What happens to our mind when "we are not doing nothing" particularly in a capitalist system where the value of a person is determined by productivity?
In Mexico, we have entered Phase 2 yet of the pandemic that today keeps everyone on alert. Social distancing and isolation are measures that governments have begun taking.
But concerns in the workplace, especially for women, increase when thinking about the implications of isolation at home, also known as "duck syndrome".
That is without mentioning all the problems that UN Women has alerted that mainly affects women: care work, physical and sexual violence, as well as the intensified contribution of unpaid work at home.
For women who are privileged in the workplace and can take days of isolation and quarantine at work, it is likely to add something that overwhelms the mind: not producing when "we are not doing nothing."
El País compiles the interpretation of mental stress while we believe that we are not producing enough while we are at home, the need to feel useful using internet platforms, and explains how to learn to use that time to take a break and see who we are.
Philosopher Michel Feher, the author of The Investment Time, an essay on the new social issue, during a talk in Barcelona, pointed out our need to demonstrate our thousands of tasks that we do at home, on social networks. From workout yoga videos, financial strategies to pages where you can do online activities. We perform these tasks when we assume that "we must sell our reputation and personal credit as an added value both at work, on social networks, or our own life. "
"The more we produce, the more valuable we present ourselves (and feel) to the system," he says.
Duck syndrome
"Nothing is harder than doing nothing. In a world where our productivity determines our value, many of us see each of our minutes captured, optimized, or appropriated as a financial asset by the technologies we use daily," says the writer Jenny Odell in the essay How to do nothing. She explains how people internalize the anxiety of self-exploitation as a synonym of personal self-realization.
The duck syndrome is a metaphor because, above the surface, the duck will appear tranquil and calm, but underneath it moves its legs frantically.
In this time of crisis, isolation leads us to feel the need for self-exploitation to feel our productivity. During the quarantine, we are seduced by the idea of making the most of the shock of the new routine imposed by carrying out multiple efficiency tasks so that, subliminally, we feel worthwhile citizens, explains Jenny Odell.
Imposter syndrome
As for the impostor syndrome, a condition that seems to be generational due to the high competitiveness in jobs and the generally low wages could attack more than once during this quarantine.
When you think that, despite all the effort, perhaps you have not done enough, or that you always feel that you are not up to scratch, that you are not good enough or competent enough, you can suffer from this syndrome.
This syndrome is related to self-demand and the work environment. And it could increase during the time we are in isolation.
(Foto: Pixabay)
How to cope with these syndromes?
Jenny Odell, in her book reviewed by El País, interprets that "Nothing is neither a luxury or a waste of time, it is a necessary part for both discourse and thought to make sense."
She also explains that "capitalist logic has led us to myopia and disaffection." It is not about letting yourself be invaded by social nihilism, but about resting and becoming aware of yourself and your surroundings. "I have seen so much energy, so much intensity, and so much anxiety. I have seen people trapped not only in their notifications but in the myth of productivity and progress; people not able to take a breath, but to see who they are."
Marina Van Zuylen, a French Philosophy and Comparative Literature teacher at Bard University in New York, also agrees and regrets ."How we have abandoned the art of wandering for no apparent reason because the discomfort and guilt associated with distraction have to do with the tendency of our culture to equate activity and value ".
Given this, Van Zuylen says that "The best way to find a correct solution is to take a break."
How to do nothing?
It''s not about quitting doing things entirely; author Jenny Odell cites.
Odell explains that "It is not about stopping to be just as productive, fresh and ready to burn again in the system, as in those business detox programs. It''s about pausing to reflect on how the care economy affects us. We will be isolated at home amid a global pandemic, but we are not digitally, so we are still fully available there.
El País includes three tools the author published in her book "to do nothing" in the most effective way without falling into these syndromes that could affect us during the quarantine. (Take note that the book was written before this global pandemic.)
First of all: restore. Getting space and time to be able to do anything is essential for the author because, without the conjugation of both, "there is no way to think, reflect and rethink ourselves individually and collectively." Betting on self-care, but distancing it from its commercial aspects and leaning more on what Audre Lorde defended: "Taking care of myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation."
The second tool: listen. Understand the other. "Even with the bubble filter problem, the platforms we use to communicate with each other don''t encourage listening. What they do is simplify the reaction: having a strong opinion after reading a headline." Odell proposes to move away from the anxious reaction of the news cycles and to practice empathy and reflection.
Finally, think about the community. "We must protect our spaces and our time for an activity that is not instrumentalized or commercialized and hold on to the thought, maintenance, care, and sociality."
(Foto: Pixabay)
(María José Pardo)