I’ve taught the art of deliberate nonsense to people who are too
narrow focused,
impatient,
“ADHD”,
stressed out.
They can’t imagine being non-productive, they think they’re wasting their time.
I don’t advocate for wasting your time, but if your so driven that you are never child-like, then you’re a slave to work, a slave to success.
Being a slave to success is not success.
Practicing deliberate nonsense takes you beyond mind, beyond ego, beyond small self, beyond slavery into the freedom mindset. Some are so thoroughly trapped in the matrix they’ve never done anything nonsensical.
In a coaching session, I say
“OK, please carry out nonsensical activities until I say stop”.
Most people don’t even know what to do when I say that, so I have to provide examples. Can you imagine? They don’t know how to practice nonsense! Programmed to be working slaves!
I might take different objects in the living room and tape them to the window.
But why? For what purpose? It doesn’t make sense!
Exactly.
I might stack books to the ceiling. I could walk back and forth in the room touching the walls. I might create a pattern on the sidewalk using rocks – although, that’s almost being purposeful again, so be careful. If I as why you are doing it and you have a rational answer, you’re still making sense. One student was tying his leg to a chair. What at first looked nonsensical started making sense when he used that to stretch his body beyond the chair. “Why are you doing that?” I asked. He said “It’s like yoga. Let’s call it chair-yoga”. I told the student to stop it and return to not making sense.
During the exercise many feelings come up. Resistance is the most common. Irritation. A sense of time wasting. I’ve had people who are terrified of the exercise because it catapults them right into the unknown. It brings up existential questions.
I usually have them to it until they enjoy. That could take five minutes or a whole hour. The longer you go, the more radical your shift in consciousness is. You can achieve a higher state of consciousness in this exercise. But to know that you’ll have to try.
