Writing 4: Forwarding or Countering Odell

Nicole Schlesinger

The idea of “forwarding” an idea, furthering it, deepening it, and somehow making it your own, as described in Rewriting, is personally relevant when applying it to Odell’s book.  I think an important part of any reading is to digest the writer’s project and see if it makes sense when considering one’s own life.  In the case of How to Do Nothing, this makes perfect sense. 

I grew up in an affluent suburb of New York City that often seemed to value achievement over almost everything.  While I realize how fortunate I am to have had a good education, excellent teachers, and a concerned and supportive community, too many adults and young people were obsessed with being busy, being involved in a million activities all supposedly for self-improvement.  If a student was not playing sports, participating in a club, or being tutored after school he or she was often looked down upon.  My classmates filled their calendar with all sorts of extracurricular activities that left them exhausted and overwhelmed.  When homework obligations were added onto these busy schedules, stress levels rose even higher.  

Adults were similarly focused on being “busy.”  Many came from families where both parents worked outside the home, but they also loaded extra activities into their own already busy days.  Being productive, being useful, improving oneself were goals that seemed to be driving forces for everyone.  There was no time, and no tolerance, for just being.  Being busy was prized and encouraged.  I get stressed out just thinking about it!

This attitude goes against so much of what Odell states in her book, and I think this would be my personal forwarding of her message. Odell urges people to resist, and this is also relevant to me because in high school I resisted this atmosphere of being constantly busy and productive. Although I did not watch the birds, I used this metaphor as a way to be more aware of the physical world around me. I love being outside just for no other reason than to feel the sun or see the flowers. I won’t pretend to say that I meditated in a rose garden, listened deeply, or paid real attention to the different kinds of bugs in a watershed, but I do think I was able to stay more focused on other things instead of intentionally being too busy to observe them.

Odell quotes Gilles Delueze in describing the abundance of pointless talk that seems to have little meaning. She points out the necessity for quiet, for the peacefulness to be alone and to be silent. This is also something I think is important to forward. I think the world seems full of noisy chatter and needless talk. Odell recalls how she started coming to the Rose Garden every day after the Presidential Election in 2016. Needing time to think, reflect and be alone with her thoughts, Odell also seems like she wanted to get away from the noisy world of political arguments, constant discord, and the angry accusations that seemed to flood the national scene. I can totally relate to this because I lose patience with people who feel some compulsion to fill the air with noise and empty words. This is not to say that I think my ideas are better, but like those who feel some need to stay busy, there are many people I know who feel they must always talk. Why are people so afraid of silence? When I ask this question to my friends, they often answer that being quiet is socially awkward and inappropriate. Again, as Odell states, silence is the way to obtain deep listening; to hear birdsong, and the message the birds want to communicate. In society’s need to feel useful and productive, people also seem to feel like it is necessary to fill any silence with useless words. “What if we spent less time shouting into the void and being washed over with shouting in return-and more time talking in rooms to those for whom our words are intended? If we have only so much attention to give, and only so much time on this earth, we might want to think about reinfusing our attention and our communication with the intention that both deserve.” Odell is trying to encourage us to “speak deeply” like she advocates “deep listening.” There is no sense to speak or hear words that just form noise.

“Nothing” Matters!

In Jenny Odell’s “How to Do Nothing”, she highlights the importance of self preservation. In an ever technologically evolving world, it can be easy to get to get caught up in the latest online fads and trends. These days, individuals often attempt to monetize every aspect of one’s life. It seems as though now, success and productivity is measured by how much money someone makes, rather than the maintenance of mental health and happiness. On page eighteen, in response to a company statement regarding a change in work hours, Odell says “…there is nothing to be admired about being constantly connected, constantly potentially productive the second you open your eyes in the morning–and in my opinion, no one should accept this, not now not ever.” The nuanced idea of “doing nothing” does not truly mean people should not do productive, but rather to detach oneself from overstimulation, whether said overstimulation comes from social media, the news, work, or perhaps even other people. To “do nothing” is an act of grounding and granting yourself mental clarity. To refrain from over indulging in the “attention economy”, as Odell calls it, is to grant yourself more autonomy over what you choose to do with your own time and energy. Page twenty two reads, “…having recourse to periods of and spaces for ‘doing nothing’ is of utmost importance, because without them we have no way to think, reflect, heal, and sustain ourselves– individually or collectively”. 

