This week: It’s the end of another work year for me, but there are still a few days to go on the calendar year. What to do with all this time? Not a thing. Read on!
A Rest Development
What's left?
Of all the questions that keep me up at night, this is the most unsettling. It's the idea that there's something left undone, something I've forgotten to do, something I should be doing right now. But...there's not.
The calendar is clear. All my appointments, meetings, commitments, and classes have been met and I have walked away scarred but victorious for another year. Oh, don't get me wrong. There are plenty of things I could be doing. Should be doing, even. But there's nothing scheduled. The calendar shows a row of blank, empty squares for the rest of the year.
All that's left is the rest.
Let me rephrase that: all that's left is to rest.
I was reminded recently of John Cage's 1952 composition 4'331, in which the musicians are instructed to sit, silent, at rest, for exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds. It's an interesting piece2 and one that's been both taken apart as a mere stunt as well as hailed as an avant-garde3 masterpiece. I think it's a bit of both.
But I do like the piece because, for me, it is the perfect illustration of how hard it is to just rest. Watch any performance of the composition and you'll not hear silence. Instead, you'll hear a consonance of tightly, irrevocably interwoven sound. Performers and audience members alike fidget in their seats, causing clothing to rustle and whisper. Occasional vocalized murmurers puncture the susurrus like woodwinds even while the clearing of throats and sniffling of noses punctuate the piece like percussion instruments. There is no silence in the piece, there is only the music created by people unable to sit at rest for more than a few seconds at a time.
One of the more controversial buzz words of 2022 has been "quiet quitting."4 The idea behind the phrase, often derisive, is that younger workers are, without making a fuss, simply refusing to do more than the bare minimum for which they are being paid. As you might have guessed, I don't have a problem with this5.
As I've grown older, and in the past few years of the pandemic, the need to be busy has kind of overwhelmed me. I don't relax very easily and I rarely take a real break6. But I should. But I have to, or else the permanent rest is going to come a little sooner than I'd like.
So, I've given myself the rest of the year to, well, rest. But, in one final desperate act of busyosity7, here are a few quick notes on the word rest:
Merriam-Webster provides a whopping 27 distinct usages of the word rest. My particular favorite is, "to lie dead."
The Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins tells us that the usage of rest to mean stop or pause comes from an Old English word for league, after which distance a person would stop to rest.
Meanwhile, the usage of rest to mean remainder comes from the Latin word restare, which means to remain and, somewhat ironically, also provides the root of the word arrest.
The Oxford Dictionary of English Idioms provides eight examples of rest, the most salient for me is, and always has been, "no rest for the wicked."
Etymonline provides a clear timeline for the evolution of body part + rest, starting in 1833 with head-rest and moving on to leg-rest and foot-rest before finally arriving at arm-rest in the 1840s.
Finally this discussion on music.stackexchange.com provides a well-cited discussion on the origins of the musical notation symbol for a quarter-note rest, which I enjoyed but did not retain.
And with that, we rest this issue of Learned and the year 2022. See you in a week to ring in a new year. Take care, get some rest.
Down the Rabbit Hole
While I ultimately chose rest for this final issue of 2022, the other contender was left. So, in the spirit of participation trophies for all, here are some songs about being left out, left behind, or just...
From the Archives
Since it is the end of the year, here in Japan, New Year’s shopping is in full swing. I wrote about it a bit last year, along with a discussion of the word sale and where it comes from. Read all about it at the link below. Enjoy!
Pranjal Saxena, my friend and fellow writer, reminded me of Cage’s piece in his most recent Chitthi, titled, Resonating with John Cage. He’s got a different take on the piece and one that’s well worth reading.
And I love how recursive pieces like this one in the MOMA are.
Apparently, French speakers don’t actually use this phrase the same way English speakers do, which is just more evidence that the French language as we know it is nothing more than a practical joke being played by the French people. Ha ha, guys, we get it already.
What the grown-ups call, "setting reasonable expectations for creating and maintaining meaningful work-life balances."
I'm American and I live in Japan. I've seen all too many examples of what happens when live-to-work, hustle and grind cultures run rampant through a society. And if the younger generations want to force a reckoning about it, I'm all for it. I wish them all the power and success that my generation never managed to achieve.
Sure, I might not be busy doing what YOU think I should be doing, but I can guarantee you, my mind isn't lying still and silent. Which is both a blessing and a curse, to be honest.
Like curiosity, only with less wonder and more guilt.
I mean, it’s not Iggy’s best song (that’s China Girl) but it’s his best song, you know?