Disrupting 'Productivity'
How rest is a major component of a slow, sustainable life
Last Saturday I woke up to a note in my phone from 2am:
“Lost glasses at the Curragh - call them in the morning!”
I hit my quota, I hit my going out quota for the month, I say over and over to anyone who listens. I’m allowed to feel this shitty because I have had plenty of quiet nights in the last few months, and don’t need a coming-to-Jesus reckoning about my relationship to alcohol.
There are roughly two versions of hangover coping I employ the day after a marathon of a night out:
x1 coffee, x1 sparkling water with lemon, x2 ibuprofen with breakfast. Immediately embark on a roughly 1 hour+ walk with my tried and true hangover playlist chock full of melancholic, sad indie girls and boys. Lots of deep sighs, perhaps a Facetime with a sibling or parents, and a reminder to myself this is in no way suffering.
x1 ginger shot — it must have cayenne or black pepper — and x1 blue Powerade, crafts or writing in bed, takeout egg fried rice and/or Nepalese momo (House of Momo in Dalston used to be the move!), and a canned Coke variation, preferably Coke Zero. This makes me feel very wellness/Anthony Bourdain/bed rot all at the same time.
On the off chance I wake up feeling the consequences of my actions, I just allow myself to be hungover. Full stop. Why should I spend the rest of the day feeling bad for myself? I am a flawed woman, sure, but for the most part I do a fine job of staying healthy. I carry on through my day far easier when I reject the baggage of performance and productivity.
I’ve noticed a few Substack writers post in their chats, notes and essays small and kind apologies or reasonings for being absent, or hitting pause on their velocity of writing. Not once have I felt it was necessary. With more of a community feel and casual, personable atmosphere on this platform, the urge to apologize and explain a missed post or taking two weeks off is strong. It’s like asking for PTO in some ways! Perhaps if I were a full time writer I would have a different opinion, but while I appreciate how writers let us in on their time away from the page, I view it as a piece of the larger arc that tells us as freelancers that rest has no place here. As employees of an atypical work schedule, we should be ever so adamant about resting.
The subject of this post isn’t meant to be exclusively about letting yourself be tired from a late night out with friends or missing self-imposed newsletter deadlines. It does, however, encompass an overall message that will come into focus through the winter months — that we as humans need to recognize and accept rest where we can. Given the visceral despondence and exhaustion many are feeling after this week’s election results, I find it very fitting to entertain the notion that laying around, or taking a nap, can in fact be a positive thing.
Resting is necessary and powerful. According to author Tricia Hersey, it’s also a liberating form of activism. In her book Rest is Resistance, she says:
"My rest as a Black woman in America suffering from generational exhaustion and racial trauma always was a political refusal and social justice uprising within my body. I took to rest and naps and slowing down as a way to save my life, resist the systems telling me to do more and most importantly as a remembrance to my Ancestors who had their DreamSpace stolen from them.”
Capitalism endorses our guilt or shame for behaviors it deems ‘unproductive.’ We’re taught to work against any feelings of exhaustion for the end goal of more output; after all, we are only as successful as the KPIs we reach. The fear is we daydream too long and never put anything into action. To avoid grind culture is to avoid the benefits you can reap by working hard. Not so!
Much to Hersey’s point, resting is a radical act as important to breaking ancestral chains as any other. It’s highly plausible that those of you reading are either the first or second generation of your family line that has the capacity to acquire stillness and recovery. To rest is to honor them alongside yourself!
Accepting rest also allows you to hold space for nurturing a deeper, richer connection to your body & mind — and depending on how you rest, the earth. Forest bathing, a walk in the park, a swim in the lake or ocean (or wild pond!), can all provide the quiet, relaxing or contemplative bandaid you need when the battery is running low. Now more than ever, public access to nature is a privilege where it should be a common good. It’s a key issue in intersectional environmental movements, because despite the positive and essential impact of being within reach of the great outdoors, it’s a massive barrier to racial and economic equity.
In many parts of the country, the coronavirus pandemic has exposed an uneven and inequitable distribution of nearby outdoor spaces for recreation, respite, and enjoyment. Particularly in communities of color and low-income communities, families have too few safe, close-to-home parks and coastlines where they are able to get outside.
— Center for American Progress
Resting in nature can also be a better plan of action for those of us prone to giving in to the slippery slope of unmotivated laying around for longer than we intend. The idea is that you rest long enough to re-enter society energized and ready to organize. I have found this tactic to be especially helpful this week; rather than fueling the fire of my despair and paralysis, choosing rest has boosted my morale and understanding of how I can move forward in the world despite whatever is against me. I am coming out of rest mode with the wish to donate to women’s health and domestic violence, and volunteer or help organize for support of the arts and children’s education.
Taking a nap when you’ve been doomscrolling social channels and the news is in no way the culprit for your level (or lack) of civic engagement. Our society needs you, all of you, but you won’t drop the baton if you need a moment to pause. We all deserve to support each other more on this front. I wholeheartedly believe exercising our right to, ahem, not exercise sets us up to bring our best when it is time that we take collective action.
I hope you take it easy as you need. I’ll be waiting for you on the other side!