Nice attitude. Universities become factories for producing “knowledge”, “products”, “applicability” in favour of a economical approach of short-sighted efficiency and measurable “relevance”.

Is all knowledge immediately good for something? Are knowledge workers, like creative workers bound to the yoke of efficiency and “usefulness”? A lot of nobel prizes would not have been achieved and flourished in a climate like this. There might be a need in the institutions of education as well to adopt Doing Nothing as a tool and method of protest, an expression of freedom from goal-driven “knowledge management”.

What happens when 250+ students stop and do nothing in a public place? Watch and learn what norms are, how they can be broken, and what are the consequences?

Filmed on the illustrious campus of Georgia Southern University.

For more head to www.SociologySource.com

Share and make people happy!

A journalist called Harold Puffman Coffin (yes, Coffin! ) suggested and executed this day in his life to celebrate WITHOUT having to do anything for it – no turkey, no pyrotechnic setup, no presents for a zillion relatives, no travel to see Aunt Mary and Uncle John, no raising the flag, no singing complicated harmonies in disharmonious constellations of people with a lack of motivation, no decorated trees being thrown out of the window later, no decorated people, no parades, no festooning, no calls to make. Just a day for for the overworked mind in cool, shady, safe corner of life – a day for doing nothing.

A sensational idea – an idea worth to support and spread as we find. In Europe we suggested the 1st of May to be re-named and re-defined properly as a day without work, not working for a day celebrating work. A day for constructively doing nothing. Celebrate both and start tomorro, 16th January with Harold Puffman Coffin´s daring invention. We invite you to go further with this concept: Join us in practising the 1st of May as the “Day of Constructive Idleness”.

BUT:

Do you really think one day will be enough to soothe you in our transformative times? Dedicating more to this delicious non-activity may be your only chance to stay sane and healthy. Recharge your batteries through doing nothing daily, or as often as you can and need. Our suggestion that will boost your output is 1/4th of a work day. You will come more focused into the next day if you have let yourself indulge in the sweetness of idleness – without a bad conscience. You CAN do it. If 317 Million US citizens are having that day in their calendar (although not officially sanctioned…) – we deserve and demand to have that, too – officially!! Give us our day of DOING NOTHING, dear EU parliament, dear National governments, because WE NEED IT! Psychologists confirm that doing nothing is absolutely necessary for our health, our spirit and work enthusiasm.

Worship DOING NOTHING with us and millions of happy US citizens, tomorrow.

They deserve this joy – we, too.

Read full post for practical contemplation at:

zenhabits.net/kill-time/

www.timetomuse.com

Below the text to the performance watched outside of DN on DAY 10 raised cosmologigical
dimension of nothing. Thanks for that inspiration – check out the artists, one who did try to look
through a tube and a window at the same time and one who makes music like
being inside of black holes…Mischa Badasyan & Alex Pastore

Some English translation equivalents of wu or (Japanese) mu 無 are:

 
In modern Chinese, Japanese and Korean it is commonly used in combination words as a prefix to indicate the absence of something, e.g., Chinese: 无线; pinyin: wúxiàn / musen (無線?) / museon (무선 ) for “wireless”. In Classical Chinese, it is an impersonal existential verb meaning “not have”. [Our comment: Wu / Not have as part of digital connection in super-productive online times is quite a fun twist ]

The character wu 無 originally meant “dance” and was later used as a graphic loan for wu “not”. The earliest graphs for 無 pictured a person with outstretched arms holding something (possibly sleeves, tassels, ornaments) and represented the word wu “dance; dancer”. After wu 無 “dance” was borrowed as a loan for wu “not; without”, the original meaning was elucidated with the 舛 “opposite feet” at the bottom of wu 舞 “dance”.

We want to humbly point out that the concept of doing nothing was not invented by us, but rather fowarded and “copied”, put into “action”. We practically want to find out more about an ancient Taoist principle, without necessarily becoming Taoist: Wu wei (Chinese: 無爲; a variant and derivatives: traditional Chinese: 無為; simplified Chinese: 无为; pinyin: wú wéi; Japanese: 無為; Korean: 무위; Vietnamese: Vô vi; English, lit. non-doing) is an important concept in Taoism that literally means non-action or non-doing.

