The production of rest

Photo credit: Marianne Møllmann 2026

This weekend I was stuck in transit for longer than anticipated. A storm had landed several trees on the tracks my train needed to pass through. Cue hours of delay. A noisy driving rain proved the storm was serious, but to be honest the more prominent drama inside the train was a passenger who every 20 minutes exclaimed something loud and impatient. When I got home, 5 hours late, it felt like I hadn’t slept at all.

Sleep is a difficult topic in our household, as is rest. I am a champion sleeper, while my husband is lucky to get one night’s decent sleep in a week. On the other hand, he is excellent at resting, while I, though knowing better, still can’t quite accept that doing nothing is just as productive as knitting or sewing or working, in that it produces rest.

I have been thinking a lot about productivity lately. Quality versus quantity. The ability to generate non-directive spaciousness and to have that spaciousness be a place where magic emerges and ideas take root. It is clear to me that forward movement without reflection produces only that: movement. It doesn’t guarantee progress or growth, and certainly not if we define those goods as separate from monetary gain: progress as learning, growth as spiritual wealth. Or, as a colleague once said, just because someone reaches a conclusion faster than others, it doesn’t mean that conclusion is helpful or real.

This is an essential reflection when it comes to rest. I know that rest is necessary for brain and body to recover and create. I even know that “productivity” isn’t a net good in all circumstances. But I am a child of my environment which in this case means hardcore Lutheran work ethic. It has taken decades to get to a point where I recognise wheel-spinning as useless kinetic energy, and where I don’t (always) chide myself for sitting still.

And yet. When I am exhausted or sleep-deprived or jet lagged, my brain reverts to the factory setting: must move, must produce, must prove my worth to this collective that is humanity and Earth.

I believe there is truth to every part of this unpleasant tug-of-war. This time in history is not a time to stop working. And also: rest is essential for that work to serve us well. As adrienne maree brown writes in her brilliant manifesto, We Will Not Cancel Us: we all have work to do [and] our work is in the light.

I believe this light emerges from the spaciousness between activities, from sitting still long enough to arrive to the self; from random conversations about what matters; from stopping, lifting our gazes to the horizon; and from knowing with our bodies that this Earth is beautiful, so very beautiful, if only we don’t let the unreflected drive for productivity erase all that we could be.