Embrace the Japanese Concept of “Ma” To Be More Creative, Less Over-Burdened, and More at Peace
Ma kicks efficiency culture in the balls
When it comes to sitting still, I can’t do it.
If I have a moment of quiet, it needs to be filled. Every idle walk has to count towards my daily steps. Every book or article I read has to have the potential to inspire an article of my own.
I’m also extremely inefficient at this which means I spend a lot of time thinking about filling up my time whilst I lounge on the sofa watching Gilmore Girls and feeling horribly guilty about it.
It turns out that I do not (yet) possess Ma.
Ma is the Japanese concept of negative space. Its sometimes described as a “pause in time.” Whilst the concept is often used in a physical sense — the negative space in a drawing or architecture — it’s just as relevant in life too.
Ma is when you find the space for nothing. For being idle. For not cramming your over-stimulated brain with yet more content, more noise, more everything.
The benefits of Ma are stratospheric. We’re talking about becoming more creative, we’re talking about being at peace with ourselves.
