If the ax is blunt and one doesn't sharpen the edge,
then he must use more strength;
but skill brings success.
- Ecclesiastes 10:10, World English Bible
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I signed up for a paid audiobook subscription during the waning months of the COVID lockdowns. For the price of my subscription I get one credit per month which I can apply toward a free download of an audiobook, and I also get audiobooks at reduced prices if I decide I want more than one new audiobook per month. At first I used my audiobook credits to obtain downloads of fiction (particularly Chinese science fiction), but lately I have been sampling some nonfiction. So it was that this past month I stumbled across a book called Rest by an author named Alex Soojung-Kim Pang.
As advertised on the audiobook website, Pang's book invites us to "Sit back and relax and learn about why overworking and under resting can be harmful to yourself and your career." And the website also informs us that "If work is our national religion, Pang is the philosopher reintegrating our bifurcated selves." Such statements intrigued me precisely because for the last seven months, I have been working like a dog. While there are elements of entrepreneurship which I have enjoyed, overwork has not been one of them. So I gave Mr. Pang's book a listen or two to see what I could learn. Below are some of my observations gleaned from my listening.
First, a few observations about Mr. Pang. It seems that he is a member of that sector of the economies of the First World known as the "advice industry." This "industry" includes many "content" producers whose advice is aimed at aspirational members of the middle and upper middle class. Some of their offerings are well-researched and contain original and valuable insights, but other offerings have a familiar snake-oil smell to them. (Think of Norman Vincent Peale for an early 20th-century example, or Tony Robbins or Tim Ferriss for a couple of modern-day examples. Note also the dissatisfaction which some people are now expressing toward the advice industry as they see its use as a tool of capitalism.)
But let's get to Pang's book, shall we? Rest is laid out thus: Pang's thesis statement is set forth in the introduction and the first two chapters. Then the next six chapters describe the day-to-day setup of the habits of rest in the lives of elite creatives, drawing on a number of historical examples. The last four chapters describe the ancillary activities of recreation of these creatives, some of which can be fit into a day-to-day schedule, and some of which are larger activities which take creative people out of their daily routines for a while.
Pang's thesis statement is something that I think most reasonable people would agree with, namely, that appropriate rest is the necessary precondition for excellent work. When we don't rest appropriately, our work suffers. As he says, "I argue that we misunderstand the relationship between work and rest. Work and rest are not polar opposites...Further, you cannot work well without resting well." Pang rightly points out the contrast between the harried lives of most employees (especially "knowledge workers") and their employers versus the unhurried pace of the lives of the people who were responsible for some of the greatest discoveries and innovations of the modern industrial era.
Focusing more closely on the harried lives of workers, Pang says, "As a result, we see work and rest as binaries. Even more problematic, we think of rest as simply the absence of work, not as something that stands on its own or has its own qualities....When we think of rest as work's opposite, we take it less seriously and even avoid it. Americans work more and vacation less than almost any other nationality in the world..." Finally, Pang's thesis statement contains the following words: "Rest is not something that the world gives us. It's never been a gift...If you want rest, you have to take it."
A problem arises when we move from Pang's thesis statement to the chapters describing the day-to-day routines of history's greatest creatives. The problem does not lie in the efficacy of the routines themselves. In particular, the observation that the best creatives spend no more than four or five hours a day working deeply on their craft has been validated by the research of K. Anders Ericsson and others who studied the role of deliberate practice in producing expert performance. Similarly, there is abundant evidence for the benefits of establishing morning routines, taking daily walks in order to clear one's head, taking naps during the workday in order to recharge, and getting enough sleep each night. The research cited by Pang also validates the larger ancillary activities of recreation which he describes in the latter part of his book. (I really, really like the idea of sabbaticals! I've got to get me one of those things...)
