I somehow think our country is stingy about rest. Of course rest is an extremely personal matter, so part of this may come from organizational culture deliberately neglecting what concerns the individual. Still, because human thought has inertia, whether organizations demand it or not, people often unconsciously dismiss rest as playing around, as unproductive, as a way of wasting time. Some even think that unless it is that, it is not rest.
But if the work is cutting down trees, rest is not only time to recover strength. It also includes time to sharpen the blade. It may not be one step back for two steps forward, but it is still necessary in order to go farther. The work may not be company work. Even if one balances company work and a hobby, to do both requires a third activity: rest. Is the hobby not rest? No. Doing a hobby diligently does not make one good at company work. Whether one has a hobby or not, rest is necessary.
I like writing, but although writing clears my head, it does not make work go well. I like reading, but I cannot use every spare moment to write or read. Looking at the phone, since it requires sorting information and making nonstop judgments, is not, strictly speaking, helpful real rest. It may be better than having no gap at all, but it is not rest.
Once I spent time with a colleague who liked camping. At lunch he would search online for new campgrounds, and almost every other week he went camping with his whole family. He did not buy camping gear anymore because he already had what he needed. It did not seem like too much; what mattered seemed to be that the family went together. I once had a chance to talk with him over drinks about rest, and the conversation began with him explaining why camping was good. I said I liked sitting still, reading or writing, or simply being blank, more than traveling around. He said that once the tent and kitchen were all set up at the campsite and a fire was lit, simply staring at the fire became rest. That was his kind of rest. It was not tiring because it was the process of finding real rest. I am what people call a homebody, someone recharges by doing nothing without much effort. Even if I visit a famous tourist spot, rest begins only after I return home. Still, I understood what he meant by fire-gazing being rest. If that is better than resting at home, then that is what it is.
Once, during a personnel-transfer period, I had a gap of a little over a week before I had to report to work. It was a holiday created by vacation, transfer timing, and various circumstances. During that time I once walked from Jamsil Station through COEX and Cheongdam Station, crossed Hannam Bridge, went through Itaewon, and crossed Seogang Bridge. When I walk, there comes a point when I become blank, and that feels good. If mountain climbers are not climbing only for the feeling at the summit, perhaps the process gives them something like this. I do not like hiking, so it is only a guess, but the rest felt while being blank and the rest felt while walking are different yet similar in texture.
Of course, even then, the feeling of having properly rested came only when I lay down at home. But the peace I felt while walking was also rest. When we say we are going out to get some air, I think it means not a five- or ten-minute walk to a place one can easily go back and forth from, but an activity one can continue until one gets tired of it.
The reason that is rest is that it removes useless little rootlets from the head. When I walk without thought, paradoxically, countless thoughts arise. Later they lack energy, so I cannot cut them off or do anything with them, and a free fight unfolds inside my head regardless of what I am seeing. If rest continues long enough for that fight to end, only the victorious thoughts remain.
I do not know whether this is the exact mechanism, but it is certain that the reduction of miscellaneous thoughts can be a criterion for judging the quality of rest. When I cannot write because I lack rest, it is much more often because my head is too complicated to touch the writing at all than because I want to write but have nothing to write. Even while traveling, I want to leave behind what happened, but only after staring blankly out the hotel window can I organize the incidents that seem worth writing down. Writing down anything recklessly may be a record, but as writing it is likely to become trash not worth reading later. There has to be some corner that makes me think, even when I read it later, that I wrote this because it meant something: a funny snippet of someone else’s conversation, or clouds in the sky that looked wonderful. If even I feel the writing has no value, another person would be even more exhausted by it.
I do not assume in advance that the writing will be read by others, but I cannot write without assuming some reader, whether that reader is me or someone else. Writing is a medium that preserves the value of being read. Then consideration for the reader is basic courtesy. It does not make sense to say, “I went to the trouble of assembling letters, so read this.” Moreover, such writing is often squeezed out, and after writing a few pieces like that, I become too tired to write the pieces that truly organize thought. So even as a hobby, writing requires rest, just as it requires enough time to think.
Original Korean article: 취미에도 휴식이 필요하다