Odell incorporates various supplementary sources that argue in some way or another, the importance of “doing nothing”. For example, she recounts the time period in which her father “went through his own period of removal” (p.10). After quitting his job, Odell’s father “read a lot, rode his bike, studied math and electronics, went fishing, had long chats with his friend and roommate, and sat in the hills where he taught himself the flute.” (p.10) After this interval of time, he returned to his previous job with a new mindset and sense of inspiration, making it possible for him to work his way up within the company. While what Odell’s father chose to do in those two years may not seem conventionally productive, it proved to be a period of self realization and growth; in reality it was quite productive because he developed as a person, and was better at his job afterwards. Upon returning to work, he was described as having a “renewed energy and a different perspective.”(p.11) In explaining her father’s newfound creativity and clarity, Odell quotes John Cleese, who says that the five required factors for creativity are “1.Space 2.Time 3.Time 4.Confidence 5.Humor”. In her father’s case, he had two years where he essentially “did nothing” in the sense that he was not working and making money, and he was able to truly foster a new sense of creativity. 

The act of “doing nothing” and the refrain from engaging in the “attention economy” is an act of resistance in this capitalistic society. On page twenty three, Odell references a quote from a book by Gabrielle Moss, “self care is poised to be wretched away from activists and turned into an excuse to buy an expensive bath oil.” Self care is most commonly considered as solely aesthetic, encouraging and convincing people to spend money on tangible items meant to make them feel better about themselves. In reality, self care spans beyond the physical plane; taking care of your mind and your emotional well being is just as equally, if not more important than maintaining your physical appearance. Disconnecting from social media, refraining from watching the news constantly, and differentiating between time for leisure and time for work are several ways to “do nothing” in order to care for yourself. Odell describes her love for going to the Rose Garden near her house in Oakland, as well as interacting with and watching birds. These simple acts are what she considers “real”, and seem almost meditational for her. 

By allowing yourself to freely think without constant stimulation, you become more aware of your surroundings. On page eight, Odell describes her gradual ability to differentiate between various bird songs. She compares this to when she realized her mom spoke three languages, as opposed to only two, which she had previously thought. “This type of embarrassing discovery, in which something you thought was one thing and is actually two things, and each of those two things is actually ten things, seems like a simple function of the duration and quality of one’s attention. With effort, we can become attuned to things, able to pick up and then hopefully differentiate finer and finer frequencies each time.”

Defining Odell and Her Writing

by Ethan Porette

Watching the Dragon Tree | @jermilex on DeviantArt

I feel that one of Odell’s main points is to try to tell people to think more about how they spend their time because time itself is a currency. She focuses on being curious, and one with your surroundings to take in things that could help you perceive life in ways you never thought. There are so many things that the world/government/big business/mainstream media tries to streamline, dumb down, and generalize to make people be less curious and thoughtful in their daily lives. You’re told to be productive, but one thing Odell says is that anti-productivity can help in something such as brainstorming, thinking, and learning about more things that could eventually help you in your main focus. For example, if you take breaks in your work to go out on a walk in a public space, you can notice things you may not have ever seen or thought about. These things can help you brainstorm and focus on the more important things in either your work or just general life. Obscure, or “anti-” things are some of the most important factors in creativity. 

Odell definitely tends to seem drawn to things related to public space, nature, and community. She often talks about the Rose Garden in Oakland as a little get away place for her to set her mind and thoughts free. The Morcom Rose Garden is a sanctuary in a big city where people can escape the noisy, dirty city life and experience a tid-bit of fresh nature tucked away. The author uses bird-watching as a way of escapism and looking into a whole other species’ world. She notes that as she watches them she thinks of how the birds, and us, humans all live in the same world, impacting and influencing each other daily and people should be more aware outside of their tunneled head-space.

Outside of the Rose Garden and just outside her window, Odell talks a lot about the crows that come by her building regularly. She points out how she’s noticed crows and birds her whole life, but recently she has come more aware of what they actually do and are capable of. She cites that she learned that crows can actually recognize human faces from Jennifer Ackerman’s The Genius of Birds. She’s astonished at how they can remember and even perceive some people as good or bad and that they also have routines and things of the sort. All this about the crows really astonished her and made her think really hard about how all living things share the same ground, the same air, the same world. Humans are animals and we know this, but when you really think about it, life seems surreal and it’s almost like you just want to know more about what is out there and what else do we not know.

