The Importance of Doing Nothing with Bonnie Tsui

Wild Ideas Worth Living

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4.7 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2019

⏱️ 41 minutes

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Summary

Bonnie Tsui’s essay “You Are Doing Something Important When You Aren’t Doing Anything,” was one of the most shared stories from the New York Times on the weekend it was published earlier this summer. Bonnie’s theory behind the importance of lying fallow is one everyone can apply to their lives. Down time, or time spent not doing anything we usually think of as “productive,” is valuable. It’s in this time that we can refuel, find inspiration, solve problems, and so much more.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The idea is that the ants have been working all summer and fall is coming and what has the grasshopper been doing?
0:11.5	Grasshopper has been fiddling away the summer making music.
0:15.4	And the fall is coming.
0:17.4	And there is no food for the grasshopper.
0:20.2	The grasshopper's hungry and he comes and he asks the ants for some food and the ants say no because you have
0:28.4	fiddled away there's a time for work and a time for play is this is this moral of this
0:32.2	fable and I laugh at that because the
0:35.3	grasshopper is clearly an artist the grasshopper is producing something for
0:40.0	the world actually has been doing that kind of work for the whole summer.
0:44.0	People who have been listening to this music.
0:45.6	This is my interpretation by the way.
0:47.6	And then the fall comes and what is recognizable to everybody, the ants as work is having, you know, collected the food
1:00.4	and stored it for winter and being prepared for that.
1:03.0	But another aspect of the story that I think is funny is that they don't recognize that what the grasshopper has been doing is work, this creative work, music.
1:12.0	And so there are these different facets. this creative work, music.
1:13.0	And so there are these different facets of that story
1:16.0	that I think are so perfect for this time,
1:19.0	this where we are as a culture.
1:22.0	We say that we value artists and writers
1:26.1	and creative makers, but we don't really recognize
1:31.8	their work or compensate them as such in the same way that we do doctors,
1:36.8	lawyers. We recognize work in different ways and we still prioritize and place a greater value on certain kinds of work.
	...

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