I was listening to an episode of the podcast SmartLess with the actor Steve Zahn the other day. He was talking about working on movie sets in the 90s and how he used to spend his free time in his trailer. No devices, no distractions. During the filming of one movie, Ben Stiller had gifted him a guitar, and during all that peaceful downtime, he learned to play.
I found myself thinking about that afterwards.
Imagine having hours of downtime on a movie set and simply sitting in your trailer with a guitar. No phone to check. No social media to scroll through. No endless stream of things to watch, read, or listen to.
It made me a little wistful.
There was a time when doing nothing came naturally to us. Today, most of us instinctively reach for our phones or some other distraction the moment we have a few free minutes. We don’t even necessarily decide to do it. Our hand just reaches for the phone.
Doing nothing has become something we have to consciously choose.
I love doing nothing. My favorite place is probably anywhere in nature, or sitting on my patio, staring at the trees or the sky.
Or I look out the train window and watch the landscape go by – and most of the time, I’m the only one doing it.
Our senses are constantly flooded with information. There is so much to take in, digest, and integrate. And then we wonder why we feel overwhelmed.
Our nerves need moments of nothing.
They need moments when nothing is being asked of us and we don’t have to take anything in. Moments when we can simply be.
This is one of the things I love about Qi Gong and Stillness. Doing nothing is actually part of the practice.
We stand, we move gently – and not at all.
We sit, we move gently – and not at all.
We lie down, we move gently – and not at all.
At the end of a lesson, for example, we often do an exercise called „Yang Qi Fa“. We lie down or sit and simply create space for the Qi to settle. After all the movement, whether physical or simply guiding the Qi with our imagination, we consciously step aside.
We don’t try to make anything happen.
We don’t try to fix anything.
We allow the Qi to do its work – to reorganize, to settle, to follow its own wisdom.
Doing nothing can feel almost uncomfortable at first. We are so used to filling every little gap. Waiting for the train? Check the phone. Waiting for the kettle to boil? Check the phone. A few minutes before an appointment? Check the phone. There is always something available to fill the space.
I wonder why it’s so important to actually fill the space. What are we afraid of?
We need that space. Creativity needs it. Our thoughts need it. Our energy needs it. Our nerves simply need a moment when nothing is coming at them.
Doing nothing is not nothing.
It gives us room to digest, to integrate, and to come back to ourselves.
And sometimes, just like Steve Zahn sitting in his trailer with a guitar, something completely unexpected might emerge from that space. Would he have felt the inspiration to learn to play had he had a phone?
And by the way: Maybe nothing happens at all when we do nothing.
And that’s wonderful, too.