Rest is resistance.

I think about the fact that I went to the Wellcome Collection for the first time on Saturday and then quietly berated myself for having not been before. This had something to do with “doing more with my time.”

I think about sitting down to write a play and having nothing to say. Then I berate myself (out loud this time). Time is running out.

I think about the future instead of right now. I think it will look good. The play I will have written is successful. Everyone loves it. Everyone thinks I am hilarious and also clever and also talented. Everyone wants to give me a job.

Back in the present I remember that I cannot write this play. I have run out of both ideas and words. I stop myself with each sentence a single thought: “you are not good enough”.

I think about the fact that for every one day I have to rest, I believe I must make this up with lots of other days doing things. The doing of things must happen regularly in order for me not to be left behind. If I do my literal job (9 hours of standing and working) and do not do anything else in that day (writing, applying for writing programmes and competitions, etc) then that counts as a day of rest and I berate myself for not doing more. I have to make it up somewhere else.

These are the rules I have set for myself. I don’t remember setting them, they just appeared.

I think about the phrase “rest is resistance”.

I think about it a lot.

I think about everyone else in this race (it’s not a race) doing more things and getting to places I want to be before me. I think they must be better and more fulfilled because they did less resting. Resting means nothing gets done.

In my head resting means anything that is not writing/acting. If I read a book this counts towards my arbitrary reading goal but it is not “productive” and therefore cannot take too much time. Same goes for knitting, watching TV, watching a film. Same goes for going to the gym, going for a walk, going to a museum, going for a meal. I have to also do all these things in order to be an interesting, not lazy, physically fit, conventionally slim and attractive, etc etc etc. But these things are also not productive (in the rules I have made up in my head).

I think about being told that if I want to “make it” then I must live and breathe writing. I must do it every day. I must never take a break. It has to “be my life”.

I think about all the times I was not making writing my life.

I think about rest as resistance.

My body fights it. To rest is to be lazy.

I think about resting as simply being kind to myself. Giving my brain a break. Ignoring the voice in my head that says “Lazy, you’re going to be left behind, it’s already nearly March and you said you would do X, Y, Z”

My brain is saying this right now. The rational part is telling me that everything is made up, enjoy the ride, this is not a race. Que sera, sera.

This is not a race. To rest is to resist.

Sometimes I think that if we all just took the time to rest we wouldn’t be in this mess (climate change, empty skyscrapers, war, etc etc).

I think about resting. I think about resistance to the status quo, the thoughts in my head, the capitalist dream.

I think about resting as resistance.

I think about rest.

I will rest.