The Profound and Remarkable Beauty of Doing Nothing

I had some time to myself this weekend. My wife took our kids out of town to see her parents, leaving me and my dog to our own devices, with no responsibilities other than eating and not burning the house down (both accomplished successfully). I took full advantage of this time to do absolutely nothing.

I was supposed to have my monthly poker game Saturday night, but it got canceled. I had a brief meeting with a few softball coaches in the afternoon that went as scheduled, but other than that...nothing. I ate a leisurely breakfast, read the paper, tooled around Facebook even more aimlessly than usual, read for a while, took a nap, and had a half-hearted wrestling match with my equally lazy hound, who spent most of his day lounging in a patch of sunlight. I ordered some hot wings and watched the Blackhawks game at 7:00, watched the Stooges in between periods. I did nothing of serious note, and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

I like to consider myself a connoisseur of low-impact leisure time. Sitting and doing nothing. Practicing Non-Ado, as the Taoists like to say. Which likely serves me well in the hunting blind: I can sit still for several hours at a time and just enjoy the scenery, although I will admit that sitting for an entire day and not seeing one stinking deer is somewhat south of pleasant. But you see what I mean: in this hectic, full-speed-all-the-time world, sitting on your back deck of an evening with a drink in hand just watching the wind rustle through the trees is truly pleasing. Granted, I'm always up for doing something fun, but doing nothing has its merits as well.

I was nine kinds of mellow this weekend, and it was marvelous. Once I got the call that my family had arrived safely and weren't stuck in the cold on the highway somewhere, I let the coolness get into my vertebrae. Only one place to be, and that took place in a bar; no one needing my services, no running around getting other people where they need to go, no listening to a constant stream of antagonistic chatter that is the by-product of two siblings kept inside by the cold. In a word, sublime.