S2E3 – Rest

No discussion about labour & productivity is complete without talking about rest. How do we rest? How often? In what way? For what purpose? The need to stay productive is so deeply entrenched in our capitalistic society that resting has become a revolutionary act, an act of resistance. Margrit & Eileen chat about how we think about rest and how we protect our time for rest.

Recommendations of the Episode:

Question of the Episode: What do you do for rest? How do you make sure you’re getting enough rest?

Join the conversation on Twitter @World_OfStories or email us at worldofstoriespodcast@gmail.com.

Transcript

Eileen 0:16
Welcome to World of Stories, a podcast about how stories shape our lives. I’m Eileen, my pronoun is she.

Margrit 0:23
I’m Margrit, and my pronoun is they.

Eileen 0:38
Hi, Margrit, how’s it going?

Margrit 0:40
I’m doing well. It’s a sunny day as we’re recording this. So it makes me happy. How are you? And what’s the news today?

Eileen 0:46
It is sunny. And I’m super excited to see the sun glistening off of Lake Ontario. It’s quite beautiful.

The news today is that we have a YouTube channel! Exciting!

Margrit 0:58
Huzzah!

Eileen 1:00
Unfortunately, we don’t have our beautiful faces in the video. But it is another way that you can listen to us if YouTube is easier for you. And the best part is you can follow along with the closed captions as you listen.

So you can find us by searching for World of Stories in YouTube. Or you can visit our website at WorldOfStories.org. And there will be links to the channel there. And please subscribe!

Yay! We’re gonna be YouTube stars, Margrit.

Margrit 1:33
For sure. I am so sure of this fact. Nothing has ever been more guaranteed.

Eileen 1:41
Of course.

All right, so our last episode, we talked about labour. How do we measure productivity? And how do we put a value on our work? But no conversation about labour is complete until we talk about its counterpart, which is rest.

Margrit 2:02
That’s right, last episode, we talked about how some of us now work from home and live at work. For me, that was a big problem, because I felt like there was no separation, like “okay, now I can work all the time!” So when you add to that the fact that everything was new and super stressful because of the unknowns, you know, when we shifted to working from home, like, how would we– how long would we have to do this for? How is everyone else coping? What does good teaching mean in this online format? Does this actually work for my students? So many questions. And I found it all super exhausting.

But I also felt like I should be there to be on non-stop. So when it came clear that the situation was not a one week or even a month–one month gig, I started thinking about how not to burn out. And I started thinking about what does it mean to work sustainably from home. So at the beginning, I had my computer in the living room, because that’s where… it was the only desk there was not occupied by anyone else in my family. But every time I’d walked by, towards the kitchen, I’d stop to check my email. Even if my computer was like on sleep or whatever I would, like the mouse, “any email, any new thing?” So I just I couldn’t do it anymore. So I had to separate my workspace from my living space.

And this led me to think of other ways in which my emotional energy was leaching. And how do I even rest? So I actually had to think deeply about what I do to rest and to recover from all the demands of the world. And long story short, I had to take some drastic measures, because I noticed that instead of resting, you know, when I have a break, I go to social media. I only have Twitter and Instagram now, but even so it was becoming an addiction, like, you know, take my phone, check Twitter, check Instagram, and half an hour later, at least half an hour later, I would be even more exhausted than when I started. So I deleted the apps from my phone. And now I have to be intentional about going on social media and access it on a browser. But yeah, I still don’t have a system and I’m still working on even considering rest as a legitimate need.

Eileen 4:15
Yeah, you know, because now that I think about it, I almost feel like I used to rest more pre-pandemic than I do now. I mean, let’s be honest, I was never very good at rest, like period. But when I had that clear distinction between work and non-work, I had, at least like a specific times carved out for rest, right, like whenever I wasn’t in the office was time that I could use for rest. Now whether or not I actually rested is a completely different topic that we can go into some other time. But nowadays, I do sleep in later and I take naps during the day, but other than that, I kind of feel guilty whenever I’m not working. So I find that I’m constantly on my computer, either writing or having meetings or planning promotions on social media. I’m always tinkering with something or other that has to do with work, even when it’s, you know, well into the night.

