radical rest
by Keely Adler · updated 1mo ago
radical rest
by Keely Adler · updated 1mo ago
The world thinks rest, recovery, and general refusal of work is gross. You can — and should — do it anyway. ●
Keely Adler added 4mo ago
I understand the cautions against leaning into depressive episodes. I also understand how many things that people label “indicators of depression” are also 1) forms of deep rest and 2) general resistance to the idea that every day should be filled with lists of things to do , places to be , productivity to exalt. And as Refinery29 writer Sabdhbh O’
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we all have needs that need to be tended to. I always wonder, what if care is the work? What if caring for ourselves is the revolution, meaning, what would happen if we divested from dismantling white supremacist capitalist patriarchy and invested our energy in equitizing the care we are able to provide one another?
Keely Adler added 4mo ago
"I lived alone for one whole year and sat in my living room maybe twice. Spent the whole year in bed when I was home! It was glorious!," writes one commenter. "I’m a lifetime committed bed person and my husband is a couch person. Realistically, what’s the difference? Just furniture in a different shape!," writes another. (As an
... See moreKeely Adler added 4mo ago
Many of us found ourselves out of a paycheck, and more importantly, reconsidering our foundational conceptions of work. Trauma and clarity are congenitally entwined,
Keely Adler added 4mo ago
Sleep is fine (but it has to be “productive” deep sleep, no naps!!); self-care is fine (so long as it also involves buying things, resisting aging, etc. etc.); exercise is great (disciplining and regimenting the body). But truly doing nothing, not even birding, not even gentle walking, not even organizing , where’s the moral value in that?
Keely Adler added 4mo ago
“structureless structure” is in place so that a good amount of agency and experience-making can happen. When I say experience making, I mean, how open is the space? I have no interest in curating an experience based on what I want folks to take away from their respite,
Keely Adler added 4mo ago
That hour or so in bed letting a blue light slowly erode my retinas was my little feral rat time when I could dissociate and drift off into a peaceful (read: fraught and unsettled) sleep.
Keely Adler added 4mo ago
As a certified bed rotting girlie™️ myself, I can say my horizontality is both restorative and avoidant, and when I work from bed, it can even be productive ( it’s giving Prousting ). Sometimes laying down is just laying down. Other times it’s a depressive episode. The question is: are you in your rot era or is your rot era in you?
—Mariam Sharia p
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