Fuck Self-Care*: A Temporal Pedagogy for Rest

“Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come.” 

–Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

I’ve never felt time in my body more than in the last few months. I’m on sabbatical, or “research leave,” as my out-of-office email will tell you, just to remind you that yes—I’m still beholden to the research gods and haven’t disappeared while on someone’s dime. 

This isn’t about sabbaticals, but it starts there. The root of “sabbatical” is rest. And rest takes time.

After nearly two decades, all told, of living inside the academic calendar, I have for the first time the extraordinary privilege of having autonomy over my daily schedule. When to wake up, when to move, when to eat, when to sleep, when to work, when to rest and meander and do nothing at all of value by the standards of American Capitalism and the neoliberal system of Higher Ed. When to go sit outside with a cup of tea and listen to the birds. When to let my thoughts wander, or to think about nothing at all. When to listen to my body. When to share my time with others, and when to keep it to myself. 

Everyone deserves a sabbatical. Everyone. In every field, every industry. As I mentioned in the Twitter thread that inspired this bit of writing, rest is an issue of equity. Everyone deserves rest. It’s a gross injustice that the systems in which we work have not made time for rest. The exhaustion and burnout we experience are not our fault—the system is designed that way. It’s designed for the survival and promotion of those who are able (and willing) to work the most for the institution. Doubling down, they make shameless attempts to convince us it’s our problem. They offer self-care workshops and toxic positivity and refer to themselves as a “family.” Like putting an Instagram filter or the heart-eyes emoji on the face of capitalism.

My sabbatical was ten years in the making—two years later than usual. I accept full responsibility for its postponement, although I don’t recommend it. The first year’s delay was for me to redirect and reorganize my research agenda so I wouldn’t waste a perfectly good semester-long leave flailing. The second was pandemic-related. I felt obligated to stay. I’d have felt too guilty if I’d left my department then—the students and my colleagues—right in the middle of it. That was a mistake.

When guilt compels my choices, I almost always regret it. I am learning not to martyr myself.

When the overarching temporal structures of the day-to-day disappear, it’s hard not to feel unmoored. And, because academic training teaches us to push at all costs, that’s what I did. In January, I cranked out a proposal and a sample chapter for a new book project. Went down the rabbit hole into 10- or 12-hour-a-day writing marathons with a pencil in my unwashed hair, glasses on my nose, and paper (literally cut-and-pasted bits) all over the floor.

Someone dear to me sent me the following texts, with extraordinary kindness amid their growing concern:

“Did you mad scientist today? How’d it go? Get to catch that writing wave like yesterday?”
“I know that feeling of all-consuming work. I don’t think it’s necessarily bad, so long as it relents long enough to come up for air and rest. Make sure not to forget about you :)”
“When will you get a chance to slow down today? Winding down now?”

By early February, I’d stalled out. Predictably. But the guilt and that ingrained capitalist production drive remained—the insidious voice in my head that shamed me for not making a specific kind of progress. It took a conversation with a senior colleague for it to finally go silent. She shared with me that despite all she’d learned about rest and work when she was on her sabbaticals, she’d never been able to make it stick when she came back the following semester. She’d fallen right back into the same patterns of overwork, burnout, and disillusionment. She seemed deeply troubled by it, too; seemed to be saying that it was impossible to find time for rest and self while one is working in this system, and that it had gotten worse over time. I believe her, and this terrifies me. So I just… stopped working for a while in the name of sabbatical. Told myself it was necessary to rest. I felt, and continue to feel, justified in it. 

I felt it in my body first—the stillness that was left when the toxic internal monologue went silent. I felt physically heavy. Cried some. And then ease. Excitement. Almost childlike in how it bubbled up. I had questions. I wanted to go play, to see things I don’t usually have time to see, to do what I hadn’t had or made time to do. To say yes without hesitation to life beyond work. To be a better person in my relationships. To prioritize my health.

I didn’t miss that sense of curiosity—that sparkle of wonder and joy—until it reappeared suddenly. And I didn’t realize it was missing until someone generously told me they were “seeing a whole new side” of me, which in that moment made me both grateful and profoundly sad. I lamented the time I lost when that side of me was in hiding. The relationships that changed when it disappeared. The fact that what I get to experience now is a rare privilege that few will have access to. I imagined, for a moment, what kind of place the world could be if we all had time for rest. The simple humanity of it. 

*

I’m finding myself confounded at the reality that most courses in higher education prioritize the production of documented knowledge while neglecting to allow time for the development of curiosity and wonder. The system asks us to pack our courses with content to “cover” and assignments to generate. Even when we find ourselves not having to cover content, we stuff our courses anyway: “There’s just too much good material—I can’t choose!” We conveniently forget about the years we’ve had to sit in solitude and in dialogue with our subject matter and those in the field, to find our own curiosity about it, to really grasp it, to learn how to ask questions about it. Only then do we as individuals have any idea what we might actually have to say about it. And we expect students to input, process, and output all of this information in a 15-week semester. With creativity and ingenuity. On time.

Whose time?

I’ve asked my most creative questions at my most well-rested moments: when I was unencumbered enough to let myself wander into something new, I could be open to and curious about what was on offer. To this end, I’m committing to unstuffing my courses—to make time for the rest that enables curiosity. To flout the suggestion that self-care is an antidote to capitalism. To make pedagogic choices that allow students to marinate, to listen to their bodies, and to develop their curiosities organically.

Maybe curiosity is the course outcome. Maybe all a course need do is help students learn how to ask a good question.

I keep wondering about how to build a “sleep cycle” into my courses: where 2/3 of it is active, and 1/3 is for some kind of rest. Without sleep, being awake is fruitless (and dangerous), so I keep wondering about how to provide time for rest—more time than I initially think is necessary, perhaps—for percolating, marinating, processing. Students’ perspectives will be key here, otherwise it’ll just be me telling them to work on my time, which is decidedly not the point. 

I’m imagining (doing some idealistic spitballing here, for sure) a course based on a few core readings, with slow-moving discussions based on those readings, a student-determined embodied element, and an open-ended writing process with parameters as needed/desired. An ungraded course model. An organic schedule that can be as structured or loose as students need it to be. A course designed around the time needed to curate our curiosities, to work together and individually with/around/through/inside ideas that arise, documenting them as meaning warrants, and acknowledging our embodied rhythms in the process. 

Sounds like a sabbatical? You don’t say. 

*The Self-Care movement has its origins in the medical field, as well as the Civil Rights and Women’s Liberation movements. My inflammatory title pertains to the term “Self-Care” as it’s been co-opted by institutions in recent years; to shift the onus for wellness onto employees, rather than institutions taking responsibility for addressing unsustainable, inequitable working conditions. For more on the history of this complicated term, see: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2017/04/the_history_of_self_care.html. 

Photo by Marcus Wallis on Unsplash