46 min listen
How to Do Nothing | Jenny Odell
How to Do Nothing | Jenny Odell
ratings:
Length:
59 minutes
Released:
Jan 27, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
For an audience of meditators (or aspiring meditators), the idea of doing nothing shouldn’t be foreign. But, speaking from personal experience, it is very possible, especially for Type A people, to approach meditation with an agenda. In which case, sitting on the cushion can be very far from truly doing nothing. Enter Jenny Odell, who makes a very compelling case for truly… doing… nothing. In her work, she is challenging what for many of us, myself included, is a deep-seated and sometimes subconscious reflex: to constantly optimize and constantly be “productive.” She is a Lecturer in the Stanford Department of Art and Art History and author of the bestseller How to Do Nothing, which just came out in paperback. She comes to the subject of time from a very different perspective than our guest on Monday, Ashley Whillans. (If you haven’t listened to that episode, go do it; these two make a fascinating pairing.) In this conversation, Jenny and I talk about: letting go of our constant demand for productivity and learning to simply look around; the thrilling phenomenon of observing something so deeply that you actually cease to understand it; why moments of disgust, or even existential despair, can actually be quite instructive; and how to divest from what she calls “the attention economy”–and where to reinvest instead.
Take a few minutes to help us out by answering a survey about your experience with this podcast! The team here is always looking for ways to improve, and we’d love to hear from all of you, but we’d particularly like to hear from those of you who listen to the podcast and do not use our companion app. Please visit http://www.tenpercent.com/survey to take the survey. Thank you.
Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jenny-odell-319
Take a few minutes to help us out by answering a survey about your experience with this podcast! The team here is always looking for ways to improve, and we’d love to hear from all of you, but we’d particularly like to hear from those of you who listen to the podcast and do not use our companion app. Please visit http://www.tenpercent.com/survey to take the survey. Thank you.
Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/jenny-odell-319
Released:
Jan 27, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
#3: Brian Koppelman: The filmmaker and co-creator of the TV show "Billions" talks about his practice of Transcendental Meditation. by Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris