Notes from Vita Contemplativa: In Praise of Inactivity

The ultimate purpose of all human endeavour is inactivity.
- Unproductive, no “in-order-to”, no use.
- Festive, superfluous, exuberant.
Wait, doubt (not-knowing), listen. Be friendly and receptive, mimetic.
Give up your name, your intentions, your judgements, your self.
Communication and unlimited connectivity, is not the same as being together.

Gathered notes

The ultimate purpose of all human endeavour is inactivity.
Inactivity: not producing anything, no use and serve no purpose, unproductive, indirect, exuberant, superfluous, Freedom from ‘in-order-to’, not-knowing
Inactivity represents intense and radiant and festive human existence, enliving.
- Waiting and doubting are forms of inactivity.
Give up your name, become no one, give up your intentions, give up your judgements, succumb to what happens.
- Be mimetic. Move into things by making yourself similar to them.
- Rather than wilfully intervening, make use of the possibilities that lie dormat within.
Human intervention in nature unleashes processes that wouldn’t exist otherwise.
This radical immanence is so close that we constantly overlook it. ‘Overly close’. Closer than the closest object.
Increase the proportion of action that is contemplative; ensure that action is enriched by reflection.
Friendly receptivity, listening.
The listening ego immerses itself in the totality, in the unlimited, in the infinite.
The ethics of timidity is the ethics of inactivity.
The provisional, the short term and the impermanent dominate our lives.
The digital regime does not acknowledge an unavailable ground of being.
We use most of our powers to extend life. In so doing, we succeed only in reducing life to survival.
Being connected is not the same as being together. In fact, unlimited connectivity weakens our ties.
Today’s hyperactivity and hyper-communication can be interpreted as a reaction to a lack of being.

Raw notes

Views of Inactivity

Inactivity is a radiance within human existence. Today, it has paled into an emptiness within activity.
We have forgotten that it is precisely inactivity, which does not produce anything, that represents an intense and radiant form of life.
The ultimate purpose of all human endeavour is inactivity.
We owe true happiness to the useless and purposeless, to what is intentionally convoluted, what is unproductive, indirect, exuberant, superfluous, to beautiful forms and gestures that have no use and serve no purpose.
Waiting and doubting are forms of inactivity.
usefulness to which work is subjugated. Freedom from ‘in-order-to’ affords human existence festiveness and radiance.
Truth is a relational process. Everywhere it creates similarities.
Activity and action are blind to truth. They touch only the surface of things.
Sleep is the highest point of physical relaxation, whereas boredom is the highest point of mental relaxation.
Today, the consumerist form of life prevails everywhere. In this form of life, every need must be satisfied at once. We are impatient if we are told to wait for something to slowly ripen. All that matter are short- term effects and quick gains.
The fully known life is a dead life.
It is precisely not-knowing, as a form of inactivity, that enlivens life.
A not-doing is the essence of masterly skill. Activity reaches perfection in inactivity.
Those who are genuinely inactive do not affirm themselves. They give up their names and become no one. Nameless and intentionless, they succumb to what happens.
A master of contemplation is characterized by a mimetic faculty. He moves into things by making himself similar to them.
It is the proportion of inactivity in their activity that makes possible the emergence of something altogether different, something that has never been there before.
Truth and beauty converge in friendliness.
What destroys the continuity of being is human intention and judgement.

A Marginal Note on Zhuangzi

of inactivity. He practises doing nothing. Rather than wilfully intervening in things, he makes use of the possibilities that lie dormant in them.

From Acting to Being

Humans act beyond the social sphere by intervening in nature and submitting it to the human will. This unleashes processes that would not exist without human intervention.
Unlike action, which pushes forward, reflection leads us back to where we always already are. It opens up for us a being-there [Da-Sein] that precedes all doing, all action.
The radical immanence of this there is so close that we constantly overlook it. It is the ‘overly close’, which is closer than the closest object.
Only once we wait, free of any intention, in waiting lingering, do humans become aware of the space in which we always already are:
Because it is not capable of pathos, artificial intelligence is not capable of thinking. Suffering and enduring are conditions that no machine can realize.
The digital regime does not acknowledge an unavailable ground of being.
Given the scale of the natural disasters we face, ‘environmental protection’ is an insufficient concept. What we need is a radically transformed relationship to nature. The earth is not a ‘resource’ that we must now ‘preserve’.
We must therefore increase the proportion of action that is contemplative, that is, ensure that action is enriched by reflection.
Following the ‘turn’, Heidegger realizes that human existence gets its radiance only from inactivities, such as festivals and play.
Things, liberated from the in-order-to, become festive.
The emphasis on the self gives way to releasement [Gelassenheit] and exuberance [Ausgelassenheit]. Contemplative lingering replaces the pathos of action.
In awe, a special kind of attention arises, a friendly receptivity for the other. Awe teaches us to listen.
Heidegger could also have said: not-doing is more powerful than anything done or achieved. The ethics of timidity is the ethics of inactivity.

Absolute Lack of Being

We store vast quantities of data and information without, however, indulging in remembrance.
We renounce time-intensive practices such as faithfulness, responsibility, promising, trust and commitment. The provisional, the short term and the impermanent dominate our lives.
Today’s short-termism dismantles being. Being forms only under conditions of lingering.
The loss of common feeling grounded in the symbolic intensifies the lack of being.
We use most of our powers to extend life. In so doing, we succeed only in reducing life to survival.
Because being is being-with, isolation and loneliness lead to a lack of being. No we can come about in the neoliberal performance society.
Being connected is not the same as being together. In fact, unlimited connectivity weakens our ties. A deep relationship requires an other who can make themselves unavailable.
Today’s hyperactivity and hyper-communication can be interpreted as a reaction to a lack of being.

The Pathos of Action

The rest on the Sabbath does not simply come after the work of creation; rather, it completes it.
The pathos of action that goes hand in hand with the emphasis on the new makes the world restless.
Novelty, we are told, makes for a full life. The old is not to be trusted.
Believing that we are realizing ourselves, we voluntarily exploit ourselves. We worship the cult of the self, in which each is his own priest.
In the state of being enthused, we detach ourselves from ourselves. Genialis is a standing-beside-oneself. This is also a formula for happiness.
It is not the determination to act but the exuberance of the festival that raises us above mere life.
If it does not incorporate the vita contemplativa, the vita activa degenerates into hyperactivity, and culminates in the burnout not only of the psyche but of the whole planet.

The Coming Society For Novalis on his 250th birthday

The intensifying compulsion to produce and communicate makes contemplative lingering difficult.
The crisis of religion is a crisis of attention.
Schleiermacher states that contemplative intuition, which he juxtaposes to action, is the essence of religion: ‘It is neither thinking nor acting, but intuition and feeling.
Thinking focuses our attention on the thing to be achieved. Only intuition and feeling have access to the universe, that is, to beings in their totality.
The listening ego immerses itself in the totality, in the unlimited, in the infinite.
The Romantic conception of nature, which takes even inanimate things to have souls, provides an effective corrective to our instrumental understanding of nature. The Romantic perception prevents us from viewing nature as a resource that only serves human purposes.

Added 2024-08-10, last updated 2024-08-11.