Like Animals, Give Yourself a Time for 'Doing Nothing'

Recently I’ve had this habit before bed—studying a bit of English to lull myself to sleep, and surprisingly, I actually sleep really well.

One day I heard an interesting perspective: humans should be like animals and have a period in life for “doing nothing.” Think about lions, ants, and other animals—they actually have large stretches of time for resting, spacing out, and being inactive. This reminded me of the education we’ve received since childhood, always being taught to fill up all our time, often ending up just being busy for nothing.

Luyao-jie also once said she envied Anfei’s creativity. I think sometimes doing seemingly meaningless things is actually a way of recovering. To avoid “burning out,” we should all try giving ourselves some time to be bored.

The Boredom Paradox

This sounds a bit contradictory: to get rid of the unpleasant state of boredom, you actually need to allow more boredom into your life.

It’s a kind of paradox to get rid of this unpleasant state of boredom is actually to allow more boredom into your life.

There’s a passage I find quite interesting—take a moment to savor it:

Would humans have invented bread or beer or fire, you know, if we hadn’t been bored and were wondering, ‘what on earth would happen if we mix this with this?’, you know. Are all these sorts of inventions the mother of boredom?

But in this world of constant stimulation, switching off is harder than it’s ever been. That’s why we’re constantly swiping and scrolling and looking for the next big thing, and the new thing and we bored of things very quickly…

If we weren’t bored, just being curious about “what would happen if we mix this with that,” would humans have invented bread, beer, or fire? Aren’t all these inventions the children of boredom?

But in our world of constant stimulation, switching off is harder than ever. We’re constantly swiping, scrolling, looking for the next big thing, the new thing, and then quickly getting bored of them.

Learning “Active Waiting” from Animals

Friends in the community also shared similar thoughts, saying this reminded them of lions and leopards at the top of the food chain. They spend most of their time resting and sleeping, only spending a small portion of time hunting, but one successful hunt can feed them for days.

Others added that even when hunting, they’re mostly in a state of “active waiting.” It’s like investing—Buffett barely makes a few moves in a year.

Indeed, observing other animals sometimes helps us reflect on our own animal nature as humans. Imitating their natural state might really have some magical effects, haha.