This blog posts on Mondays. Second Mondays of the month I devote to my writing workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing. Welcome!
> For the archive of workshop posts click here.
Do not be deceived! Rest, this cool-blue paperback featuring a beach chair, may look like your garden variety “self-helpie,” the sort of reading I think of as Airport-Bookshop-Fluffo. I confess to slumming in this genre when, on long flights, I feel almost brain-dead enough to sink to watching the in-flight movie or even… People Magazine. (….Nooooo!!!! Wylie Coyote scream wisps into the abyss…)
But seriously, Rest by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a PhD in the history and sociology of science, is another level. To my surprise, I found myself reading Rest with a highlighter. And then I read it again. ASAP it will appear on the recommended reading list for my writing workshop.
The take home point is that, strange as this may sound, rest is a skill that can be cultivated. And, that for a richly creative and satisfying life, we need to treat rest as of equal importance to work itself.
Plus, Pang quotes Salvador Dalí, which I found enchantingly hilarious.
(And of course this all relates to Cal Newport’s argument about the importance of quality leisure.)
“What Happened to the Dog?” A Story About a Typewriter, Actually, Typed on a 1967 Hermes 3000
Marfa Mondays #16: Tremendous Forms: Paul V. Chaplo on Finding Composition in the Landscape
Why I Am a Mega Fan of the FiloFax
Find out more about C.M. Mayo’s books, shorter works, podcasts, and more at www.cmmayo.com.