The problem with incorporating these things into the daily lives of a significant number of workers is that they fly in the face of the culture of late capitalism which has been created and is being maintained by the world's richest people at the present time. Therefore, these habits and practices are countercultural - and those who seek to practice these habits expose themselves to the possibility that they will suffer for trying to do such things. Take doing only four or five hours of deep, focused work per day for instance. I can truthfully tell you that I have never worked for an employer who would have agreed to such an arrangement. From the time I obtained my bachelors degree until the time I quit my job to start a business, every employer I have ever worked for insisted on at least 40 hours a week, broken down into at least eight hours every day. In those workplaces where the technical staff were unionized, we were allowed only two ten-minute breaks per day and one 30-minute break for lunch. In the non-union places, 40 hours a week was not enough. I remember one coworker of mine who worked 50 to 55 hours a week on a regular basis and who was kept alive by regular doctor's prescriptions. I worked for another office whose local client base was shrinking due to mismanagement, and whose bosses offered me the chance to keep my job only if I was willing to travel extensively.
Take naps also. For a long time employers frowned upon employees sleeping anywhere within sight of their managers. This meant that if you needed a nap, you sometimes had to get into your car and drive a couple of blocks away from the office to sleep. Admittedly there has been something of a shift in corporate culture over the last decade, in that a number of corporate offices now have designated "wellness rooms" where workers can retreat in order to decompress. However, the first time I worked in a place that had a wellness room, I was told that the big boss in my office would allow employees to use the room as long as they didn't sleep in there. This restriction applied even at lunch. What a doofus!
In other words, I don't think Pang's book adequately accounts for the functional, structural factors which have driven rest from the lives of many American workers. To be fair, the introduction of his book does mention the structural factors of "automation, globalization, the decline of unions, and a winner-take-all economy." He also mentions the continuous increase in living expenses (especially housing expenses) which makes people hostages to longer hours and longer commutes. But the tone of his book - especially of the introduction - implies that our failure to engage in the kind of deep rest he advocates is a result of our own ignorance or wrong attitudes, as exemplified in the following quote: "When we define ourselves by our work, by our dedication and effectiveness and willingness to go the extra mile, then it's easy to see rest as the negation of all those things...When we think of rest as work's opposite, we take it less seriously and even avoid it."
Because the radical adoption of the habits of the creatives cited by Pang is such a threat to the present order (especially in the U.S.), I think Mr. Pang fudges a bit in his advice to people who want to apply these habits to their own lives. When I say that he "fudges", I mean that he sometimes takes the radical embodiment of a radical idea and whittles it down to a size and shape that does not threaten the established order. For instance, in his chapter on sabbaticals, the radical idea of taking extended time off is weakened by citing modern executives who take two weeks off per year and label these breaks as sabbaticals. I had to laugh at this, as the first job I had after I served in the military as a young adult was an assembler at a defense plant. The plant was a union shop and new employees got only two weeks off, plus one week of sick leave. Big whoop-de-doo. There are other examples of what I would consider fudging in Pang's book, but if you want to spot them, you'll have to read the book.
A couple of last observations. In his choice to cite those creatives who were gentlemen of means in Victorian England, Pang elides the fact that these people had time to set up their lives for maximal recreation and deep work precisely because they were the beneficiaries of a social and economic system which offloaded their dirty work onto the less fortunate members of the British caste system. This point is made abundantly clear by the description of the lives of coal miners in George Orwell's book The Road to Wigan Pier. I am particularly struck by one of the Victorian sons of privilege whose life was mentioned in Pang's book: Sir John Lubbock. It is amazing to me that Pang cites him as a beloved reformer who saw the benefit of rest for all of British society when one considers that his "Early Closing Bill" restricted the working hours of British youth under 18 to no more than 74 hours per week. Consider that this still adds up to over ten hours a day, 7 days a week. What a joke of a reform.
However, having made my objections, I still think that the central idea of Pang's book has a certain merit. (I'd also like to mention that Pang seems to be trying to organize a movement for good in this country.) In particular, I agree with the idea that there is a certain cluster of optimum life arrangements which must be sought by those who desire to do groundbreaking intellectual work. And I'd like to suggest something which was not found in Rest: namely, the idea that America is suffering an innovation crisis (see this also) precisely because the overlords of modern American society have driven rest out of the lives of most workers by making those optimum arrangements for rest impossible. I think that will have consequences rather soon.