Margrit 5:21
Right? So then we’re coming back to what rest actually is, what does it mean to rest in this day and age, in this age of connectivity. A while back, I stumbled upon The Nap Ministry, which is the work of Tricia Hersey. And she founded this organization in 2016, to examine the liberating power of naps, and this was a quote. And so through performance art and art installation in specific locations and community organizing, The Nap Ministry posits rest as resistance, which was, to me mind-blowing. On their website, they say, and this is a quote, we believe rest is a form of resistance and named sleep deprivation as a racial and social justice issue. And as the Nap Bishop, Hersey situates the message of The Nap Ministry in a womanist theology that finds its roots in a black theology of liberation. So The Nap Ministry rejects any link to the wellness industry, and avow their commitment to again, a quote, dismantling white supremacy and capitalism by using rest as the foundation for this disruption. And their powerful message made me question what rest is for me too, and how I’m always ready to relinquish it. Even if it’s a basic, if it’s as basic as food for our survival, The Nap Ministry draws those connections and makes us really look into the consequences of not resting for, for us as persons, as people, but also socially. So one of the things that it made me think about is what can an exhausted populace do for capitalism? And it turns out that a lot, quite a lot.

Eileen 7:02
That’s a really good question. Because when I was still at my day job, when I had that clearer distinction between work and not work, I was super burnt out, you know, I had all the classic signs of anxiety, panic attacks, lack of energy, I was unmotivated, really critical of the work and of my managers. But that’s when I was arguably making a point to seek out rest, you know, Rest was an escape from all of that burnout. Yet, now that I’m not purposely seeking out rest, and, again, arguably working more than I did before, I find that I’m feeling less fatigued and less burnt out, which makes me think whether the type of work we do, whether it’s fulfilling work or not, also has an effect on how much rest we need, or the type of rest we need, you know. Or maybe I’m just in a honeymoon phase, and the burnout is coming. I don’t know.

But yet again, that brings up the question of what is the purpose of rest? And I think that’s a question we often take for granted, yet it’s one that definitely warrants further investigation.

Margrit 8:23
I agree. And and for me, The Nap Ministry made me question why I look at rest as a means to more productivity? Why not just see it as an end in itself? As a right I have simply for existing? And how can we underscore that rest is a human right. And, you know, as The Nap Ministry advises, see rest as resistance to the constant grind of capitalism.

Eileen 8:50
Yeah, so I get the idea of rest as doing nothing and how that can be revolutionary. And yet a part of me still wants to object to that as a blanket statement. And the reason I say this is because I do think that rest can also be active, you know, there are activities that I find restful, more restful than simply lying there doing nothing. Because I find I often can’t just lie there and do nothing, my brain will start spinning out of control. But activities like knitting or cooking, I find can feel more energizing, and I feel more at peace while doing those activities and after doing those activities.

So I think the point here is that I’m not knitting because I need more socks or a sweater or something, you know, I’m not knitting for sustenance, or because of my physical survival. I knit because it’s enjoyable. And same with cooking. I mean, yes, I need to cook because I need to eat. But I also enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to make a new recipe. It makes me feel good when I can cook a delicious meal. So I guess the question then is, are these activities not considered rest because productivity is a byproduct?

Margrit 10:20
Yeah, that’s a really good point. And just by virtue of having pondered what rest means to you, I think you’re already doing that work of trying to resist what, what the system is asking of you. But I also think more of us need to look into that–what rest means to us? Is it a nap? Is it knitting? Is it cooking? And we also need to think about why we cannot just accept the fact that we need rest and are worthy human beings, even if we do nothing productive from time to time, if that makes sense.

Eileen 10:58
Mm hmm. Yes, I definitely do think that it is something we need to be more intentional about working into our daily routines. So let’s turn to our recommendations of the episode. Margrit, do you have one?

Margrit 11:15
Yes, I think everyone should check out The Nap Ministry and support their work. So that was my first recommendation.

And I might be a little bit greedy today. But I also thought it appropriate to mention How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, which is a book by Jenny Odell. And she says that, in the introduction, that this book is a field guide to doing nothing as an act of political resistance to the attention economy.

