Why Doing Nothing?

I personally refuse to acquiesce to books authored by public intellectuals or artists that are screaming from the top of their lungs that they want to fight capitalism, replace it completely, eventually. Especially when the authors themselves are the happy beneficiary of a stipendium made possible by the capitalist order - because it involves money and capital and certain productivity synergies that creates a surplus of money which is used to give it to artists to write or create. Note to myself and my readers: I am convinced capitalism can be challenged and there is a lot to be done to reduce the disbalances and inequalities, but I prefer a clear outline and a coherent system of thought.

From the global point of an anti-capitalistic stance, How to do Nothing by Jenny Odell is a weak chain. It is not an articulated critique, but rather a collection of observations that at the limit can be easily branded as self-help suggestions, only that they are glued a dramatic intellectual label.

However, at the micro-level, there are many good advices to take into consideration, especially if you are living under permanent working pressure - but there is not too much to be done, as long as you have mortgages to pay and children to feed and you need money for your hobbies and books, among others. A detox retreat may not be the right solution to the everyday stress, although I think that it is always something to learn from, including from the monstrousity of the capitalism. The industrial revolution and its aftermath created new thinking and life patterns and habits and the ecosystem suffers. We can learn to listen to the language of nature instead, we can try to connect with our communities and neighbourhoods, we can just stop time and ignore our phones and devices and...do nothing. 

Silence is not necessarily the absence of something but could be read as an interlude to a different kind of connection with ourselves, the nature and other humans. The anxiety of productivity and the ´attention economy´ are a heavy burden but learning to stop and say ´no´ is an alternative. But not everyone can have this luxury and most of us will just continue to be part of this world, with its non-essential stress and hussle.

I´ve listened to the audio version of the book.

Rating: 3 stars