I’ve not been blogging much recently because I’m currently working on doing much less than I’ve typically been doing, or in other words, I’m spending more time ‘not-doing’, which has left me with less time to ‘do’.
I may have just said the same thing twice, that’s probably a reaction to having spent more time than usual ‘not-doing’ – my being now wants to ‘do’ more.
By ‘working’ at ‘not-doing’, I mean employing the mental and spiritual energy (‘effort’) required to just sit there and ‘not-do’ rather than get up and go for a walk, make a cup tea, tidy the house, watch some television, read/write something or fall asleep, so it’s ‘work’ as in ‘applying right effort’ in the Buddhist sense of the word; or in other words, I mean ‘not-doing’ in the same sense as ‘meditating’ or ‘being’ is ‘not-doing’.
NB I’m not ‘not-doing’ all the time, obviously now I’m reflecting on not-doing and writing this, which isn’t ‘not-doing’. I’m practicing not-doing for a few (3-5) hours a day and I’ve been doing this since Friday and will continue for at least the next week, until the end of July. I might carry it on for the whole of August, maybe the whole of Autumn, maybe the rest of my life.
My local not-doing mentor.
What do I mean by ‘not-doing’?
Sitting, and breathing and just letting whatever arises arise.
I could call this ‘being’ or ‘meditating’, and maybe it’s all the same thing, just right now I prefer to call this ‘not-doing’, because I think the main function of this period is to rebalance away from my long-standing habit of ‘doing’ too much, and ‘not-doing’ feels like a more accurate description of what I need to be ‘not-doing’. Calling the practice meditating would imply doing something, even though I know it’s the same as not-doing, calling the practice ‘being’ (which is also what I’m doing/ not-doing) just makes me cringe because it sounds pretentious.
Doesn’t applying right effort to not-doing mean I’m actually doing something?
Well yes, but I know what I mean, and I don’t want to get caught up in philosophical semantics, I’m not doing this to realise enlightenment, just because it’s something I feel is beneficial ATM.
Also, it doesn't involve sleeping, but I'm still holding to the cat picture as a good e.g. of not-doing, as a cat dozing isn't quite a cat-sleeping!
Here's what I mean by applying Right Effort.
On my long-standing habit of ‘doing’ too much
I used to be quite good at ‘not-doing’/ ‘meditating’….. I spent a solid couple of years on the doll when I was 18/19 – which involved plenty time chillaxing, and I proper got into meditation when I joined a Zen group for a year in London in 2006 – I quit after a year, following my transition ‘up’ into my first ‘senior’ class, I just didn’t like the feel of it: it was mainly about the cushions, they just weren’t right, and I couldn’t see the point of trying to meditate while feeling lopsided. However, Zen classes aren’t the kind of place you complain about such things, so I just didn’t go back. Still, I learnt a lot about ‘meditating’, ‘being’, ‘not-doing’ in that year, enough to take forwards.
During that year, I was proper meditating for a ‘good hour’ a day (as advised) and being proper-mindful for a lot of the rest of the days, but since then I’ve gradually slipped back into the habit of meditating less and ‘doing’ more.
This really started to peak in 2014 when I realised I had to quit work which would require me to effectively work my evenings, weekends and holidays in to transition out – I hit on the strategy of writing ‘revisesociology.com’ – my revision blog and selling resources through that, which took a lot of time to put together. I remember going back to work in January 2016 having spent most of the Christmas break writing the ‘research methods’ section of the blog and the attendant resources, and just feeling wasted.
Then when I finally quit work last August (on the back of the revenue generated by said blog, so it was a success) I just sort of ‘carried on doing’.
I’ve been looking back over my Steem blog posts and this confirms that I hardly had any time off last summer….
I post this on 16 July 2018 – On why I quit work and what I’m doing next which is followed by a period of house-hunting and series of house-related, figuring out what I’m doing next posts (hardly ‘not-doing’, and then by early August I’m into a routine of daily posting about Sociology related issues (via SteemPress), book summaries such as ‘The Shallows’ and writing the ‘religion’ section of my Revise blog, all of this in a nice co-working space in Medway.