The author also brings up the Old Survivor redwood tree that is the last of its ancient old-growth kind that still dwells in Oakland’s outlying hills. Old Survivor itself is a living thing and has been around for centuries and has “seen” what the world has done and how it has changed. Odell talks of the 4th century story of “The Useless Tree” and how the loggers did not appreciate the uniqueness of the tree he sees, but eventually the tree confronts the man and asks why he thought this tree was worthless. This relates to Old Survivor because 19th century loggers ripped down all the old-growth trees apart from Old Survivor because it was different looking, even though on the inside it was the same. These stories go hand-in-hand with Odell’s point of how some people don’t appreciate certain worldly things and are so narrow-minded or even lazy in some cases that they miss out on ideas and experiences and you may regret missing. She also seems to base a lot of her research on creativity focused works such as the lecture by John Cleese and the art pieces done by Eleanor Coppola and Scott Polach. Both the lectures and art installations put forth the idea and importance of community as well as the way that time is just a social construct that almost puts too much pressure on people to rush or “use it wisely”. 

Jenny Odell is a very artistic writer who also uses politics, economics, media, a lot of modern and even ancient research to shift perceptions and captivate readers . She has a vast amount of sources and examples for all the points she tries to make to validate her messages. She takes her strengths of her community, family, education, and daily experiences to bring attention to what she believes is important in her writing. She is very observational and passionate in her work which makes her a great writer and educator.

Writing 2 Suneil Harzenski

In Jenny Odell’s book “How to Do Nothing” she analyzes how we are caught up in the attention economy and how we fall victim to the anxiety producing mindset that it creates. Before reading this book I was unclear as to what the attention economy even was. After a quick google search I learned that it boils down to management of human attention as a scarcity. Odell argues that this economy is destructive to the thing it attempts to facilitate, creativity and art. Her solution to this is that we need to get out of the cycle of doing something all the time. Whether that be thinking of ideas or putting them into action, there needs to be a time of nothing. That nothing can be many things like walking in a park or just sitting in a dark room. She wants us to do this because it gives us time. Time to think, time to reflect, time to clear your mind and time to understand. By giving us this time she hopes that we see things in different light and can change our beliefs to protect the things that truly matter most to us.

“How to Do Nothing” is Odell’s collection of life events and experiences attempting to push her arguments. This is not written as an essay format however “ The arguments and observations i’ll [Odell] make(s) here are not neat, interlocking parts in a logical whole.” She draws on mostly things that happen outside, in nature and about the living. One example of Odell showing how doing nothing can result in a deeper understanding comes from the introduction. In the introduction she tells the story of Old Survivor in which California’s redwoods were cut down for timber after the gold rush. After the deforestation there was thought to be no remaining old redwoods in the area, however it was later discovered that there was one left, Old Survivor. This tree is a “wordless testament to a very real past”. It survived because of both its mysterious location and its relatively small and twisted shape. “Old Survivor survived “largely by appearting useless to loggers as a timber tree.” Odell used this story to show how the resistance of a tree can translate into our lives and so we cannot be “appropriated by a capitalist value system”. Odell uses this and many stores like it to portray her narrative about our society and why our ways of thinking need to be changed. 

Odell is able to connect these life experiences by reducing them down to their very core. She wrote about the act of birdwatching, how in the beginning all she noticed were more bird sounds and how overtime she began to associate the different bird songs with the different species of birds. She then uses birdwatching to tell about how the “moment of stopping to listen” is easily connected to the twisted qualities of the attention holding economy. She not only connects each individual story to her main theme but she connects the stories she tells with other stories and experiences. She will then go back and relate it all with the main topic but even then it will be through her stories. An example of this is how she went from bird watching and the individual tone of the birds to her mother’s language, where only when she stopped and slowed down did she realize that her own mother spoke not two different languages but three. Someone Odell had known for her entire life and it was only when she did “nothing” did she find out. This sets the idea that if we don’t stop to do nothing, there will be so much in life that we miss because we never had the chance to realize them. 

Doing nothing is a state of mind that in today’s attention economy is all but gone. Social media like snapchat and instagram are plagued with ad’s that attempt to capture the attention of readers and users. This short attention span that people today have results in a lack of creativity and an increase of becoming a slave to corporations. Desire and greed are in plenty but art and empathy are in short supply. Odell’s “How to Do Nothing” hopes to change that mindset and create one of understanding, peace and enjoyment.