it's not ok to do nothing every day

I was reading The Beautiful and the Damned by F.Scott Fitzgerald while rocking back and forth on a hammock in the Philippines.

I came across a line that made me realise something about life:

“His day, usually a jelly-like creature, a shapeless, spineliness thing, has attained Mesozoic structure. It was marching along surely, even jauntily, toward a climax, as a play should, as a day should.”

Isn’t it true that a life is nothing but a collection of days?

And if each day has no meaning, what does that say about the life?

Holidays and rest days don’t count in this total. They are necessary for a life of balance.

But what about all the days in between?

The days that are empty because we haven’t filled them. Days that just are. Days spent on a phone or watching television. Days spent wasting away just because coming up with a goal was too difficult, and working on that goal was even more difficult.

Could those days be costing us more than we know?

“Not to be occupied, and not to exist, amount to the same thing.” — Voltaire

The second law of thermodynamics states that, over time, isolated systems naturally progress from an ordered state to a disordered state.

A room without tidying becomes messy. A tomato on the counter becomes mouldy.

And a life without goals, effort, striving, building or action becomes disordered.

Ibn Khaldun, the 14th-century Arab historian, wrote that civilisations rise through asabiyyah — collective effort, striving, building — and collapse the moment prosperity makes people soft and idle.

In Judaism, it’s the concept of bitul zman — “the destruction of time.” Wasting time isn’t a neutral thing; it’s an act of destruction. Letting time drain away empty is a kind of violence against your own life.

All this is to say that idleness is more sinister than stagnation.

Idleness is decline.

Filling your days with meaningful activity is not only good for you, it keeps you, your family and whole societies alive.

“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavour.” — Vince Lombardi

It doesn’t matter what you do.

Purposeful, skilled work is in itself a dignified and humanising act.

If someone told you they made shoes, what would your opinion of them be? Making shoes is not a magnificent or luxurious thing to do. It’s the ideation, the commitment, the skill and the dedication that are inherently important and respectable.

Purposeful daily activity is character-forming.

Cleaning your room is an important life skill that makes you mature. Cooking a healthy meal for yourself and cleaning up your space afterwards is a dignified and important thing to do as a human being. Creating some kind of art on your own accord as a task you’ve set for yourself is a respectable and humanising thing to do.

Without this kind of effort, the world would not function. We wouldn’t have planes, trains or cranes. We wouldn’t have music, museums or books. We wouldn’t have stories, recipes or tradition.

Purposeful creation is life itself.

Doing something isn’t only respectable and rewarding. It is life itself. What else is there to do?

And the outcome is not as important as the process. You don’t have to release music and become famous for making music to be worthwhile. Making it is just something to do to express yourself and make something of your time alive.

You don’t have to cook a filet mignon for cooking to be worthwhile. You can make a burger with 3 patties just because you want to. Or you can make a cookie the size of the baking tray just for something to do.

And you don’t have to clean your house for anyone to see it. You clean your house so that you can bask in the glory of the tidiness that you have created.

So it doesn’t matter what you do or how successful you are at it.

All that matters is that you are structured, moving toward something and making the most of your life.

Sincerely,

eren

A collection of all songs mentioned in this letter over the years.

My ‘must-watch’ list: Eren’s Quintessential Movie List

I’ve been thinking about one of my all-time favourite movies this week — I’m due for a rewatch.

End of Watch (2012). Incredible.