If I look at my running calendar from Map My Run, I didn’t even pause there….
And since then, I don’t think I’ve really stopped – I’ve basically maintained the main blog, intensified my Steem posts following SF4 and then had to focus on revision webinars and my new teacher training job since February, finishing off with a really grim (and time consuming) examining experience which I just ditched 4 days ago.
If I think back to that time in Medway, the 3 month ‘between houses’ gap, it seems like just yesterday, a sure sign I’ve been manically busy since then.
In short, a period of not-doing is long overdue!
On the challenges of Not-Doing
The last couple of months I think have been especially bad for ‘habitual doing’: I’ve not only been very busy with work, I’ve got overly-obsessed with Steem and tried to post every day and keep up with a whole of load of Steem-dapp activities (Steemmonsters, nextcolony, actifit) – on reflection this is just stupid, it’s being lead around by the system, it’s not conducive to peace of mind or producing anything of quality, it’s reactive not creative. However, eclectic Steeming is also quite fun, compelling and easy to earn, so cutting down on eclectic Steeming has been hard – but necessary going forwards. Not giving up, just doing less.
Producing resources and blog posting is my livelihood, so not doing a post or two a day feels like I’m not earning. However, resisting the pressure to post daily should result in better posts in the long term, once I’m fully recharged.
I’ve got a huge ‘to-do list’ – a lot of menial tasks still not done from last summer, mainly sorting out my cellar and putting stuff on Ebay, resisting that is proving difficult.
Le Tour hasn’t helped – I’ve felt compelled to spend 4 hours a day in front of it recently.
Still, even with all of the above challenges, I can already feel the benefits of doing less.
On the benefits of not-doing
I’m only a few days into the practice and I can already feel the benefits – this post has been a breeze to write after a few days off, and I’m doing it sitting at a desktop computer in good posture, rather than slumped on the futon.
I’m also looking at Steem now as more of a life-logging platform, with the occasional depth-post, and I’m not particularly concerned about all of the developments going on – I think I’m over that – just diversify as my funds allow and don’t worry about it too much.
I’ve also managed to cut down on sugar (way too many pastries recently) and cut down my coffee consumption, AND processed foods in general, and recommit to a mostly vegan-diet: one can’t do these things with the stress of work baring down on one!
I also think the distinction between 'doing' and not-doing' is a useful analytical/ spiritual distinction - it's not about left/ right, or society/ individual or materialism/ low-impact living, it's about doing/ not doing. This is what I think annoys me so much about movements like extinction rebellion - they think they're so different, but all I see is another bunch of people 'doing' stuff, just like everyone else. Having said that 'doing' isn't necessarily 'bad' and 'not-doing' isn't necessarily good - part of what annoys me about Steem is that people get rich just by passively investing and not doing anything, while other people who 'do' by posting don't get just rewards.
I might come back to that distinction once the unconscious has worked on it a bit more, not something I want to do anything with ATM.
Final Thoughts…
Moving forwards into August, I’ve hit on the strategy of classifying activities into mental (basically thinking/ reading/ writing/ any chores such as finances/ buying stuff online) and physical (tidying/ walking/ running/ yoga) and my brain-thing is happy classifying anything ‘physical’ as ‘meditative’ and so kind of in the not-doing camp… so I’m just going to make sure that each day I’ve got a good 3-4 hours of not-doing and ‘physical’ doing activities to keep my brain-thing under control.
I might buy a hammock too, sure that’ll help…
And yes, I fully appreciate the irony that writing this post involves my having done something and that if anyone's going to try out not doing for themselves, they won't be reading this, then again if they're not-doing in the right-effort sort of way, they've probably no need to.
NB – this is a great tool for finding the dates of yer Steem posts:
https://helpienaut.github.io/steem/allposts.html