And Odell situates her work somewhere at the intersection of manifesto and self help, and she says, quote, in a world where our value is determined by productivity, many of us find our every last minute captured, optimized or appropriated as a financial resource by technologies we use daily. So obviously, she means social media here and all of the ways in which we’re pressured. And so she wonders kind of tongue in cheek, could augmented reality simply mean putting your phone down, and taking a walk in nature, right?

But she also has something to say about doing nothing or resting as completely divorced from our work or productivity of any kind. So this is a longer quote, but I think it really showcases what she has to say in this book that has, you know, when I saw the title, the first time around, I’m like, I have to read that book. It’s such a good title. And it’s so provocative. So she says the point of doing nothing, as I define, it isn’t to return to work refreshed and ready to be more productive. My argument is obviously anti-capitalist, especially concerning technologies that encourage a capitalist perception of time, place, self and community. It is also environmental and historical. I propose that rerouting and deepening one’s attention to place will likely lead to awareness of one’s participation in history, and in a more than human community. From either a social or ecological perspective, the ultimate goal of doing nothing is to rest our focus away from the attention economy and replant it in the public physical realm.

And I think this has something to do with what you were saying just now about intention, we really have to be intentional about not just what we do for our work, but how we spend the time that we’re not working. And so for Odell, that means not working should be resting and not becoming having our leisure time be beneficial for corporations, like the social media ones, just take it out in nature and observe and that way you get an ecological consciousness, right? And I really like what she has to say about resistance as well, because one of the questions that we’ve been pondering this episode was about rest, is rest resistance, right? And that’s the point of The Nap Ministry that they’re trying to make. And Odell says another quote to rest in place is to make oneself into a shape that cannot so easily be appropriated by a capitalist value system.

So this is our challenge of the episode. How can we make ourselves into a shape that cannot be easily appropriated by the capitalist value system? So that’s why rest is resistance. How about you, Eileen, do you have a recommendation for us?

Eileen 14:44
Yeah, and I think my recommendation follows really nicely after yours because I think it gives us some hints and some advice and some methods for how we can shape ourselves into something that’s not so easily appropriated by capitalism.

This is a book that we’ve talked about before on the podcast, it’s Burnout by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski. And they talk about burnout from the perspective of women living in a Western capitalist society and the demands that are often placed on women. They explain burnout by dividing humanity into two categories, human beings and human givers. And they define human givers as people who, who are expected to give all of themselves for the benefit of others. So that would include their time, their energy, their emotions, their bodies, their work, everything. Whereas human beings are expected to simply be, they are the recipients of all that human givers give.

So I think it comes to no surprise that women are often conditioned to be human givers, whereas men are often conditioned to be human beings. So this is going back to what you’re saying about how do we shape ourselves? How do we as people who might be conditioned as human givers, shape ourselves into something that’s not quite so self sacrificial? Right?

Margrit 16:27
Right.

Eileen 16:30
And in the book Burnout, they talk, they explain that burnout happens when human givers give everything that they have, and there’s nothing left. And in order to combat that, or to recover from that. They explain how to deal with stress, how to deal with stressors, how to use physical activity to overcome stress, how to cultivate relationships that rejuvenate you, how to find work that aligns with your values and could therefore be potentially less stressful. And I, I find myself going back to these ideas continually, especially when I’m in a difficult situation, because I think they’re very practical. I think they’re very grounded in the realistic demands of, of our life in a Western capitalist society. And the thing is that, you know, in the book, they talk about being women and the challenges that women face, but honestly, I think that their theory, and their techniques are effective for everyone, not just women. They’re applicable to really anybody who feels like they experience stress, which in this day and age is literally every single person on this planet, right?

Yeah, so I’m curious about what our listeners think about rest, which would lead us to our question of the episode, which is, what do you do for rest? And how do you make sure that you’re getting enough rest?

Margrit 18:20
As always, you can join the conversation on Twitter at @World_ofStories, or you can email us directly at WorldOfStoriesPodcast@gmail.com.

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Eileen 18:46
And lastly, if you’d like to partner with us in producing the podcast, we appreciate every contribution no matter how big or small. You can donate at ko-fi.com/WorldOfStories. That’s ko-fi.com/WorldOfStories.

Thanks so much for listening. Stay safe,

Margrit 19:09
And keep on humaning.