[curated with the least effort possible from wikipedia]

Michael Roselieb made the impossible tangible. A 150 kg Wu. We kindly invite you to appreciate his work at
www.michaelroselieb.com
&
www.michaelroselieb.com/objects.php?kind=chinese-characters

“Boredom, I would argue, is a key component of relaxation. Component to functional relaxation is the ability to rest your mind until it is slack, which the resting state of boredom. This is why people who need vacation so often seek out places where they can lay, do nothing, and often drink heavily. They want to let their mental faculty rest, slipping into a bored state so that they can recharge. Baths have this effect, ar at least can, if you don´t bring two books a phone and stress with you. There is an art to relaxing. […]

Why? Our lives are simply richer when they have more in them. More what? More thought, information, smiles and everything else that we do digitally. The cost is that if we fail to balance at least partially we risk complete subsumption of our physical lives into our electronic dance. That´s something that we must avoid.”

Alex Wilhelm, Deputy Managing Editor at the Next Web

HK

Did you do DN? [badge]Yes[/badge]
How long did you do nothing today? [badge]2h / per 2h[/badge]

Answers HK

[collapsibles]
[collapse title=”How did you do nothing today?” state=”active”]
Walked along the river 30min. Sat in a church for 1,5h.
[/collapse]
[collapse title=”Did you learn something new about doing nothing?”]
A church as a meditative space is good if you can detach it from religion and see the whole scenery, smell, architecture, voices, chairs and so on… I suggest that you fight the reflex of praying, do nothing as “praying” so that the gods of creativity may have mercy with you humble sinner. Observing an ecumenical dialogue would be best. Stumbled into exactly such an intercultural exchange. Lucky…thanks, dear god(s)!
[/collapse]
[collapse title=”Did you learn anything new about yourself?”]
I love crossing over and knowing ahead of time. Here I did not. Even not in a (protestant) church around the corner where I live. I am curious (I already knew) but I am curious so that I can judge more quickly…ooops. Or to have a clue. Here I sat for 15min without knowing what will happen, Anonymous Alcoholics meeting, church-bible group, a Protestant family gathering or a choir meeting? And it was still burning under my fingers, until I let go. Everything was fine. I do not need to do anything. I am happy to be here, now. The events unfold without me as well…
[/collapse]
[collapse title=”How did you feel about this experiment today?”]
Very good. Did get too much input for really counting it as nothing-nothing, but this church concluded a journey of 40 days nicely. Very happy.
[/collapse]
[collapse title=”Additional comments?”]
Walked back after I went away to talk to the (female) Vicar (Egyptian origin, born in Berlin, married to a German about the meditation room she has mentioned. I was walking away because of unnecessary „reasons“ – which, I found out on my way away, meant nothing – so I returned. A wonderful chat with the people there followed…
[/collapse]
[collapse title=”Before/While/After”]
BEFORE: Ahhm, I wanted it to be special, somehow, but I did not know how to do that so I gave it up in the last second and just went out of the house.

WHILE: I was faintly aware that I want to be inside more than outside and that the church might be a nice place, but I could have ended up anywhere. Two trees, one with a 76 label, and another one I never touched on the way were I always exercise running, a big willow with a sign about „Lebensraum“ – „space for living“ attached to it, you can see it only if you step close to the stem and look up. Then the church seemed to be open and people were entering – I followed them and sat down. A lecture about inter-religious dialogue followed.

AFTER: Really good. Great actually. Lifted my spirits. Could have gone earlier, but stayed. Got really hungry.
[/collapse]
[/collapsibles]

NT

Did you do DN? [badge]Yes & No[/badge]
How long did you do nothing today? [badge]well…[/badge]

Answers NT

[collapsibles]
[collapse title=”How did you do nothing today?” state=”active”]
What a strange day, what a strange experience… Wanted to celebrate the final day without conscious DN, but it didn`t work… Aimlessly wandering around visiting my favourite places…
[/collapse]
[collapse title=”Did you learn something new about doing nothing?”]
DN isn`t a skill, it is a natural feature of life, it can`t be “done”, though one has to practice it until it is rooted in the DNS…
[/collapse]
[collapse title=”Did you learn anything new about yourself?”]
Interesting how effortless DN could be without intention.. Evidently new neural pathways have been established in my system
[/collapse]
[collapse title=”How did you feel about this experiment today?”]
Had the feeling to permanently hang out with myself while ignoring my (also lazy) inner dialogue…
[/collapse]
[/collapsibles]