a text to two of you who read this dispatch , asking for suggestions of books to read. Reading. It had been part of my big list. My brain urged - come on. Use the time. Before it’s gone again.

My body used the same invective as before.

But my brain commandeered my fingers. Before I knew it, my kindle was filled with book samples of every suggestion my friends had shared. Also, my iPad was filled with downloaded episodes of shows I wanted to binge, films I wanted to see, podcasts I wanted to listen to. My brain kept demanding this survivalist mode of hoarding, filling its larder against the next scarcity of time.

My body lay back and observed my mind with some degree of amusement, continuing to say its gentle f__k off, rolling back into sleep.

In a day or so, my body woke and started asking to be used. The LIST said things like

• Work out

• Go for a run in the park.

• Massive cleanup

• Physical housekeeping

• Discard old books

My body chose to walk from one room to another, looking at books, accumulations of paper and receipts, various messes and…failed to respond, looking at all these as if it were some new intern who’d walked in to the wrong department on the wrong floor. My brain was trying to tell my body - “everyone on this work floor is looking at you. Pick something up. Do something.”

My body only had one thing to say.

I’ll leave you with this enlightening article by Pico Iyer on the wonders of doing nothing.

Thanks for listening!

Lots of love

V

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PS. What are your thoughts and responses to this urge to Do Nothing in your life. Please tell me. I’d like to know.