In our ongoing exploration of Alexander Technique and non-doing, last week I had my college students read and discuss Ross Gay�s essay...
In our ongoing exploration of Alexander Technique and non-doing, last week I had my college students read and discuss Ross Gay�s essay �Loitering is Delightful� (caution: profanity). Then I assigned them a challenging task: take 20 minutes to do� nothing much. Loiter, take their time. Take a walk on campus or wander the stacks in the library, or look at a painting in the campus gallery. But no phones, no homework, nothing that feels �productive.�
I also challenged myself to do the assignment, but unlike my students, I didn�t go more than a few feet beyond the classroom, as I felt compelled to stay and guard their things. So I looked at the posters on the music department noticeboard. I stood in the sun. I walked on cracks in the sidewalk. I wound in and out of chairs in the classroom. I entertained myself the way a three-year-old might, resisting the lure of my phone or even the book I had in my bag.
Not surprisingly, I got bored pretty fast. But I have cultivated curiosity about boredom. This curiosity is facilitated by three kids who have no compunction about coming to me and announcing, in a loud whine, �I�m bored!� As if that�s a huge burden. As if I�m supposed to fix it. �Good,� I reply, annoyingly. �Now something interesting can happen.�
Now, I thought, something interesting can happen.
And something interesting and delightful did happen. As I walked the cracks, as I wound through the chairs, the ever-present mental chatter quieted. I had a sense of expansion, openness, presence. The sort of stuff that is promised us by meditation. Which is maybe a fancy word for forcing myself to stop doing stuff long enough to get bored and see what happens.
It occurred to me in the discussion of Gay�s essay that there is a deep irony in taking 20 minutes out of production/consumption when those minutes are ticking by at private college tuition rate. I have yet to check in with the students about whether they feel those minutes were �wasted.� But the goal of non-doing is not to never do anything. It�s not a �turn on, tune in, drop out� mentality. It�s instead an interruption from compulsive doing long enough for something interesting to happen. To have a choice, to have an idea, to hear myself think.
The rat race is pretty predictable. If I keep frantically doing at my normal pace, I have a pretty good idea of what �tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow� brings. But if I stop� If I take my time� If I do nothing for long enough to get bored� It might lead to anything.
It might lead to everything.
