Yes, you read that right! Nothing! Today is Nothing day!
We couldn’t just celebrate by doing nothing, so we did something!
Nothing Day has been commemorated since 1973. The day is literally about doing nothing at all, placing it in a similar vein to other such surreal non-occasions as an Un-Birthday or Buy Nothing Day. There is absolutely no purpose or intended structure for this pointless celebration.
As it is all about expending no effort on celebrating absolutely nothing, Nothing Day can also be about celebrating life itself. The only limits on how the day is spent are the imagination and bank balance of the participant.
The day was first proposed by the late American newspaper columnist Harold Coffin. Nothing Day was founded with the intent of eventual self-destruction, through satirically reigning in what Coffin considered a glut of recently established, useless commemorative days. Coffin’s Nothing Organization was simultaneously formed in order to raise awareness. Fittingly, the organization has not yet held a single meeting. The continued official celebrations stand testament to Coffin’s ultimate failure.
So, for Nothing Day, we decided to share with you some things to do to celebrate today!
Do nothing for two minutes.
You can head to our blog and read the article we’re talking about today! They have a link to a two-minute timer with a nice sunset background. Or you can set a 2-minute timer on your phone, go somewhere quiet and just relax for 2 minutes! Block out distractions, don’t focus on work, just breathe and sit for two minutes.
As much as we’d like to, we cannot condone doing absolutely nothing for a day, but 2 minutes isn’t the worst thing in the world.
Get comfortable doing nothing!
Assuming you’re not dead, you’re always doing something – even if you’re just savoring the pleasures of idleness. But what’s usually meant by “doing nothing” is doing nothing useful. The problem is that “useful” gets defined in ways that don’t always serve our interests. Working harder to earn more to buy more stuff is useful for the people selling the stuff – but not necessarily for you. And usefulness is intrinsically future-oriented: it yanks you from the present, making savoring impossible. So perhaps “doing nothing” is synonymous with feeling alive.
Aimlessness, rest, and even boredom can boost creativity. There’s good reason why so many celebrated authors and artists incorporate long walks in their daily routines. One is the well-studied “incubation effect”: ceasing to focus on a project seems to give your unconscious permission to get to work. (In one study, people who knew they’d be returning to a creative-thinking task after a break did much better at it when they resumed, unlike those who weren’t expecting to return to the task – suggesting that it was unconscious processing, not simply taking a rest, that made the difference.)
Take a trip to the town of Nothing, Arizona.
It’s a 30-hour trip by car, so if you drive, and you’re the passenger, you can really get good at doing nothing. And just an FYI, Nothing, AZ is a ghost-town that has been uninhabited since 2011, so yes, it really is the epitome of nothing.
You can read more about Nothing Day here and here!
We also began a new feature here on the Afternoon Drive called the Who-Knew Food Corner! Because it’s not the Afternoon Drive without food, right?
Today for the WKFC, we’re celebrating International Hot and Spicy Food Day!
I shared a recipe for Nashville Style Hot Chicken, and you can find that here!
Check out some more hot and spicy recipes here!
Driving Notes 