Celebrity Column: The benefits of doing nothing writes Shweta Bachchan Nanda

When was the last time you did nothing? Let me rephrase, when was the last time you allowed yourself to do nothing? Can’t remember? Thought as much.

The modern brain is clogged with information, a huge percentage of which is non-essential to effective daily functioning. There isn’t a minute we aren’t being alerted to some sort of “development”— North Korea letting off missiles like it’s Diwali, the proceedings at the UN, cricket scores, someone you haven’t been in touch with since you had an overbite and wore shoulder pads way way back in middle school just posted a picture on Facebook after two years! Technology cannot differentiate between crucial, commercial and “couldn’t care less” information.

As we follow it blindly, slaves to our smart devices, now neither do we. Which means everyone is high strung and totally clued in about everything all the time. Basically, we have all become the ‘class know-it-all.’ The one we shot spit balls at for overstimulating the teacher, with unnecessary questions, and precipitating a surprise test. Talking of classroom dynamics, remember that kid, who would spend pretty much every lesson after lunch break staring out the window into so much nothingness, and emerge at the end of the day in a Zen-like calm? That personality type is very near extinct. Why? No one can handle doing nothing anymore. We have more affinity with a colony of ants, busy with their toing and froing than human beings from four decades ago. We do not zone out, take a pause, drift off or unplug anymore. I recently caught up with some friends for tea and we started discussing TV shows, who’s watching what. Turns out, a lot of us are watching shows we label ‘time pass’ ie — actively watch when we want to disengage. Isn’t that an oxymoron? Well, if it isn’t, then someone is (forgive the bad joke, full explanation coming up.)

So, I decided that I would task myself with doing nothing and I mean passively laying around staring at ceilings and not moving a muscle, not even to check how many likes I have on my latest post. 

For most of this week, I stared and zoned out and lay about inert doing precious little. I watched raindrops balancing themselves on neon green leaves without taking a picture and posting it on the ‘gram. I watched a cat trying to disentangle itself from behind a ladder. I ate my lunches in silence without switching on the TV. I counted my breath till I entered into a meditative stupor. I let the shrill admonishments of my neighbour to her dhobi wash over me without letting it bother me one bit. I was keenly aware of every creak and groan of my house, weary from its burden of human industriousness. I watched clouds morph, but resisted the urge to give them names or shapes and I pretty near missed my deadline to hand in this column. Then, in a mad dash, the computer whirred, the alerts clanged acrimoniously on my phone and the machines took back control of my brain. But those brief days of stillness were the best gift and finest holiday I have ever given myself. You ought to try it. Be warned, it is a lot of hard work.