Skip to main content

Positive boredom

Free time, or a lack of a better term, idleness (I'd prefer to call it 'positive boredom'), is an essential variable for creativity. Days like these where I have to put my foot down and tell myself to abandon work, are days where my books are beckoning me to turn their pages, ideas waiting to be engaged and penned down, films waiting to be watched, time seeking to be spent in quiet contemplation and the soul wanting to express itself in all its authenticity. Days like these are those which we tend to downplay on their importance and dismiss as unproductive without realising the magic they hold. Idleness is frowned upon because it doesn't seem quite compatible with today's norms of productivity. But idleness can be productive if this temporary emptiness of the mind and letting go of the motions invites modes of expressions and ideas that would not come alive if we were to be constantly engaged without pauses. In idleness, we are letting our extraordinary minds wander. And when we let our minds wander, we are letting ourselves grow and letting our souls just, be.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hitam Manis

This is difficult to write, but it's definitely an important one amidst all the conversations we've been having lately. Growing up being brown/Malay wasn't easy, especially when it became ingrained in me that having a darker skin tone by default, is less desired than fairer skin tones. In childhood, I couldn't recall having to endure comments about my skin colour. Thankfully amongst children, these values ascribed to lightness and darkness didn't yet come to the fore. This consciousness became more obvious since secondary school. And it was tough and painful.  I've been in a sports CCA since secondary school and I couldn't really avoid not becoming tanned. What hurts the most was even my peers at that time would make comments about my skin colour without even realising the damage caused from these words. These comments I recall, were sometimes made under the guise of humour. I was called 'budak hitam' (literally means 'black child') and even ...

Reclaiming my voice

It has been more than 2 years since I published anything on this blog. I have written a few reflections quite abit during this time, but they are mostly in draft versions, probably reflective of the scatteredness of my thought processes, or the ongoing engagement with the topic which has yet found a proper resolve (or is there ever a resolve really?), or just me finding mere words to articulate my thoughts that are waiting to be entertained and possibly verbalised or written. I'm driven to write this post precisely because I can't entirely ignore the nagging voice inside my head, telling me to use writing as a tool to not only express myself, but to reclaim my voice. It is such an insanely noisy world. The constant stream of information from different online platforms not only pull me from various directions, but it spreads my attention too thin that it is impossible to follow one stream of thought, sit on it for awhile, slowly reflect and if possible, articulate it. It is not ...

Cycles

I found myself stopping in my tracks as soon as I was greeted by a view. There I was. Struck with awe and captivated by the beauty of the full moon. And a large one this time. So full, so bright, so round. Though a moon in its very physical form is full and round, we embrace this moment when we finally bear witness to this true form. Don't we have to see some crescents, quarters and gibbouses before we see the full moon? What a beautiful reminder from nature that it takes a cycle to be able to witness this beauty. And that cycles and processes are important building founding blocks of life. Like the metamorphosis of the caterpillar and the developmental stages of a growing embryo in the womb. Every journey consists of changes and processes. And we trudge along to finally reach to the end point; a beautiful end product, a beautiful long awaited destination and a beautiful final abode. A journey may be interspersed with days which seemed bleak and dark. But there is light at the e...