Read This Book…

If you are expecting a book about how to delete your Facebook account and throw your cell phone into the ocean, this is not it. The author talks about how, actually, just divesting from social media isn’t the answer to resisting the attention economy.

The nothing that the author talks about in the title is, as she puts it, “only nothing from the point of view of capitalist productivity.” The ‘doing nothing’ is how to do things that aren’t seen as “productive” and sometimes even just do things for the sake of doing things or more importantly, doing things with a purpose that is not capitalism. After all, life is just a series of us doing things.

The author supports a shift from the “doing for capitalism” to more of a “doing for the environment.” She introduced me to the idea of bioregionalism but even more specifically, being fully present where we are and noticing the spaces we inhabit and the people and other forms of life we share this space with. One section of the book that I found super fascinating is about how certain pieces of artwork can shape the way we see other art and even the world around us. Similarly, with bird watching. Once you start bird watching, and naming the species of birds, you see birds in a different way than before you started doing that.

This book gave me so much to think about, especially as I am on a mission to be on my cell phone less. If I’m on my phone less, then it stands to reason that I would be doing more of something else. And maybe it’s not about the time I spend on my phone, but the intentionality of being on my phone. Maybe what I really want is to be on my phone more mindfully.