Do Nothing

Sometimes I think about weird things all the time and prompted by the weirder things still. Recently, I was talking to a friend and I asked them what were they doing, and they replied, “Nothing.” That set me off for some reason. I have friends that seem to always be doing nothing even when they are clearly doing something. Then I started to wonder—why are we so encouraged to do nothing?

I thought doing nothing is our rest, but rest is our rest. Rest is an action, just like nothing is an action. Then I wondered, who benefits from us doing nothing? Obviously, it’s us—but really? Do we benefit from nothing? No. Well, then I thought no one benefits from nothing. And I thought that again is not true—all the people that would much rather you do nothing would definitely want you doing that than anything that could possibly hinder their objective or agenda.

This led to a series of thoughts and ideas till I got to: action comes from ideas, and ideas are not always our own. Ideas are not forced onto us. They don’t have to. Persuasion often works through cues we barely register. Things are phrased the way they are phrased because it’s a nudge to point you into a given direction. The more your perspective widens, the more you realize you have no clue what is actually happening around you and how your perception is just a series of filters that shape your possible thoughts and narrow your inside reality.

Ideas take root in your mind whether you want them to or even notice it. They live inside our minds and wait for you to water the seeds. Our culture is amused by distraction. We talk at each other. We entertain one another, but we can no longer challenge one another. We cannot be allowed nuance in our rigid reality. We no longer talk to each other because we’re all wearing team jerseys. We no longer exchange ideas, we exchange the illusion. We are fed a constant stream of information designed for you to take no action at all. Our stories are stripped of implication, leaving us with inescapable anxiety.

Our inaction is a tactical decision designed to get you to look no further, think no deeper, and feel no longer. Grow comfortable with nothing. This is the perfection of slavery, because while you give and consume, the very key to your freedom is hidden in plain sight.

This brings me back to Yurugu again and again—our worldview is shaped by so little, and it feels so natural. We never resist what we never see. So we continue to do nothing at all.