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Comment by moritonal | Hacker News Reader

I was about to be mean about how this was basically a waste of time, but as I read the results I was reminded of how my Quaker school would sit in utter silence for for 30 minutes every Thursday. This "quiet reflection" was seen to open our heads to all the thoughts we run from, or never have time for, and it seems OP experienced this with his slightly extra 24hr version.

Whilst I think 24hr is a ridiculous amount of life to waste doing nothing, I think I'd now agree that the Quaker's were onto something when they simply stopped once a week to think about life.

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Maybe this is splitting hairs over definitions, but I don't think getting lost in trains of thought (like OP) or the "quiet reflection" that you did is doing nothing.

When I think of doing nothing, I think of doing nothing. No catching up on thoughts we don't have time for, no chasing ideas, just nothing. It's really hard for a few minutes, let alone 30, let alone 24h!

Part of this is that I think of quiet reflection as healthy, if not necessary, and thus, it is something.

I think discussing this sort of thing one needs to be clear on the definition, so it's not splitting hairs. But with your definition, doesn't it devolve into a philosophical matter of whether it's even possible anyway? Could you ever know you were doing nothing, for as soon as you pondered it you wouldn't be?

The early Buddhist texts differentiate between levels of jhana. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhyana_in_Buddhism#The_r%C5%...

I think what's really interesting is that the thought of spending 24hrs doing 'nothing' is so repulsive. Do you have an idea of why that is?

Although, I would say it is impossible to really 'do nothing'. OP basically spent 24hrs letting his mind wander, which is something.

The blog post's title says "The 24 Hour “Do Nothing” Challenge", but further into the article I think the actual challenge is made crystal clear:

> I wanted to see if I had the willpower to cut off all stimulation for an extended period of time.

That's quite a bit different than doing nothing.

I think the idea of doing nothing, or even trying to cut off all stimulation is, using your term, repulsive, because it's just so unnatural, and nearly impossible. The darkness of a dark room itself is a kind of stimulation, as much as the absence of sound or social interaction might be.

As natural humans sitting in the dark at night, we'd be totally engaged and on hight alert the instant that the familiar sounds of the night stopped, because that might signal danger. To the human brain, nearly everything has meaning, and often does so when there's no actual stimulus in the first place (for better or for worse).

Wasting time doing nothing is not necessarily a bad idea; one can often waste more time doing _something_.

I think it's pretty normal to not do anything for a while. I tend to do so by sleeping in on the weekends but not necessarily sleeping, just letting the mind wander.

I can imagine some people get restless the second they're conscious though and pick up their phone first thing, those may need to make more of a conscious decision to do nothing if they think their behaviour is problematic. It's not my place to judge whether it is though, I've spent big chunks of my life in 'frivolous' activities like playing video games and have zero regrets.

Why are you assuming it's a waste of time?

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