On my recent post in which I announced I was off on a break (to India) to try the art of doing nothing, reader Leonie shared the below quote in the comment section (thx Leonie!).
“You will be civilized on the day you can spend a long period doing nothing, learning nothing, and improving nothing, without feeling the slightest amount of guilt.”
Essayist and scholar Nassim Nicholas Taleb is responsible for the wisdom.
The civilized bit is the salient part for me.
Why civilized? I didn’t get it before I left. But after spending four weeks in “nothingness retreat” I fully appreciate the judicious use of the term.
You see, forced to sit with yourself, you have to flay and squirm and cry and rail…with no