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Nothing: Simply Do Nothing

usenothing.com

151–160 of 202 posts

Re: Nothing: Simply Do Nothing

#151
Okay, but I want to be able to compare how much "nothing" I'm doing with my friends and have "do nothing" influencer tools so I can monetize "doing nothing." I need to be able to sell flairs, let people pay for private one-on-one "do nothing" sessions, and promote products integral to my "do nothing" success like Mountain Dew and Taco Bell.

Re: Nothing: Simply Do Nothing

#152

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I like to go for a run or a bike ride. On a walk, you can still carry and even use a phone, listen to a podcast or music, or have a conversation. When you're doing a workout, you might wear a watch, but otherwise it's a time when you can't really get distracted or interrupted by anything, you just move, observe, and think.

This is excellent advice. Spending 5 hours on a weekend cycling is extremely relaxing, not only because you are intensely using your body, but because you are completely and utterly distracted. When I cycle, the first twenty kilometers are usually fairly painful: I am tired, I feel my knees, back, and muscles hurt, and am generally uncomfortable. After those twenty kilometers I enter a meditative, gelatinous phase, w…

I really identify with the phases and experience you describe above. The act of being engaged as your body moves through them is powerful.

Writer Haruki Murakami, a distance runner, was asked by an interviewer what we thinks about when he runs. Murakami responded that he basically doesn't think of anything. He runs not to think, but to _not_ think. That He runs specifically to create a void. (from his book "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running")

I would also encourage anyone who hasn't experienced this before: find an activity that demands this from you. You will learn a lot about yourself.

Re: Nothing: Simply Do Nothing

#155
post #83

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Love it! One minor improvement idea: get rid of the timer during the nothing phase. I looked at it all the time. You could show the timer once someone starts scrolling again.

Yeah this was me too, I found myself fixated on the timer, then I started computing factors of the numbers in my head, then I realised I just failed at doing nothing :<

You didn't fail. You succeeded...Doing nothing mostly means letting your mind go wherever it wants to. Counting the time (seconds on a clock) is a good way to start doing nothing

Re: Nothing: Simply Do Nothing

#157

? Go for a walk. Walking is what our ancestors did, to go into "finding" modus. Find a route to water, find prey, find adversaries to find you and find out. Or at least find the way home. All senses get stimulated, a moving mind in a moving body. The great outdoors, fresh air, i shite being Scottish. If you have a problem you need to solve, but don't know how, just walk up to a overview point and look down on the pro…

Maybe walking will work for me when I am older but it is not intense enough now. Cycling seems to be perfect as the scenery changes much faster and there is more opportunity to challenge myself (;

Try walking while carrying a heavy load.

Re: Nothing: Simply Do Nothing

#158

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Interesting you mention walking as what our ancestors did. Until about 100 years ago, food and energy scarcity was the norm. Our ancestors would have been lean and would not have typically expended energy for just pure leisure. In other words, everyone was busy trying to not starve. There was plenty of physical activity in the day, lots of chores and things to do. I say this to demonstrate how un-adapted we are now f…

This is not supported by anthropological facts in the slightest. First of all, the argument conflates hunter gatherers, nomadic tribes, and farming societies. The mean and variance in food supply in all three across the world and time varied quite a bit. Were the numbers so bad uniformly that people had no time for leisure activity!?! Across history, there is evidence of people having huge celebratory festivals, invo…

Do what humans usually did - hunt some dinner, hang around, maybe go aggravate the neighboring tribe a bit, if you’re feeling feisty.

Re: Nothing: Simply Do Nothing

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe walking will work for me when I am older but it is not intense enough now. Cycling seems to be perfect as the scenery changes much faster and there is more opportunity to challenge myself (;

Try walking while carrying a heavy load.

That's just regular walking. Life is hard!
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