Ndifreke Ekott

Thoughts, stories, ideas and programming

26 Apr 2019

Craving A Day Of Nothingness

Every day is filled with something to achieve. And from the moment you become an adult, start working, it never stops. As a child, we had the luxury of our parents taking care of the business of worrying about the future and bills. While growing up, you asked for toys, but you were told you had to grow up, get a job and then you can buy anything you wanted. Truth is, you weren’t being told the whole story.

Adulthood, as I have come to realise for a while now, screams of survival, bills and responsibilities. You realised even after going through school and finally getting a reasonable job that paid you enough to buy for yourself the toys you once dreamed, the responsibility of paying your bills, making sure you have some savings for the rainy day takes priority over everything else. This post isn’t really about adulthood, but it does emphasise an aspect of adulthood I have been thinking about as of late.

As time goes on, I have come to realise I crave moments were I spend my day doing nothing. I want lazy moments. The last couple of months have been busy, and I can’t exactly remember the last weekend I actually stayed home and did something. By nothing, I mean not doing anything for myself that wasn’t a necessity. It also doesn’t help that most time I am having a somewhat busy week and just crave to be in bed and hopefully sleep well enough to be refreshed.

I crave the moment where I would do whatever pleased that wouldn’t be tied to a grand plan of achieving some goal in life. Maybe it is just a phase, but sometimes I do wish to leave the busy side of London and stay a week in the countryside. As simple as that sounds, unfortunately, I can’t up and go. Being an adult, I have to plan, and for this one week escape, the plan could take months to realise. No more freedom to just up and leave.

What would a day of Nothing feel like? For me, I think I would wake up with no agenda, and the weather is sunny, bright, and the fridge is stuffed with a variety of things that would keep you fed. A day I can decide to catch up on my TV series and not precisely feel guilty that I should be doing something significant. A day of nothing is me waking up and attending a tech exhibition and having a stroll along the event centre, feeding my eyes with all the creativity around. A day of thing is me waking up to the sounds of birds and taking a short work to the stream and having a quick dive. I would also love to spend nothing days getting better with swimming.

As you can tell my hope for nothing is a day my head isn’t fixed on achieving any essential life goal but a lazy day with no intentions to be met. I am yet to have kids, and I do fear that once the kids arrive, the days of nothing will be but a pipe dream. So it seems living a life without nothing may entail not having much life plans which by my nature I know would be impossible as I have spent the last decades of my experience being busy.

I wish I were the type that could be idle, but sometimes my idea of Nothing is taking part in a hobby. I use to love to code and lately, I felt I miss the fire I use to have as a young man when it comes to coding. When I was a young budding programmer, staying up late till 4 am an idea of a good Friday. These days, I am unable to stay up late until 1am, which is good health wise but I still miss that fire. I do feel like sometimes maybe I have too big a picture of a grand plan about life and where I should be or be heading for the most part. This can also be the curse of being an adult but who knows maybe it just lousy time management. A conversation for another time.

I have thought about my Nothing feeling and discovered - I need a holiday away from the familiar. I need to visit someplace new, a new culture, a unique experience. It is like finding that child within me that wants to look into every corner and to get the sensation of adventure.