Olivia: Alright Jackson, I’m going to say the title of a bestselling book, and I want your gut reaction. Ready? How to Do Nothing. Jackson: My gut reaction is that my landlord would like a word with the author. Is it a very, very short book? Like, one page that just says "Don't"? Olivia: It’s funny you say that, because the title is so deliberately provocative. We’re talking about How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. And what’s fascinating is that Odell isn’t some productivity guru or a monk. She’s a visual artist and was a long-time educator at Stanford University. She comes at this from a place of creativity and observation, not life-hacking. Jackson: Okay, an artist writing a book called How to Do Nothing makes a little more sense. But this book wasn't some niche, indie darling, was it? It became a massive New York Times bestseller. I remember even Barack Obama put it on his favorite books list one year. For a book that sounds like a guide to quitting, it got a lot of attention. Olivia: Exactly! And that irony is at the very heart of it. The book argues that in our modern world, choosing to "do nothing" might be the most difficult, and most radical, thing you can possibly do. The key to understanding it all is in a story that has nothing to do with our phones or our jobs. It's about a 500-year-old tree. Jackson: A tree. I'm listening. This feels way more manageable than my inbox.

Olivia: So, in the hills of Oakland, California, there’s an old-growth redwood tree known as "Old Survivor." It’s ancient. It was already a giant when the Gold Rush kicked off in the 19th century, a period when loggers swarmed the area and clear-cut virtually every single massive redwood for timber. For decades, everyone assumed all the ancient trees were gone. Jackson: But this one survived. How? Was it hidden? Olivia: Not at all. It was right there in plain sight. The reason it survived is that it was considered "useless" by the loggers. Its trunk was gnarled and twisted, it forked into multiple spires, and it wasn't tall and straight like the others. It wouldn't produce good, clean lumber. So, they just left it. Its perceived worthlessness was its salvation. Jackson: Wow. So its salvation was its imperfection. It survived because it didn't fit the criteria for what was considered valuable. That’s a beautiful story, but it feels like a tough lesson to apply. In my performance review, "useless" is not a word I'm aiming for. Olivia: Of course. And Odell isn't telling us to get fired. She uses that tree as a powerful metaphor. The loggers, with their narrow, purely economic definition of value, are like the modern "attention economy." This system sees our time and our focus as a resource to be harvested, just like timber. Every spare moment should be optimized, monetized, or turned into "content." Jackson: You mean the five minutes I have waiting for coffee, my brain screams at me to check emails or scroll through some feed. It feels like wasted time otherwise. Olivia: Precisely. That feeling is the logic of the attention economy at work. It wants to clear-cut the "useless" moments from our lives—the moments of quiet reflection, daydreaming, or simply noticing the world around us. Because those moments can't be easily packaged and sold. Odell connects this to an even older story, from the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, about another "Useless Tree." Jackson: There's more than one? Olivia: Oh yes. In the story, a carpenter sees a massive, ancient tree but scoffs at it, saying its wood is worthless. That night, the tree comes to him in a dream and asks, "How do you, a worthless man about to die, know that I am a worthless tree?" The tree explains that its uselessness is precisely what allowed it to live so long. Useful trees get chopped down. Jackson: That tree had some serious attitude. I like it. But it raises a huge question. If we are constantly being valued for our "usefulness"—our productivity, our engagement, our personal brand—how do we resist becoming timber? Do we have to go completely off-grid and become hermits? Olivia: That’s the million-dollar question, and it leads directly to the second major idea in the book. Odell argues that the answer isn't total retreat. It's something much more subtle and, I think, more powerful. It’s a form of strategic refusal. Which brings me to the story of a woman who got a job at the consulting giant Deloitte and proceeded to do… absolutely nothing.

Jackson: Wait, what? At Deloitte? The place with the spreadsheets and the PowerPoints? You can't just "do nothing" there. That's like trying to be a vegetarian at a steakhouse. Olivia: I know, it sounds impossible. But Finnish artist Pilvi Takala did exactly that for a performance piece called "The Trainee." She was hired as a marketing trainee and for a month, she would just sit at her empty desk, staring into space. Or she’d spend an entire day just riding the elevators up and down. Jackson: No way. What did she say when people asked what she was doing? Olivia: That’s the brilliant part. She would respond with perfect corporate jargon. She’d say, "I'm doing thought work," or "I'm working on my thesis." When they found her in the elevator, she explained, "It helps me see things from a different perspective." The other employees grew incredibly anxious and suspicious. They started sending frantic emails about her. Her sheer inactivity was seen as a profound threat to the office's entire system of value. Jackson: That is my worst nightmare and also my hero. I'm both terrified for her and want to applaud. But let's be real, most of us would be escorted out by security in an hour. Isn't this kind of resistance, this "doing nothing," really a luxury for artists or people with a safety net? Olivia: That's a very fair critique, and it's one that’s often leveled at the book. Odell acknowledges that economic precarity is real. She’s not suggesting we all become Pilvi Takala. Instead, she uses that story to illustrate a concept she calls "refusal-in-place." It’s not about dropping out of society, but about finding ways to remain within it while mentally and spiritually "standing apart." Jackson: So it's like being a spy in your own life? You're there, but you're not fully buying into the program? Olivia: That’s a great way to put it. It’s about carving out small pockets of non-participation. It might be choosing to take a walk without your phone, deliberately not turning a hobby into a "side hustle," or refusing to have an immediate opinion on every trending topic. It’s about creating tiny, un-monetizable gaps in a world that wants to fill every second. Jackson: Okay, that feels more achievable. It's not about a grand gesture of quitting, but about small, quiet acts of defiance. You're not leaving the game, you're just refusing to play by all the rules. Olivia: Exactly. And the reason this is so important is because of what you do with the attention you reclaim in those moments. The goal isn't just to be empty; it's to reinvest that attention into something more meaningful. The problem is, our primary digital environments are designed to make that reinvestment almost impossible. Jackson: Oh, you mean the feeling of scrolling through a social media feed, where you see a horrific news story about a war crime, right next to a meme about a cat, which is right next to an ad for socks? Olivia: You've just perfectly described what Odell, borrowing from other theorists, calls "context collapse." And it’s the final piece of the puzzle.

