The blessed art of doing nothing

I WANT to do nothing.

But that’s not all. I want to do nothing without falling asleep and without feeling guilty about it.

I used to once, about 45 years ago. I was a master. It helped that I found a bit in the Bible where it said idleness was a blessed state.

I was very blessed. So were the things around me. My mum used to poke her head round the door and bark: “How much longer are you going to loaf around on that blessed bed!”

It’s not easy to do nothing. It’s not to be confused with frying ants with a magnifying glass, or unbending a paper clip, or reading the telephone directory. Doing nothing requires the kind of inertness that makes a rock look busy.

I used to have the knack, but it’s like any skill – if you don’t use it, you lose it.

I could lie on my back in my bedroom and stare at a ceiling from the time the rising sun turned it white to the time it went black again.

Now I can’t even lie on my back. Well, not for more than five minutes. The joints stiffen up and I have to turn over.

And anyway, I feel guilty. Idleness might be a blessed state but guilt is a permanent one. It doesn’t actually stop you doing anything; it just stops you enjoying it. There’s no pleasure in staring at a ceiling that conjures images of lawn mowers or blocked gutters.

Still, the human brain is a wonderful thing. I don’t feel guilty for long – I fall asleep. They told me I’d need less sleep when I was older. They lied.

I only need less sleep when I’m actually in bed. Because I need a drink of water, I need to go the lavatory and I turn over every five minutes because my arms and legs go to sleep (how can your arms and legs go to sleep while your brain remains persistently active?)

When I’m sitting in a chair or driving the car the transition from wakefulness to sleep is seamless – and very quick.

But it’s not the same as doing nothing.

I think I’ll have to go away. Take a holiday where there’s no people, no lawns and no gutters; and concentrate really hard on doing nothing.

The funny thing is that when I was a kid it was easy. I don’t remember ever practising. And I loved it. The sense of loss is overwhelming. Like playing with your food. I used to make mountain ranges of mashed potatoes with lakes of gravy in them in which I drowned people. Well, peas actually, but I pretended they were people.

Then it was entertainment – now it’s just dinner. I tried to recreate the feeling by playing games with a stir fry, but nothing happened. Except my wife sent off for some nursing home brochures.

Did you know, too, that when you grow up you can no longer hear bats?

Bats squeak – but you only know that because you remember hearing them as a kid. When you get to about 25 years your ears begin to block out some sounds: your girlfriend asking when you’re going to get married; your parents asking when you’re going to move out. And bats.

It’s no wonder old people suffer from depression. It’s like being a plum tree, where the plums are all the things you’re able to do, and one by one, in a comparatively short space of time, they go ripe and drop off, and the flies get them.

I don’t want much. In fact I want nothing. I want to do… nothing.

Before I’m dead, and I have to do it forever.