There was a radio programme I caught by accident this week that was about a word I’d never heard before..the word was ” NIKSEN”, and it went on to explain that it’s a Dutch lifestyle concept of doing nothing. It literally means to do nothing, to be idle or do something without any use. Like simply sitting in chair and letting your mind wander rather than focusing on details of an action.
What I found fascinating, was that even I had never heard the word before, I have actually done it, on many occasions, and found it a most useful way of helping me to think, and plan, and come up with concepts that I might not have considered before.
At the beginning at this week I was working flat out to finish the three erotic paintings for the client who has commissioned me to do them. I wanted to get them completed well in time for the deadline date she had requested, as I like to get work done as quickly as I can, as time has a nasty habit of causing other delays when you least expect it or want it. So the paintings were completed, I contacted the client and emailed the images to her for her feedback. It was a lovely pleasantly sunny day and I decided to go and do a couple of odd jobs in the garden that had been on my to do list for a few weeks, and happily did them, then sat on the bench in the garden enjoying the warm sunshine on my face, and was happy to find the two cats decided to join me too on the bench, I absentmindedly stoked the ears of one, as the other came to sit next to her, and I just let my mind wander…the artwork was done, there were no immediate pressing jobs to be done…I’m the sort of person who is always busy one way or another…and don’t like to be idle, but it’s also the sitting at moments like this that brings ideas to the fore…like the idea for the three raised herb beds in the garden, like the idea of the best way of painting the lacy top in one of the erotic paintings I’d just completed, like the idea for the Middle English set of paintings that the Ervette painting started off in the summer…like those….with no plan…but somehow my brain was working, and coming up with creative ideas, was being productive…was thinking about painting, about the sunlight on the scene infront of me, how the clouds were making shapes in the sky, how the trees were starting to colour for the coming autumn, how the bricks in the patio made an interesting pattern…….
I know how important it is to find time to do nothing, to stare into space, usually when I have a cup of tea in my hand first thing in the morning, and know how I will spend part of the day, but the day is not flat out, there is no great rush to do the tasks for the day, they will get done, at some point, and my body and mind can merge as one…
I’m not saying I do it every day, some days you can’t, because the phone rings, or an unexpected problem arises that eats into the day..
But I would think that some part of every week holds it..and I think its important to get lost in the moment of it..because we all have busy lives, we all have people to speak to and interact with, we all have work to do, tedious domestic chores, we have television programmes we have to watch, we all have to catch up on social media so we don’t feel we’re missing out on socialising, we all have phones that are so easy to access online shopping, we all have hobbies that need our attention, or family members who request our time and attentions. But I fully believe we need time to recuperate, to rest, to relax, to feel we have time for ourselves, and for getting lost inside our own heads..
To be at one with nature, or just enjoying the moment of now…. and the surroundings that make us happy, even if it’s not our immediate world… it’s the one we can escape to…
It aids my creativity…
