There is nothing to do

My favourite quote:

Sitting quietly, doing nothing;
Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.

[Matsuo Basho]

If the authorities say there has been a gas leak can you stay in your house for the day, that looks like doing nothing, but it is actually an action.

Doing nothing is not about not moving. We breathe even when doing nothing!

Einstein points out that motion is relative. I read a physicist explain this once as being unable to hammer a nail in to space to act as the reference point for all motion. When something moves it is always in relation to something else. For the entity moving there is no motion, like sitting on a train we have no idea how fast we are going. This is not an illusion this is the nature of motion: it is relative. Nothing has any absolute motion.

So this is true for action. No one does any absolute action: it is relative.

Which is a metaphysical problem for capitalism which is often understood to reward action. But if action is relative then looked at one way it was active, looked at another it was not.

So when we think we are doing something we need to look for the point of reference. And of course in most cases it is our self. But this "self" is notoriously not true. It is the result of our analysis and understanding of the world which raises the question who is analysing? These conceived selves are not real. Yet they act as the reference points for most things. It is with reference to one of these that most of our action will be understood. "Look what I did", "Didn't I do well", "I'm really very good at this", "What shall I do next?", "I failed", "How much more is there to do", "I don't like doing this", "I want to be doing something else", "I'm so lucky to be doing something I love", "I have helped lots of people", "People value what I do", "My life is worthwhile because of what I do" etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc

This is all transitory and has no absolute value. Look at it another way and the whole picture changes.

My most extreme example is Churchill. Looked at the usual way he motivated UK to war and saved us from being enslaved by Germany. Looked at another way he fomented an unnecessary war that killed 80 million people and bankrupted and ended the British Empire. I have argued that at length in the blog.

Same person, same actions, different points of reference, different actions, different person!

So to do nothing we simply relativise our points of reference.

Silly example but the most recent for me. The cleaning staff have been stealing food. Point of reference being expected professional trustworthy behaviour. The cleaning staff may be hungry. Point of reference being low paid work and high cost of living.

Applied to our self what we do is also doing nothing from another perspective. Always "doing" things indicates a fixed point of reference which can become the ball and chain of bondage if we can't break it.