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Rest in motion | Nate Soares 

advice•essay•View Source
Appreciation
8
Importance
8
Date Added
9.15.25
TLDR
The ground state is in motion, not a relaxed resting state. Treat the things you need to do in life not as a bucket you have to empty (you never will) but rather a never-ending stream you move through. The reward comes not from finishing all your tasks and being able to rest at the end of it but rather from learning to move along the correct streams at a sustainable pace.
2 Cents
Wonderful articulation of an important life philosophy. Worth reading because framing shifts like this one can have outsized impact on your life.
Tags

The actual reward state is not one where you're lazing around doing nothing. It's one where you're keeping busy, where you're doing things that stimulate you, and where you're resting only a fraction of the time. The preferred ground state is not one where you have no activity to partake in, it's one where you're managing the streams of activity precisely, and moving through them at the right pace: not too fast, but also not too slow. For that would be boring.

Look at all the streams you want to move through, assess how much bandwidth you have available, and then simply move through the streams at the appropriate clip. Some streams will be unpleasant (chores, etc.), some will be basically mandatory (making money, etc.), some will be quite fun (learning, exploring, relaxing, etc.), and some of the most important streams are the meta streams (improving your capacity, finding better ways to fulfill your needs, etc.). But in all cases, simply see the streams and then move along them.

  • Reminds me of the point from Meditations for Mortals, which roughly went like:
    • Treat your read-pile as a river, not a bucket. It’s not a backlog to empty, it’s a stream where you pick a few choice items and let the rest go by without guilt.

(Featured in Ben Kuhn's favorite essays of life advice .)