The Art of Doing Nothing: I certainly do not master it but 'oefening baart kunst'

When I wake up on the first day of my self-declared vacation within my fulltime nomadic life, the first thing that I do is make a to do list. I wish I was kidding, but unfortunately I am very serious. It will come as no surprise to anyone that knows me even a little bit that I am horrible at niksen — the Dutch verb for the art of doing nothing.

Photo by author

Two weeks ago, I was still living in my apartment in Salvador, Brazil. I was finishing my semester and - classic me - had postponed a bunch of tedious tasks to after my last deadlines. And so, the last week that I was living in Salvador before I had to leave the country due to my expiring visa, I was not as free as I had told all my friends I would be after the date of my last deadline. Things like seeing friends for the last time, saying goodbye to my volleyball team, and swimming at my go-to beach one more time became bullet points on a mental list. That did not bother me much until I arrived to my next location, namely Mancora, Peru.

Mancora is a beach town in Puria, a region in the North of Peru. I am staying there for five days before heading to my quiet and spacious rental apartment two towns down the road where I have planned to dedicate all my time to my postponed creative projects, working, and surfing. My plan for in Mancora? Doing absolutely nothing.

I had not managed to do all the tedious tasks in Salvador, so I had transferred that mental to do list to the nightly layover in Lima on my travel day. Unsurprisingly, I tick off none of my tasks. Instead, I found an unoccupied piece of airport floor to lay down next to various Peruvian travellers, using my backpack as a pillow and my jacket as a blanket. I doze off for several hours.

Although my journey goes smoothly, my luggage has a tougher ride. Upon my arrival to Lima, I quickly realized that my large backpack had not made it onto the plane with me. The luggage desk lady from LATAM Airlines assures me it will be delivered the next day.

So, at least without the hassle of carrying a big backpack, I find a shared taxi upon arrival at Talara airport that takes me to my hostel in Mancora in the morning. There, with only my airport outfit and no toothbrush, I decide to go shopping.

I buy a bikini and some necessary clothes and toiletries. While a jewellery vendor is making a necklace with my chosen stone (labradorite), I go for lunch at a fancy restaurant. I savour the best ravioli of my life and am down deep in the fantasy world of my e-book when the waiter brings me a very sweet apple crumble with vanilla ice cream.

Although I enjoyed the shopping - which was more a necessity than a want - and my meal at the restaurant, as I am walking I notice that my pace is still rushed. As if I have somewhere to be in time.

Back at the hostel, I spend some hours doing the tedious tasks on my to do list, that now includes working out the delivery of my bag - which would have taken multiple days if arranged via LATAM Airlines - and contacting my insurance. Maybe my vacation will just start tomorrow.

After sleeping like a rock, I am woken up by my alarm to join the breakfast table at the hostel at the latest possible time. The few other hostel guests have already finished, so I listen to the Spanish conversation of the hostel staff while I try to journal. I quickly notice that what is meant to be verbalizing my feelings and thoughts, turns into a to do list for the day - an escapist habit when I am too tired to journal, or subconsciously unwilling to face my feelings.

Photo by author - Hostel breakfast

“Maybe I can go to the beach and check out the surfspot, do a kitesurflesson, do some tanning, and then do some writing on my laptop? I interrupt my own writing. No, nothing on my laptop and we are not going to make tanning a goal to be achieved. I am on vacation; I have to relax and do nothing…

Feeling like you constantly have to be productive or make progress is classic internalised capitalism. I am well aware of that, yet I find it incredibly difficult to escape that mindset. So, in a brave attempt, I spend several hours just sitting on the hostel's couch with a cold cup of coffee, pss-pss-ing the cats, and trying to let my thoughts run its natural course - stopping them each time they try to formulate another to do list.

No thought really seems to cling onto anything, nor do they actually seem to truly come from me. I am realizing that I am feeling a bit lost and out of touch. Everything feels so senseless and purposeless that I almost feel like a depression is starting to kick in - does this mean the internalised capitalism structure is slowly cracking? Or am I in a culture shock?

When arriving to a new place after an international flight journey, it always takes me a while to land. A friend of mine who studied in New Zealand has once told me of a Maori man that said that the soul cannot keep up with the velocity of the body when on a plane. This means that it can take a few days to come back to yourself and the world around you. I relate to that a lot when travelling and I think it overlaps with what we call culture shock.

To not spiral down into a Fata Morgana-like depression, I decide to take a different approach to doing nothing. This actually doing nothing is not working for me. Around 12pm, I decide to go to the beach and check out the surf spot. The hostel owner has given me a recommendation for a surf school and kitesurf school. I pass both.

Kitesurfing has always scared me. Yet, still somewhat disconnected from my body and emotions, I spontaneously decide to book a lesson. Doing things without a plan, surely that is a typical vacation activity, right?

There are a few people at the sitting area of the kitesurf school. I am the only one that is not on their phone. The last two weeks, I have been trying to keep my phone time on less than two hours a day and it has shifted my way of being in the world tremendously. So, I am just staring at the beach and the ocean, trying to let the thoughts from my disoriented mind flow naturally. At times, I capture parts of the conversations that are happening in five languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, and English) around me. Although at one point, I understood and spoke each of them, my brain cannot handle the cacophony of all of them at the same time. Yet, even in that state of confusion, I find the sounds of different accents pleasant.

After a while, it is time for my lesson. The wind is too low to actually kitesurf, but for my first lesson that does not matter as it consists solely of learning to understand how the kite moves with the wind while standing on the beach. Trying to keep the kite steady through moving the strings and sometimes moving my body, slowly connects me to myself and the world around me again. 

The sun goes down as the lesson finishes and I chat with various people at the school before heading back to the hostel. There, I find that my bag has finally arrived. I take a shower and put on my own clean clothes before I plump down on the hostel’s couch again. A guest that came in that day and that I had spoken with briefly earlier plumps down on the couch next to me.

“I think I have mastered the art of doing nothing,” he says.

I smile as I reflect on my own day. I don’t think I can say the same, but to get a Dutch phrase in here again:

Oefening baart kunst.

The English variant of this saying is “practice makes perfect,” but the literal translation is much more relevant: “practice births art”.

I might not be a master of doing nothing yet, but through practice I might get there someday.

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