Jackson: "Context collapse." That term is perfect. It’s that feeling of mental and emotional whiplash. Nothing connects to anything else, there's no sense of place or time, and it all just blends into this weird, anxious sludge. It's impossible to think clearly. Olivia: That's the core of the problem. These platforms strip away all context. An event in another country, a friend's birthday, a political argument, and a product ad are all presented as equivalent items in a single, endless stream. It flattens reality. Odell argues this isn't just distracting; it actively destroys the grounds for thought. You can't form a coherent worldview from a chaotic, decontextualized feed. Jackson: So what's the antidote to this digital sludge? If we reclaim our attention, where do we put it? Olivia: We put it back on the ground. Literally. Odell introduces a concept called "bioregionalism." Jackson: Bioregionalism. That sounds… academic. Is it just a fancy word for going outside? Olivia: It's a little more specific than that, but the spirit is the same. It means paying deep, sustained attention to the specific ecological region where you live. It’s about learning the names of the trees on your street, the birds that show up in different seasons, the direction the water flows after it rains. It’s the opposite of context collapse. It’s context restoration. Jackson: So instead of knowing what a random celebrity wore yesterday, you’d know what kind of hawk lives in the park down the street. Olivia: Precisely. Odell talks about her own journey with bird-watching. At first, it was just about identifying species, like collecting nouns. But over time, she started noticing relationships—the "verbs." She saw that certain birds only appeared when certain plants were in bloom. She learned that a woodpecker's pecking actually helps the tree by clearing away fungus. She started to see an intricate, living system instead of just a collection of objects. Jackson: That actually sounds really profound. You're moving from just seeing things to understanding how they connect. You're rebuilding a world that makes sense. But I have to ask, do I need to become a professional bird-watcher to resist the attention economy? Olivia: Not at all. That’s just her example. The principle is what matters. It's about choosing a subject in your physical environment and giving it the kind of patient, sustained attention you might otherwise give to a Netflix series or an endless news cycle. It could be learning about the architecture in your neighborhood, the history of a local park, or even the weeds growing in the cracks of the sidewalk. Jackson: Okay, I can get behind that. It’s about anchoring your attention to something real, something with roots. It’s not about a massive lifestyle change, but a small shift in focus. Olivia: It's a shift from the placeless, timeless void of the internet to the specific, grounded reality of the here and now.

Jackson: So when you put it all together, there's a really clear path here. It's not just a random collection of ideas. Olivia: Exactly. It’s a chain reaction. You start by embracing a moment of "uselessness," like the Old Survivor tree. That gives you the mental space to practice "refusal-in-place," like the artist at Deloitte. That act of refusal allows you to pull your attention back from the digital "context collapse." And finally, you reinvest that reclaimed attention into the real, physical world around you—your bioregion. Jackson: It’s a powerful sequence. The whole idea of "doing nothing" is really a Trojan horse. The book isn't about becoming passive. It's about arming yourself with a new kind of awareness to actively engage with the world on your own terms, not on the terms set by an algorithm. Olivia: That’s the perfect summary. It’s a plan of action for redirecting our focus from a world that profits from our distraction to a world that rewards our attention. Jackson: So, for anyone listening who feels that pull of the endless scroll, what’s the first step? What's the one simple thing someone can do tomorrow that isn't as intimidating as "learn all the birds in your state"? Olivia: I think the simplest starting point is to go for a five-minute walk, and leave your phone at home. Just for five minutes. And the only goal is to notice one thing you have never seen before. It could be a weirdly shaped leaf, a piece of graffiti, the name of a small street you've always ignored. Jackson: I love that. It's small, it's achievable, and it's a direct deposit into your "attention bank." It’s the first step in becoming a "useless tree" in the best possible way. Olivia: And it leaves us with a powerful question to ponder: What might we discover if we gave our immediate, physical surroundings the same level of deep, curious attention we currently give to our screens? Jackson: This is Aibrary, signing off.