I have listened several times now to the book Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey. I don’t do a lot of book recommendations, something I used to do a lot of before I was published. But I wanted to write about this as regarding my depression, specifically the problem I have with my brain repeating ad nauseum, “I wish I was dead,” in particular when I’m tired or in some kind of pain. I’ve had a pretty remarkable change over the last couple of weeks of practicing more intentional rest on a daily basis, and purposely inviting myself to “dream” while resting. Dream about the future, dream about things that are unlikely to happen and that I’ve been repressing for a long time, dreams about my writing career, about my family life, even (dare I say) about romance. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so confident about my brain’s ability to solve problems on my own, or about the possibility of getting back to a life I love. So here goes . . .
Hersey offers a fine critique of capitalism as based in chattel slavery in America. I found myself agreeing with almost everything she said on this point. I am not in poverty, but I was a graduate student (as she was when she began her rest work) and I did experience how academia treats graduate students as less than nothing. I have a job now that pays me very well, but I’ve sometimes found myself wondering aloud what the point of life is. I work all day most days and am so exhausted by the end that I can only just eat dinner and go to bed. I don’t have time or energy to cook my own food, so often eat things that don’t need to be prepared. It sometimes feels like the point of me going to bed is so that I can get up in the morning, fresh enough to work my day. The point of me eating healthy is the same. The point of me exercising is ditto. Sometimes it feels like the point of me peeing and showering and combing my hair is so that I can do my job better.
Yes, I have a weekend and on the weekend I do things with my family if I’m lucky. Other times the weekend is spent doing things that are necessary for the rest of my life. I take my car into the shop for repairs. Or just for oil changes and inspection because it is required by the state. I take the train into my office, but I still have to have a car because we live in America. I also have one extra day off a week because I work ten hour days. I have tried so very very hard to keep that day for myself, but it is impossible. If I have medical appointments, they have to be on a weekday, so they fall on that day. Most recently, I have physical therapy, which is exhausting on its own, but necessary because otherwise I’m not going to be able to walk properly again. And therapy is on Thursdays.
I also have to clean my house and mow my lawn. I’m sure you know the kinds of jobs I’m talking about. I don't go shopping anymore--who has time to take their meat sack into an actual meat sack store? But I still have to remember to make a list of items to be delivered, and to plan in advance what meals I’m going to eat or at least have food on hand that I can eat that doesn’t need anything else. I always feel tired. And it’s not because I’m not getting enough sleep. I have the most boring life imaginable. I don’t date. I don’t go to movies (I don’t like theaters). I could watch Netflix, but rarely do so for more than an hour each night because I’m so fucking tired that I’d rather lie in bed even if I can’t sleep than try to listen to other people on a show.
Yes, I have occasional vacations. I enjoy my vacations. But sometimes it feels like the point of a vacation is also to make me come back to work “refreshed” and “ready to level up” and that it’s always ALWAYS about how useful I am as a cog in the wheel of capitalism and never about what I want. It feels like my body is owned by my company and that a lot of my mind is, too.
Once upon a time, I used to feel that I owned my body and my mind. I was interesting. I talked to people. I wrote novels, if not for a living, then at least because I believed it mattered to the world. I had the sense that the parts of me that were unique, that were Mette, were the parts that were valuable. I don’t feel like that now. I feel like the unique parts of me are at best unimportant and at worst something to be sliced off so that I fit better into a box. There is constant pressure to perform to certain standards of productivity, and then to hustle on the side, to do gig work.
Why? I have no idea anymore. I used to believe that “retirement” was something to look forward to, but I have a hard time imagining what the person I feel like I’m becoming would do in retirement that would make her life any better than the one I have now. My imagination is dying and that used to be what I most valued in myself. Is it capitalism killing it? Maybe, but also, I’m helping because imagination won’t “get me ahead” in the financial world.
So, what is the solution? Well, until the last couple of weeks of purposefully planning “rest” and “dreaming” into my regular day, I hadn’t believed that there was a solution. I’ve tried SO many things. Meditation. Long walks. Planning trips in advance. Spending money on myself. And that’s not even beginning with the baseline of my exercise routine and my health regimen. Do NOT try to tell me to eat more fruits and vegetables, please. Or ask if I get 8 hours of sleep a night. I do.
What Hersey suggests is simple—and also very, very complicated. I’m not going to pretend to summarize her ideas here. But I will say that I’m going to do a couple of experiments in the next month. I’ll report back what happens.
1. Using an app to limit my social media use on a daily basis (might try a “fast” now and then, as well.) This has been very strange. I didn’t previously feel like I was using social media very often, but apparently I was. Especially to doom-scroll at night after work, while pretending to be watching “entertainment.” I’ve been reading books instead. Books, I tell you!
2. Taking naps in the middle of my work day, twice a day, fifteen minutes each to start with (using my “lunch time.”) I bring a face mask and ear plugs and I sprawl out across a couple of chairs are have a wooden barrier between them—presumably to prevent anyone from taking a nap like I’m trying to do.
I’m not suggesting YOU should try these two ideas, though feel free to if you want. One of Hersey’s point is that real rest isn’t something you can check off on a list like this, and that it’s also something that’s a constantly changing target. One of the ultimate projects of more resting is what she calls “day-dreaming,” something I used to do a lot more of and can’t remember the last time I did. I want to do more of it. I want to reclaim this deep part of myself. I don’t believe in the religious component of her theology, at least not right now. I’m not sure I would call the human body “divine.” I’d just call it human, and that’s good enough for me to want to have a better relationship with it, to make it my own.
And I’m going to work on telling my overworked, exhausted, despairing brain, when she cries out, “I wish I was dead:”
Sweetie, let’s go get you some rest. You don’t have to do anything for a while. Being alive doesn’t have to be all work and no play. It can be just being here, just being yourself. And that is all you have to do.
Many times, I feel exactly the same way. Thank you for posting this—now I don’t feel so alone. I’m going to get that book!