The case for doing nothing

I was a decent student but good grades never truly satisfied me. I was always eager to do more, I craved projects, and ways to create something new.

When I was seven or eight, I went around to my classmates with a note asking them for their submissions for a magazine I would start, called 'Kids' World'. My uncle owned a printing press, and in my childlike logic, publishing seemed entirely feasible.

I envisioned a magazine which would have jokes, stories, and articles. I told my mother, who helped me frame the note, and took it around to my classmates. They didn't share the same enthusiasm and this dream died.

A couple of years later, I went to a boarding school. Considering I would spend eight months out of twelve in school, looking back, it was odd that I proposed to my parents that I would like to work part-time when I was at home. Reading Archie comics probably made me think I could also have a newspaper route or a lemonade stand too. But this was obviously not for India's small towns (or even big cities).

Fortunately, my love for writing started growing at around the same time. Seeing my grandfather, an author, and his disciplined routine centred around writing and reading made me even more inclined towards this.

I started writing little articles on cricket. In my holidays, I would write on our computer at home, and during school, I would write for my school magazines. Watching sports was enjoyable as is, but watching to write a post-match report was even better. I was eager to get published professionally, not for the money, but simply for the satisfaction to have an audience read what I had written.

I started watching football properly with the FIFA World Cup in 2010 and immediately fell in love with the beautiful game. And so, my notebooks saw their first entries on football sometime in late 2010, when I was preparing for my 10th grade pre-boards and board examinations.

My desire to get published professionally, and a four-week suspension from school after my friends' and my mobile phone got caught, made me reach out to the Indian edition of a global football website for an unpaid internship, and funnily enough, they agreed!

I began writing for this website on European football and requested my school to grant me library access: 30 minutes per week for internet research (called 'e-source center'), two hours for offline work in Microsoft Word, and 10 minutes of internet to upload and send an email.

My boarding school did not allow students to access internet without a purpose, but the principal initially agreed to my father's request (Two or three weeks later, she changed her mind saying I was recently "severely punished", and this activity qualified as "fun" and therefore was not okay. Go figure.)

I did not give up. Boarding school kids are resourceful, and always found ways. Preparing for an inter-school Model United Nations, I used some of that time to look at scorelines and reports, and I discovered proxy websites to send my articles as plain text emails.

I continued writing in my holidays. The support of my parents ensured I never really had to take a break if I didn't want to. They didn't see my watching matches and writing as a distraction even while I was preparing for my 12th-grade board examination. They believed it was a worthwhile passion.

Once I started college, I could finally write without any obstacles and also get paid for it to feel a greater sense of financial independence! The emergence of the Indian Super League (ISL) presented new opportunities. I found freelance writing gigs and even attended matches, experiencing the thrill of covering football as a journalist.

As my passion for sports evolved, I gradually transitioned from writing about football to exploring the behind-the-scenes world of sports operations. Over time, my writing gradually slowed, then became erratic, and eventually, stopped altogether.

Having worked in some capacity since 2011, the idea of not working felt alien and unsettling. I was among the fortunate ones who had work during the pandemic, and boy, did I work. But by last year, I could feel burnout creeping in, likely intensified by lingering pandemic anxieties. I knew I needed to pause.

Another realisation struck me: as I got better at my job, I became more adept at anticipating problems. While this made me more effective, it also left less room for creative thinking. It made the absence of writing in my life even more stark. Writing for me was always equal to thinking itself. I needed to write again, to think more clearly and creatively.

I relate to Murakami when he says in his book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running:

Perhaps I’m just too painstaking a type of person, but I can’t grasp much of anything without putting down my thoughts in writing, so I had to actually get my hands working and write these words. Otherwise, I’d never know what running means to me.

So after the end of my previous project a few months ago, I thought that this is what I needed to do. The only problem is that now for as long as I can remember, I have always worked with a goal in mind, written with a publication in mind. From as early as I can remember, I wanted to work. Even as a kid, I knew that the way adults signaled they valued something was by calling it work.

Doing something without an outward goal is new territory for me, and I occasionally feel moments of angst. Perhaps hobbies, done purely for their own sake, are the answer. It reminds me of when I wanted to start a magazine as a kid, just for the joy of it.

My goal for the coming months is simple: write regularly, and embrace activities for their own sake, without the pressure of productivity. After all, that was the whole point of creating this blog, a place to explore my thoughts and share them with whoever might happen to read them. That said, I still do better with having some structure, so my goal now is to sit down to write for 30 minutes 3-4 times a week regardless of the output.

I also want to read more, because to write better, you need to read more. Back in school, I read voraciously (perhaps aided by the lack of internet, social media, and limited access to television). While this habit waned over the years, I'm finally reading actively again. In just a month, I have read six books. I’ve been captivated by the world of Ayşegül Savaş’ The Anthropologists and Han Kang’s The Vegetarian.

When my days now dissolve into reading, watching sports, playing with my cat, or simply being present with family and friends, I'm learning to silence that ever-present productive inner voice that equates worth with work. This is new and uncomfortable territory, but it's exactly what I needed. Some things are worth doing for themselves alone, simply because they spark something within us—no goals, no payoffs, just pure joy. In embracing these unstructured moments, I'm rediscovering the same passion that first made me want to write.