On Unproductivity
I’m reading a rather unusual book at the moment.
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh is a darkly humorous first-person account of a year in a young woman’s life during which she decides to do nothing but sleep. Armed with the advice of the world’s worst therapist and a litany of prescription pills, the narrator hopes that this year of being “productively unproductive” will transform her outlook on life and turn her into a new person.
A sample:
I was finally doing something that really mattered. Sleep felt productive. Something was getting sorted out. I knew in my heart — this was, perhaps, the only thing my heart knew back then — that when I’d slept enough, I’d be okay. I’d be renewed, reborn. I would be a whole new person, every one of my cells regenerated enough times that the old cells were just distant, foggy memories. My past life would be but a dream, and I could start over without regrets, bolstered by the bliss and serenity that I would have accumulated in my year of rest and relaxation.
I almost hear you already — it all sounds absurd. I’ll even admit that the protagonist isn’t very likeable on most pages. But I’m enjoying the book for its depiction of how flawed people, and living, can be. And also of how, sometimes, drastic measures are the ones that give you the most headway. Or any at all.
Give the book a shot if themes of “quiet desperation” are your flavour of the moment.
While nowhere nearly as dramatic as hers, I found myself in a similar headspace a few months ago. No, I never considered chugging nothing but coffee and downers for months on end in the hopes of an epiphany. But I did find my inner monologue obsessing over the idea of an opportunity to reset, think, and recharge. I’d been on a 22-year-long hamster-wheel of “do more, make more, be more” and the ride was starting to feel bumpy. I needed to jump off and slow down. As things turned out, I did.
A large part of some of these thoughts I verbalise here has to do with this slower, more deliberate path I find myself on. To find, learn and share new ideas about how to be more worthwhile, feel happier and live a fuller life.
Today’s share is a wonderful little rumination on similar lines that struck a chord with me. I hope it will with you too.
Till next time, keep putting the fun back in un.
